The importance of giving

Ivy says:

My mom always told me it’s more important to give than receive. I dunno, when I was a kid receiving seemed a lot better than giving, but as I get older, I realize just what an excellent thing giving really is. If you go to church, it’s easy to tithe and trust that your church will distribute the money in good ways. My church gives to a lot of awesome causes and we send missions teams all over the place, and we’re just pretty fabulous, if you ask me.

But what if you don’t go to church or you want to give more than just your tithe? I wanted to share a few sites that have caught my attention lately. Use your time, money, and resources for good, not evil, right? So here’s what I’m digging right now:

Kiva.org This has been on my radar for a long time- I’ve been meaning to blog about it, but haven’t gotten around to it. Kiva’s mission is “to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.” Basically, you give micro-loans to people in need throughout the world to help them start or upgrade their businesses. When you give a loan to a person in need, the money goes to that person. Pretty cool.

Cool People Care With their 5 minutes of caring articles and other excellent ways to help the world, Cool People Care is a haven for us wanna-be world savers. If you have a little time or a lot, Cool People Care can really show you how to make a difference.

Email Our Military Ever since 9/11, the “Any Service Member” and “Operation Dear Abby” letter writing programs have been discontinued. With our service members being stretched farther and thinner than ever, it’s now more important than it ever has been to send some words of encouragement to the people who are serving our country. Email Our Military fills the hole left when the letter writing programs were discontinued.

FreeRice.com Want to help feed hungry people throughout the world, but don’t have much money to give? How’s your vocabulary? FreeRice.com pairs a fun vocabulary quiz with advertising money to donate rice through the UN World Food Program.

What giving sites are capturing your attention? We want to hear about it!

The Cleaning Imbalance

Dear Home Ec 101,

How can I make my husband help around the house?

Signed,

Nags Head, NC

Heather says:

I moved out quite young and lived with an interesting variety of roommates until I married.  Different people have different standards of cleanliness and tolerance.  If you are the Felix of your relationship, odds are you will carry more of the cleaning burden.   You can ask, but you cannot make your spouse or partner do anything.  This goes for those living with roommates, to a point.  As long as finances aren’t an issue, roommates have the somewhat less difficult option of dissolving the situation.

My best tip for achieving help around the house is to ask politely and directly when the other party is not busy.  Use the same courtesy you expect from others. Thank them when the are through and do NOT immediately fix what they have done.

I know many of our readers have been down this road and not every tactic works for every relationship; please share what you have found helpful in your situation.

You do have a choice when it comes to the maintenance of your home: you can wallow in resentment and self-pity or you can choose to maintain your surroundings to your* standards.

*If a spouse is both critical and unwilling to help, please seek professional advice.

Papers, please: How to handle a car wreck

Ivy says:

Last night Mr. Ivy was in a car accident. Don’t worry, dear readers, he wasn’t hurt and our car wasn’t hurt very badly either. He was stopped at a stoplight and a gentleman driving a trailer with big lawnmowers on it turned left right behind him and clipped the back end of Mr. Ivy’s not-so-shiny-anymore-red-convertible. Well, things happen and it wasn’t a big deal. The guy who hit Mr. Ivy was very nice and Mr. Ivy was very nice and the police officer who showed up to take the report was very nice- if you had to get in a car accident, Mr. Ivy said, this was the best possibly way to do so.

However, it was amusing to Mr. Ivy that he and the other gentleman both had to dig through piles and piles of expired paperwork to find the current paperwork. And Mr. Ivy never did find his- I ended up running a copy up to him. It was lucky that he was close enough to home for this to be an option. This is why it’s important to keep your paperwork in your car organized. Insurance companies vary, but I only receive new cards twice a year. This is cool because it’s not time consuming, but a pain because it’s easy to forget about.

In my car I keep an envelope in the glove compartment with the insurance and registration papers, nothing else. All other paperwork like the maintenance records is kept in a separate envelope. This way it’s not hard to find the paperwork I need. When changing out that paperwork, I immediately put the expired paperwork in my purse to bring inside and shred, since it has personal information on it.

Now you’re all set in case you’re in a car accident or are pulled over. If you’re in a car accident, what should you do? Here are some steps: (This advice applies for minor fender benders only. In serious car accidents, call 911 immediately.)

• Check to make sure you and your passengers are okay.
• Move your car to the side of the road, unless you are in a state that requires you to leave the scene of the accident intact until the police can get there, or unless your car isn’t drivable.
• Call the police. Many metro areas have specific numbers to call for fender bender type accidents. If you don’t have the local number, call 1-800-FREE-411 to get the non-emergency number.
• Get the names and phone numbers of all people involved in the accident. Don’t forget to include witnesses if there is some doubt as to who caused the accident.
• If you have a camera with you, take pictures. (Don’t forget, many cell phones now have cameras on them. Mr. Ivy remembered this and took pictures. I totally would have forgotten that, myself.)
• Exchange insurance information with the other driver.
• Don’t admit fault, even if it’s your fault. But be nice, no matter who is at fault.
• Find out from the police what you need to do next. In Tennessee, both Mr. Ivy and the driver of the trailer have to send in paperwork from our insurance companies letting the state know that we both had insurance at the time of the accident. If we don’t get that paperwork sent in within 20 days of the accident, Mr. Ivy or the other driver could have their license suspended. Yikes!

Hopefully this is advice you’ll never have to use- but you’ll be glad to know it if it does happen to you.

Simple Side: Carrot Raisin Salad

Heather says:

This classic pairs well with sandwiches and meals that call Spring and Summer to mind.  In its most basic form, the recipe here, it’s low cost and low effort.  There are many variations on this recipe, feel free to share yours in the comments.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups coarsely shredded carrot
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt

Directions:

Stir together and chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

I don’t know about you, but that write-up just about wore me out.

Ask The Audience: How Do You Handle Invitations You Can’t Afford?

Ivy says:

Here’s something I struggle with that I bet our fabulous readers have ideas about! I get invited to go out a lot with my various local friends. The problem? I can’t really afford to go out as much as I’m invited out. I know I’m lucky to have that many friends that want to invite me places, but it’s tough- I have been declining a whole lot of invitations and I’m afraid they’ll stop asking me to go out places with them.

I used to decline invitations by simply explaining that I didn’t have the money to go out, but to please invite me some other time- eventually, I’ll find the extra in the budget. The problem with this is that often, my friends will offer to pay my way which opens up a whole ‘nother issue- I don’t want to be beholden to my friends and I know they often are about as broke as I am.

So I finally just stopped giving a reason as to why I couldn’t come, but I’m afraid they’ll think it’s them I don’t want to hang out with, when it’s really just that I don’t have the money to go out. I’ve tried to temper a lot of this expensive going out by inviting people to come over to my house instead, but that brings up another issue.

See, I live in a way-out-of-the-way part of town. So not a lot of people want to drive all the way out there- even though I’m driving all the way out there to see them. So not only am I paying out money to go out to eat, but I’m also paying a lot of gas money to get there. Sigh.

So, Home Eccers, what do you do when faced with this problem?

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