My Favorite $38 We Spend Every Month

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Source: Compassion International

I write a lot about how my wife and I try to be mindful with how we spend our money. We track our expenses closely with Mint and look to cut down on any excess spending. These are two of the biggest factors in how we’ve been able to pay off $20,000 of student loan debt in the past year and a half.

What started me on my money journey was getting married and realizing that I wanted us to take control of our financial situation. I didn’t want to live paycheck-to-paycheck and be stressed out about money all of the time. By saving money and building wealth, we have more flexibility and more options in the future. We have dreams of having a family, traveling, and being able to give back to important causes.

I’ve written about generosity before, and this topic is close to my heart. We include giving in our monthly budget, and this includes money to our church, and a few other ministries. We recently started pledging $38 per month to sponsor a child through Compassion International.

Compassion International is a faith-based organization that strives to help children living in poverty develop spiritually, physically, socially, and economically. Forbes ranked them #13 on the list of largest U.S. charities for 2017. They find kids worldwide who live in some of the poorest areas, and they provide food, healthcare, education, companionship, and mentoring. Our monthly $38 provides these resources to a 5-year old girl living in Colombia.

We’ve only been sponsoring her for 2 months now, but every time I see the money leave our account it makes me smile. A couple hours of income is helping to create a better life for a child. In my mind, there’s no better way to be spending our money, and it’s my favorite $38 we spend every month.

It’s not just about the money, we also get to write her letters and keep in contact with her. We get to see her growth and learn about her life. She gets to know that people halfway across the world love and care about her. We get to build a relationship and be a part of her life!

I’m not writing this post to bring attention to ourselves, or have people think more highly of us. That’s not the heart behind it at all. This topic has been on my heart and I wanted to share it with all of you, to hopefully bring more awareness to a fantastic organization. It’s not about guilt either. Maybe you’re not in a position to be able to give back yet, but hopefully this post helps remind us all to be grateful for what we have.

Thinking about so many children worldwide without food, education, and healthcare breaks my heart. We couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore, we had to take action. This is only 1 child and only $38, but it’s the first step to making a difference.

Building wealth helps open doors and create opportunities. We may not be wealthy yet, but the reason we’re trying to get there is to be able to make a difference with our money. Thanks for reading and being a part of the journey!

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