I don’t give a lot for my income level and lack of children, partly due to money anxiety (like OP), but also because with compounding I should have a lot more to give late in life than now if I hold off on larger donations. Said another way, I could give $100 today, or wait thirty years and invest and give ten times as much. I hope to leave a lot to charities when I pass away, which minimizes my money anxiety. In the meantime I donate small amounts to friends and family fundraisers, help out people close to me who need it, and learn what charities will be able to do the most with my future gift. Remember, OP doesn’t have kids either so I’d guess she plans to leave some of her estate to charity and that takes away from the urgency of small donations now.

there are steps between fully independent living and having a full time caregiver. in the last few years of her life, my grandmother remained in her own home, and did many things independently, but my mother and aunt often brought her dinner, helped her with things like yard work and taking out the trash, and taking her to medical appointments. all of those things would have cost money to hire someone to handle.

One of the arguments the uber-wealthy and their lobbyists used back when income taxes were much higher than they are now is that these folks would direct their newfound tax breaks back into philanthropy. Anyone who wasn’t born yesterday or willfully ignorant knew that wouldn’t be how it would turn out, but it is still a commonly trotted out argument for tax cuts and trickle-down economics in general. It was BS then and it was BS now. If you won’t pay your fair share in philanthropy, then you should be taxed at a much higher rate.

1,000,000 to this

I really don’t understand how anyone feels entitled to tell someone else how to spend the money that they earn, and I view donating to charity as a form of spending. I suspect most people give some money at some point to someone or someplace, including the OP, but I don’t think anyone is obligated to on any moral grounds. I always wonder whether those same individuals claiming the moral high ground would take it a step further and advise someone who *could* earn more, that they are obligated to do so in order to redistribute their wealth to others who are, for whatever reason, not in a position to help themselves in that way. Ostensibly that’s what taxes are, at least in part, meant to achieve, but paying taxes doesn’t have quite the same feel-good, morally superior shine to it that donating to charity does. I understand that there is significant income inequality and most people are bound to feel we should take steps to address it, but I’ve never felt the solution is telling people who seem to have more than their “fair share” at a certain point in their lives, that they must give away an undetermined amount to an undisclosed recipient in order to be “good.” I find that level of entitlement to weigh in on other’s choices as appalling as anything else.

I fully agree. I saw my grandmother go through millions during the decade that she had severe dementia but was physically healthy. Memory care is incredibly expensive, and pretty much impossible to insure against. But you don’t eliminate charity and spend $25k/year on travel. If your travel budget is that big, you can be throwing a couple grand at charities. And I say that as someone who spends the majority of my discretionary income on travel.