Ep. 31 Should You Give If You’re Broke? (Generosity vs Survival)

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Should you donate, tithe, or give to charity if you're struggling financially?

What if you're living paycheck to paycheck, but still feel pressure to give? What if your faith, culture, or values tell you to give… but your bank account says otherwise?

In this episode of Net Wealth Nest, we tackle one of the most emotionally charged financial questions:
Should generosity come before financial stability?

We break down:
- The difference between generosity and self-sabotage
- Cultural and religious expectations around tithing
- The “oxygen mask principle” applied to money
- Why stability allows you to give more long-term
- How to give without hurting your future
- What generosity can look like when money is tight
- How to build giving into your budget sustainably

This isn’t about being selfish.
It’s about building a foundation strong enough to support both your future and the causes you care about.

Generosity should flow from abundance — not guilt.
If you’ve ever felt torn between giving and surviving, this episode is for you.
Subscribe, share with someone who needs to hear it, and let’s keep building your Net Wealth Nest.

#moneymindset #netwealthnest #personalfinance #compoundinggains #financialeducation #paychecktopaycheck #debtfreejourney #financialfreedom #generosity

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Transcript

Jim 0:00

Generosity should not be an obligation. It should flow from abundance. That's the key, is giving back when you're doing great, how are you giving back? Should you donate, tithe, or should you focus on yourself first? Today we're gonna talk about generosity versus survival, and when faith values and finances collide. Thanks for joining Net Wealth Nest. So many of the people that I work with or talk to about how to build their lifestyle and get out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle, more often than not, they make a comment about how they need to figure out a way to contribute to charity in some way, shape or form. And there could be something local in their community, it could be a nonprofit they feel, influenced by, it could be a political contribution, it could be to their faith. There's a lot of different options, but many, many people want to be able to give back and specifically give back money to something that they feel is important to them. It does Carry a little bit of emotional weight, especially for those individuals that are living paycheck to paycheck and are struggling to make ends meat or struggling to stay ahead of their bills. this touches a lot of different areas in their lives, but what I want you to understand as we go through some of the topics on here today is there is no one size fits all, and it depends on your situation, on where and how you should start and what you could do. So why, when we talk about struggling with money and giving or charitable giving, why does this feel so heavy to most people? And there's a couple of different reasons. One of the biggest ones is cultural and religious expectations. If you, are of faith-based, like I am, one of the things that's talked about in religion a lot is tithing or giving about 10% of your income to the religion or faith that you believe in. Sometimes that could also be cultural, where part of the expectation in some cultures across the world is that you are giving that money. to your, family members that might not be so privileged. So there's kind of two different, factors in that. and when you're struggling yourself or you're trying to get things figured out, that can drive a lot of guilt. And I've actually seen it handicap some people where they are giving more than they probably should, at least at the moment that they're in. And they're really kind of taking themselves out at the knees where they're sometimes not even able to afford all their bills or keep their head above water without going into debt, and that's not helping anybody. There is a pressure to be generous, whether you're struggling or not. and many people feel that, especially when you get into certain times of the year, like you think at the end of the year where the holidays and Christmas or, other religious holidays come up Hanukkah and Kwanza and all these things. A lot of people talk about giving gifts and giving money. Giving to the church and giving to the needy and all those things. And while that's really important, and I would recommend you find a way to do that, no matter what your financial situation is, it doesn't always mean the same thing for everybody. There's also this fear of being selfish, especially as you start to dig yourself out of the hole that you might be in, is I'm starting to be successful. I'm starting to maybe make some, moves and put some, margin or put a gap between how much my expenses are and how much my income is, and I'm increasing that gap to put me in the right situation. And a lot of people. feel immediately that they have to use that gap to fund other things, from a charitable standpoint. And that's not always necessarily the case. Again, it's about building a foundation. And so that leads me into that stability. Of having that gap, having that margin truly is your foundation for your future. First and foremost. If you don't have it, you can't give what you don't have. And if you have to give, and that is going to mean that you are putting yourself in debt by either, putting bills on a credit card or things that you need to survive on a credit card or some people are taking money, you can withdraw cash, from some credit cards and giving that is charity that's just a bad place. You do not wanna be doing that. those interest rates are just outrageous and you're not setting up future you to be in a great space where you have flexibility and some financial stability in your life. when people are doing that I really like to explain the oxygen mask principle to people. And so what that is is. Every time you go on an airplane, if you've been on an airplane, you know the drill, you get on the airplane, you sit down right before you take off the stewardess will come on the overhead, paging system, and they will explain all the safety rules and as they go through the safety rules, they talk about the oxygen mask, if cabin pressure drops, whatever, right? But the important part of that that they cover is you always put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help anybody else around you, even if those individuals are children. Elderly people, doesn't matter your spouse, it doesn't matter who the person is sitting next to you, you always put on your oxygen mask first. The reason they do that is if the cabin would lose pressure, there is possibility, depending on how high in the air you are, you could pass out from the lack of oxygen. Which is why you need an oxygen mask, right? And so what they're telling you is we want you to make sure that you are not going to pass out. You have oxygen coming into you, and then you can go help other people because if you pass out trying to help somebody else out. You will both pass out and that's not helping anybody at that point. So if you can at least put your oxygen mask on, then you can start thinking about who are the other individuals around you that you can help. And I like to use that as the same way you look at your money as you're building your financial foundation. you need to help yourself get to a place where you are starting to create space between your expenses and your income so that you can put money away for an emergency savings and eventually you can invest that money for your future self so that you can live, off of those investments as you get older. And so giving all that margin or gap away does not allow you. to build any of those things. And so I've seen people where they create a gap and instead of putting that money into emergency savings, right, they start giving it away to their friends or family that are in need, or they give it to a cause that they really like. And while that's great and that's super charitable. I've also seen where that same individual just a couple of months down the road of doing that comes up on an emergency expense where they had an expense they didn't expect, and all of a sudden they have no way to pay for that without getting back into credit card debt. All that hard work that they had done for so long to claw themselves out of that debt and get rid of that debt. has now been erased because they went a little bit too fast and a little bit too hard on the charitable part. And so there's kind of a difference between that generosity and a self-sabotage. And while you want to be generous, you also don't wanna sabotage your future self by not having all your ducks in a row and building that foundation and doing those steps to make sure that when situations arise that you might not expect that you're able to handle those without setting yourself back or getting back into debt. The other thing that most people don't think about when they're thinking about how they're giving away money without building their foundation is stability will help you give more over a longer period of time versus. giving too much right away and not building stability. And again, just to go back to the example I used of somebody who had created some space in their budget to start saving and was giving that money to a great charitable cause. But when that emergency expense came up, they had to pay for the expense. Back on a credit card and now they had to stop giving so they could start over and start paying off that credit card again. They just cycled it over versus somebody who takes a little bit longer, maybe gives much less, or gives in a different way while they build stability. And then after that stability is built, they start funding their charitable giving. Over and over and over again, and they're able to do that because not only are they stable, but they've likely at that point built it into their actual budget and they're able to continue to do that, either paycheck in, paycheck out, month, month out, whatever it might be. They're able to continue to do that over and over and over again because they've done everything to make a sustainable. Stable financial picture in their lives where they're not living paycheck to paycheck anymore and they're able to do more things and they're able to help actually even more people because it's consistent giving that they're able to do over and over again. And so what I would challenge you to do is this is if you're not giving it all, I would challenge you to find a way to give back in some way, shape, or form that means something to you. And that does not necessarily have to mean it is money, especially if it's something you can't afford right now. That could be a lot of different things that help with whoever you wanna help or whoever you want to give to move forward in their journey, their progress, their lives, And so there's a couple different ways you could do that. you could think about time and skill. Giving your time and giving your skills to somebody who may need them for free is a great way. If you are struggling in living paycheck to paycheck to still give back, yet not hurt yourself, and allow yourself to still continue to work on building your financial stability. some people will try to immediately tithe. And tithe typically means that you're giving 10% of your income away. But if you can't afford to do that or you haven't built your emergency fund and you're not at your savings and investing rate, you don't need to go from zero to a hundred. Once you start to build the gap, maybe it's you start with one or 2% to build that into your budget and work your way up to that tithe if that is what's important to you. Again, it's just the same course that we talk about when we're talking about building savings out or building investings out. You don't have to start with the big percentage right away. You can work your way percent by percent into that so that you can build in your budget, you can feel comfortable with how much you're spending and where it's going. The key is just understanding that while a lot of giving and a lot of charity is financial, it doesn't always have to be, and it doesn't always have to be a specific amount or set amount. You wanna work your way into it. And so a healthy way to look at this, if you are stuck right now and you are trying to work out of some financial issues that you are in, is how do you prioritize this? this is how I would look at it. There's essentials, things you need to survive and live and pay your bills on time, right? You need to take care of all those home bases first. Then there's stability. Do you have an emergency fund? Is it working towards the three or six months that you need to make sure that you have? Plenty of stability in your life. Then there's growth. Are you working and investing for your future self? Because your future self might not be able to make as much money as your younger self does, and you're going to need some of that money to grow and give it time so that you can use that later in life. And then the last piece is then generosity. And how do you build that into your budget? Start small and intentional. Find causes that you're really happy with. Or maybe it's a faith-based cause. Maybe it's, friends and family, whatever it is, there are plenty of opportunities to be generous, but find something that really brings you joy when you give it, align it with your values, not guilt, right? What drives you? What are you passionate about? What brings you joy when you do give away? Again, if you don't have the monetary funds to do it immediately, can you do something with your time? Can you do something with your skills as you bring that gap larger and larger between your expenses and your income and you're taking care of your stability and your savings and you're taking care of your investing, like, continue to review what your generosity or what your charity goals are. Are you working on that to give a little bit more maybe each year as you get a raise or every six months as you review your budget it's okay to walk it up a step at a time and still hit your charity goals. Generosity should not be an obligation. It should flow from abundance. That's the key, is giving back when you're doing great, how are you giving back? And so what I encourage you is what does generosity look like in your season of life and your specific picture. It's not the same for everybody, But the key is to find a way to do it that fits into your situation. It doesn't break the future for you and allows you to create stability in your life going forward so that you can do more down the road. Thanks for joining today. My name's Jim. Have a great day everybody. Bye.