DISQUS

Him · 1 year ago

Which lens did you get?

Flexo · 1 year ago

Him: It's a Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM SLR lens. My next purchase might be the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM lens, but I'm not quite sure if I can justify that expense yet.

Llama Money · 1 year ago

That's a $3k per month drop because Google got their panties in a bunch - YIKES!. Takes a strong hand to give that up, with the hope for long term growth.

I sure hope that it works out for you, as it's a really tough pill to swallow. That's $36k per year.

MillionDollarJourney · 1 year ago

MDJ dropped their do follow text links a while back also. Although the income is currently less, I think it will work out for the better in the long term.

Tom · 1 year ago

Curiosity about successfully monetizing blogs leads me to an observation. I notice that your cashflow statement accounts for business income, but not for an expense like employees. Do Sasha and Smithee get a cut of the ad revenue from Google? If so, how is that reflected in your financials?

Flexo · 1 year ago

Tom: They do (plus some). I think the amounts are mapped to a Misc Business expense but I'm usually on a one or two month delay in reporting it. When I re-map all my business expense categories this month, it will make more sense in my copy of Quicken, but on the reports published online all business expenses will roll up to one line.

Matty · 1 year ago

For some reason, I'm behind every April, and I don't know if it's from tax time or getting out of the holiday danger zone and thinking I'm in the clear.

Brian · 1 year ago

This is obvious, but you probably want to run it by Sasha and Smithee before you explicitly list each month how much money they're getting :).

I'm impressed as always, Flexo. Keep up the good work.

Jim · 1 year ago

I'm hoping that your numbers in the 'charity' column are a mistake. As much as you should think about saving, saving, saving, you need to also think about giving, giving, giving. There is a lot of need in this world for those who haven't been dealt a great hand in life.

My advise, pick some worthwhile charities and try to plan to give 10% of your GROSS income to them. A wise man once told me, if you continually give, you will continually have.

It seems to always have worked out that way for me.

Think of others! That is my consumerism commentary!

Flexo · 1 year ago

Jim: I give my time and money to organizations whose missions are important to me. My schedule for doing so may not provide me the opportunity to have a YTD amount to show for it until later in the year. Check the archives to read about my charitable giving. Thanks for the advice.

Jim · 1 year ago

I would highly recommend monthly charitable giving vs. a Dec. 31st tax-deduction mentality towards charity. It's kind of like a pay-yourself-first concept, except it's for those who really need it.

There are countless charities now that not only accept recurring monthly donations, but actually prefer it as it provides them a much more consistent cash-flow throughout the year.

A great tool I would recommend is networkforgood.org. It allows you to donate to thousands of different charities at the click of a button but also allows you to keep track of all your donations for tax time. In addition to your treasures, there are tons of listings for volunteering your time

Flexo · 1 year ago

Thanks for the recommendation. I appreciate your good intentions.

Networkforgood.org looks like it's a great resource, but they don't immediately list the portion of each donation that goes to their own organization. I'd rather deal directly with charitable organizations than introduce yet another middle-man organization into my giving. The convenience may be good for some, and it's important to make giving as convenient as possible, but I would prefer that as much as my funds go towards charitable missions as possible rather than towards administrative fees and middle-men.

Jim · 1 year ago

networkforgood.org is a non-profit itself. They exists to help facilitate charitable giving. They charge 4.75% to cover the transaction costs. They are very upfront about the fees they charge to cover the cost of getting your money to your charity. Donating directly to a charity still comes with costs. Staff/processing costs the charity needs to pay to do the same thing.

At least with the networkforgood.org, you know what those costs are up front. You can even choose to donate additional funds (tax-deductible btw) to cover processing costs. The nice thing about networkforgood.org is that you get to pass on only the information you want to the charity of your choice. You can donate anonymously, only by name/email, or the full out disclosure. This limits the junk mail if you're afraid of getting bombarded with more mail from your charity than the amount you donated.

Here's some good info on them from charity navigator:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=c...

As for giving throughout the year, need has no timetable. There are always people who are hungry, sick, need assistance. Not just on Dec. 31st.

Brian · 1 year ago

Jim -

I think if you'd go back and read about the business income, you'd see that there is some variance that could wreak havoc on calculating charitable contributions on a recurring basis.

There was a $3000 swing in business income this month alone. If all income above was from a consistent salary, I'm sure it would be much easier to do what you propose - in fact it would be of greater benefit, because it would be easier to calculate the effect on taxes, etc. I'm sure it is not the easiest to look back at such a variance all year long, and determine charitable giving in one lump sum.

Also, giving is not all about dollars on a balance sheet. I've worked with a lot of non-profits who will tell you they get twice the value from time and talent as they do financial contributions.

For example:

Financially, I could choose to give $100/month to a specific non-profit. An expense I could budget, commit to, and not think about anymore.

However, I know this specific non-profit is in need of the same services I perform as a function of my regular job, and if they hire the services out as they used to do, they pay a rate of $50 per hour (discounted for their non-profit status).

So, which is the better investment? I can usually give this specific non-profit 8 hours per month of my time at no charge. At $50/hour, I am effectively contributing $400 per month by keeping that expense off the bottom line. They would much prefer my time than my money.

It won't always work out this way of course, but by giving time in one area, I can give financially to another area where I can't give time or offer a needed service. It is extending my reach of giving by doing both.

All that said, it's very hard to get a solid idea of "giving" by looking at an income statement. We need MORE people giving - money AND time - and the effective way to do that is NOT by telling those who are giving that they are not giving enough or their giving is ill-timed.

Flexo · 1 year ago

Brian: I couldn't have said it better myself. I'd also add that the 4.75% fee charged (deducted from your contribution) by an intermediary means 4.75% less for the charitable organization. 4.75% may be a "low" administrative fee, but it's unnecessary when it *could very easily* and just as effectively be 0%.

Organizations like the one Jim mentioned do great things by getting more people in touch with more charities. But if you want your money to do the most good, direct contributions will always win.

Jim · 1 year ago

There are costs for the charity to process your donation regardless of whether you go directly to them or not. The money doesn't just magically end up in their checking account.

If you go to the charity's online site and donate, then the charity pays the fee to process your credit card. If you mail the charity a check, then the charity pays someone to open your envelope, log it in to some database, probably put you on a mailing list (more postage costs later), cash your check, etc.

Either way, you are never going to get to a direct charitable contribution that costs the charity 0% to process. Whether the charity can do it for more or less than networkforgood.org is probably a case-by-case basis.

I couldn't agree more with Brian's comments. There is definitely a balance between sharing your treasures and sharing your time and/or talents.

Brian · 1 year ago

I agree with Flexo, direct donations have an effective fee of 0%. The non-profit staff to "process" a donation still must be in place for other donations as well as those that would come from Network For Good. The donation must be logged, tracked, accounted for, even if it's from an anonymous donor through NFG. Thus, you will continue to have current overhead, plus the 4.75% to NFG.

In December 2007, the NFG fees went from 3% to 4.75%. That's a pretty substantial increase. I read they merged with Groundspring (a similar service) but I don't know much more about what would warrant such a steep increase to fees. To do more advanced things, like have a custom payment page, or accept recurring monthly contributions, NPO's must pay additional fees and charges.

I will add - NFG opens up many new avenues for donation. On the surface, it would seem to be an excellent addition to an already established direct fundraising effort, or a quick expansion for nationwide exposure (though you must pay registration to solicit donations in most states, and the web would reach every state). NFG is doing a lot of good. For an NPO without the in-house staff to setup a processing gateway on the web and all it entails, NFG seems to be a good alternative with a lot of good reviews in a quick search.

Jim · 1 year ago

The majority of the fees are for processing the credit card transaction. It isn't for NFG's profit (Network for Good is a non-profit -- did I mention that)? The flat fee for an online check ($10) is different than the credit cards. You also have employees that need a paycheck, health care benefits, a desk and pencil sharpener, etc.

The direct-donated dollars to a charity or to Network for Good is going to be socked with a discount rate, a transaction fee, interchange fees, etc. that can easily add up to a couple hundred basis points. The more dollars you pump through this system, the more negotiating power you have with banks, merchant account/gateway providers. But don't get me wrong. Even Walmart can't get the rates they want and you don't get much bigger than that. The banks are the ones raking in the dough when it comes to credit card transactions. Of course, they're also taking the risk of you not paying your bill too!

Bottom line I guess is not to be bogged down with the details. The bank will get their cash one way or the other. The bottom line is to give until it hurts. If you don't feel the pain a little, then you're probably not doing it hard enough. If you took your $5K and gave it to a charity of your choice maybe it would cost them $0 (pipe dream) or $250 to process it, but then they'd have some cash to do their thing. Looks like you've already lost twice that much just on swings in the market waiting to give it to someone.