Sharing the wealth

Over the last few days, I'd been hammering the Online Donation Portal (ODP). I had been procrastinating over doing so, but finally decided to get my act together and do the deed.

It wasn't easy working with the ODP. Pop-up windows, restrictions on using the browser's back/forward/reload buttons, lots of clicks, etc. But in the end, I got used to it and was able to do what I wanted quickly and (relatively) easily.

When all was done, I had given to the following types of charities:


And the proportionate amounts given were:


(All labels are mine.)

Obviously, I'm not providing the actual numbers, though I suppose one could work it out backwards from the size of the charts' segments. For the most part, I kept it as equal as possible between the charities, thus the similarity in segment sizes between both charts.

I realise, of course, that giving money to charities is like giving presents to children. It lessens the guilt while making me feel like I've done something worthwhile. On the other hand, I've read that charities prefer monetary donations so that they can allocate the funds according to their needs. So maybe giving money away isn't all that bad.

And for me, it felt like a burden had been lifted. I'd procrastinated over this long enough. Next year, perhaps I should do this at regular intervals. At least, the shock on my wallet wouldn't be that large.

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