Dave Ramsey says in his Financial Peace University class that "if you live like no one else now, later you can live and give like no else."  If you follow a budget and pay off all of your debt after you build your wealth, you can tithe to your church or donate to charity.  Donating is the last and final baby step of the seven baby steps.  We are far from baby step seven, but each month in the budget there is a line for donating.  We keep it small right now, usually about $20.00.  In the month of May, there was no extra in the budget for a donation.

My parents and I have season tickets to CU Women's basketball and my tickets were up for renewal in June.  Along with the price of tickets was a service fee and a seat donation.  My dad called the ticket office, yes the seat donation was a requirement in order to renew tickets.  I'm not sure why they didn't just increase the price of the season tickets rather than "require" a $50.00 donation.  I probably wouldn't have grumbled as much over a ticket increase as I did over paying a set donation amount.

I'm currently researching charities for donating to in July.  There are so many worthwhile charities but I think it is really important that my small donation actually be used for good, rather than put towards overhead (which is a need, I do understand that).  I like to check out Charity Navigator.  Each charity is given a star rating and is scored based on financial, accountability and transparency.  It also breaks down the financial and accountability aspects.