Where My Money Goes

It's not that I have a lot of extra money. After paying the mortgage (yes, at my age my house is still mortgaged), utilities, the cable bill, property taxes, buying food and clothes, gas for the car (not to mention maintenance of the car), and other necessities, I'm left with what's called "discretionary" income.

It's not a lot, but I have choices. I can buy more clothes (which I sometime do). I can buy more shoes (which I did just last week). Or I can donate to a worthy cause. And there are lots of worthy causes.

Rather than give $5 or $10 to every solicitation I receive in the mail, I've chosen to focus my efforts on to the areas that are most important to me.

1. Education. Not everyone is academically inclined, but while I was still in junior high school, I decided I really wanted to go to college. I'm not sure why. No one in my family had gone to college. I didn't even know anyone who had gone to college. In my family's social circle it was something "other people did". But I wanted to do it.

For me it was a good choice (though sometimes difficult as I was not a great student). It presented opportunities I would never had otherwise. Before I graduated, I realized that having a B.A. in History was no guarantee of a great and exciting career, but I had also discovered that I wanted to go to Library School and become a Librarian and I needed that B.A. to do that.

Being a Librarian has been a a great (and, yes, sometimes exciting) career for me. It's important to me that as many people as possible have a chance to go to college if that's what they want. I regularly donate as much as I can to UMass/Amherst and Simmons College School of Library Science.

2. Libraries. Since libraries contribute substantially to education, and since being a Librarian has meant so much to me, I also contribute regularly, and as much as I can, to the W.E.B. DuBois Library at UMass/Amherst and my local public library.

Of course there are other worthy causes that sometimes strike my fancy and when that happens I contribute to them. But the bulk of my "extra" money goes to Education and Libraries where I feel it will do the most good.