So be good, for goodness sake...

There's a limit -- I discovered after 6 straight hours on the couch in my parents' house where I was visiting last Sunday -- to just how lazy one man can be.

Desperate for something that could credibly pass as "productive," I decided to do a little Christmas shopping at the mall near my childhood home, so I headed out the door on foot. About halfway there, a rather portly, older man shoveling his drive caught my attention.

"Hey," he wheezed in my general direction. "Want to make a little money?"

Shoveling driveways for $10 apiece through the neighbourhood was a business I thought I'd left behind when I was about 16, but I could see the guy was struggling, so I picked up a shovel. I told him he didn't need to pay me anything, that I was happy to help him do it for free, but he protested: "If you're not going to let me pay you, you can go on your way right now because I'm having none of that," he said, reaching for the shovel. I'd welcome anything he felt was appropriate, I told him with a shrug, and set to work on the unplowed lower half.

We worked in tandem -- I did the heavy lifting, so to speak, leaving him to clean up whatever I missed along the edges, once he'd gotten his breath back. We made small talk to pass the time; he moved onto the street a few years after my parents did. (The fact that we'd never crossed paths before made me feel somehow awkward, I don't know why.) Turns out, he has a son about my age I used to play road hockey with very occasionally.

One sweaty half-hour later, I was finished. He held out a tentative twenty-dollar bill, which I sheepishly grabbed once I saw the look of concern on his face. I thanked him for his company, and continued on my way.

It wasn't until I rounded the corner that a sudden pang of guilt hit me. Shouldn't I have been a little more insistent about not being paid? I'm sure he would have appreciated the good turn. Leafing through my wallet, I found the guilty $20, and wondered how to rectify the situation. My head was halfway through a plan to put the bill in his mailbox with an anonymous Merry Christmas note attached when I spied a better alternative. Rolling the bill up, I slipped it into the Salvation Army box to the right of the mall's entrance doors. The woman watching it smiled and thanked me for my donation. It made me feel warm inside -- which was great, considering the chilly job I'd just finished.

All in all, it was just the kind of return on investment I was looking for.

Back to school

Mr. Cheap tagged me in Wooly Woman's meme about what courses I'd love to take if they were offered.

I'm always game for a good memeing, so here goes. But first, a few caveats. In his selections, Mr. Cheap listed three courses he'd like to teach, as opposed to take as a student. Good on him, I say, so I'd likewise elect to be the teacher of one of my selections. Secondly, one of these courses actually exists, so it's not like I'm dealing in theoreticals here.

Choice No. 1: Introduction to personal finance for high school students.
The fact that my generation, as a collective, knows and cares diddly squat for things like investing and financial planning is a constant bee in my bonnet. As such, I'd like to get it into the heads of the next generation that this sort of thing doesn't have to be boring. Money isn't important or interesting in and of itself, but having enough of it opens doors for you to do things that do matter to you. That's sort of -- as the kids say -- "how I roll."

The way I'd imagine this playing out is maybe 1 hour a week at my old high school, doing Q&A with students about the basics of finance -- everything from interest rates to what exactly a "stock" is. There will be no stupid questions. The earlier someone learns about RRSPs and why credit cards are not your best friend, the better. Maybe other high schools teach this stuff, but I know mine didn't. That needs to change.

I suppose in the end, my desire to start this class is just a part of a larger charitable plan I have to set up a scholarship for high school students that demonstrate a desire to be more engaged in planning their finances -- and not just because they're greedy bastards...:) But that plan involves setting up a trust filled with dividend stocks, where the dividend cheques would act as the payout to help cover university tuition every year, and let's face it, I'm a long way off from that. Teaching a class would be a step toward that ultimate goal.

Choice No. 2: The Canadian Securities Course
This is the one I came very close to actually taking one year, but I changed my mind when my then-employer balked at the idea of helping me to pay for it. I'd still love to take this grueling financial course one day, both for my own personal benefit, but also because it would make me a much better journalist, I think. We'll see.

Choice No. 3: How to sell yourself
I'm in a creative field, and I'm something of a walking cliche in that I have a natural distaste for the concept of having to "sell" my skills to either employers or media consumers. But the older I get, the more I realize I have to. No one is going to come along and give me a book deal, a raise, or a column one day unless I'm out there convincing them every day why I'm worth it, and why my skills are worth their time and investment. That needs to change. I go to "networking" events frequently and usually find them horribly insincere. But I'm starting to learn that the best person to look out for my interests is myself. If I'm not out there banging my own drum, I know nobody else will. I don't want to turn into some reprehensible egomaniac overnight or anything, but being a little proactive in the marketing miliey would do me a world of good.

I won't tag anyone directly, but if you're reading this and you have a pfblog, consider yourself tagged.

A charitable solution

What with tracking the minutiae of my financial life around here, it's easier to get superfocused on the monitoring and accumulation of assets than it is to think about how I want to dispense them.

I've been thinking a lot about charity of late and I've decided that I'd like to start getting more seriously involved in donating some of my money, and hopefully some of my time, to charitable causes. I suppose being relatively young, I have a built in excuse for not giving much back -- it's hard enough to get a start in life without giving away a chunk of your meagre salary. Thus far, my only significant charitable contribution was the $10 a month I donated to Amnesty International for several years when a pledge-girl won me over on the street (what can I say? Hiring cute girls with nice smiles to fundraise anywhere near me is a surprisingly effective strategy…)

But I've decided that just doesn't cut it anymore. Sure, I'm still saving for a house, but as my cash pile grows, I want to start spreading it out to people and causes I believe in.

The question is, how much? An arbitrary number I've come up with in my head as a start point is $1000. I must admit it's a daunting number to look at (it's about 3% of my after-tax income) but I think it's the minimum threshold for making a tangible amount of difference to the world around me. I toyed with the idea of donating that in one fell swoop to one organization, but the more I think about it, not only would that be harder for me to swallow from a financial perspective, but I think I'd feel better about spreading it around to more places and people I believe in in smaller packages.

To that end, I made my first $100 contribution yesterday. I pledged a colleague who's doing a charity run to raise money for prostate cancer. He seemed very grateful for the pledge, as it brings him closer to his goal. I have a few ideas for more causes to support but I'm open to hearing suggestions. (Long term, I'd love to set up or help fund some sort of scholarship for high school students, but that's going to require a bit more capital and time to get off the ground I think.) In the meantime, If you know of any worthy causes that have a relatively painless way for me to send them some money, feel free to make your pitch in the comments section.