Wander Worldschool: A Slow & Long-Term Family Travel Podcast
I'm Suzy May and I share inspiring travel, educational and worldschooling journeys of families of all different backgrounds!
Are you looking for actionable tips for your family travel journey? You're in the right place!
We dive deep into the stories of:
* slow and long term traveling families
* worldschool leaders and hub creators
* unique ideas to travel and educate on the road
* financial planning and money-saving travel tips
My family lives between Denver, CO and Sevilla, Spain and we are excited to be part of the diverse worldschooling community!
- Have an inspiring story? Email pod@suzymay.com!
- Follow on Instagram, Facebook and Substack! Links at https://beacons.ai/suzymaywander
Wander Worldschool: A Slow & Long-Term Family Travel Podcast
28. The Generosity Mindset: How to Give Back & Pledge More, Worldschool Prep, Suzy's List of Gratitudes + November Recaps!
Send us a text! Questions? Feedback? Shoutouts? Text here!
🎉 In this episode, we celebrate gratitude and giving back, starting with a recap of what we are most thankful for, explore our Listener's Locations and share the top tips from this month’s episodes with Lizz, Kathy and the RoamBase kids!
🌎 For our Deep Dive on Generosity, we speak with Rebecca Herbst from Yield and Spread all about getting started on worldschooling as well as the importance of making intentional giving a habit, especially within the Financial Independence (FI) community.
👍 Rebecca covers how to shift from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance and starting small with automated charitable contributions like the ‘Fi-lanthropy Pledge’.
✨ ACTIONABLE TIPS:
- Slow travel is especially helpful with younger children to maintain routines and bring comforts from home.
- Incorporate worldschooling even when not traveling by exploring new cultures locally, listening to Culture Kids podcast or travel documentaries.
- Switching from a scarcity to an abundance mindset takes time and is worth the practice!
- Automate charitable giving by setting up recurring monthly contributions to charities you’ve researched and want to support.
- Take the Pledge for giving! Start with 1% to build that muscle to donate more over time.
- AND MORE! LISTEN NOW!
Resources:
Join us in Naples! Worldschool Pop Up Hub events
Amber O'Neal Johnston in London and book
Rebecca Herbst Yield & Spread website and Fi-lanthropy pledge
Trusted Housesitters referral code and discount!
Host: I'm Suzy May and my family lives between Spain and Colorado. 🌞
🌎 We feature traveling families + worldschool creators taking learning global. 🚀 The information provided is for general informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended as financial, investment, legal, or tax advice ✔️
Suzy: What capital city with over 8 million people is considered a forest? Tune into this month's listener locations to find out. Welcome to the Wander World School and Slow Family Travel Podcast. I'm Susie, a travel-loving money nerd, mom of two, and our family lives between Spain and Colorado. On this show, we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of traveling families and the many ways to learn along the way.
Today's episode includes a recap of what our family has been up to this month, listener locations, and tips for exploring that forested capital city from the opening trivia. We also recap this month's episodes, and our deep dive is a special interview with Rebecca Erks from the Yield and Shield, all about generosity and preparing for world schooling, as it's something that her family is considering.
I felt it was very fitting to share this conversation on generosity today, the day of giving thanks. So yes, if you are listening to this the day it releases, that is Thanksgiving in the U.S. I hope wherever you are, you are enjoying a lovely meal with loved ones and sharing gratitude for all that we have.
I am incredibly grateful for the experiences and opportunities our family has had this year: more time in Spain, attending my first CampFI in Santiago de Compostela and first FinCon in Portland, Oregon; finally starting this podcast, which has been a three-plus-year dream of mine, as well as the amazing conversations I've already had and—spoiler alert—there are so many great ones to come. I'm also grateful that I kicked off my money coaching business, connected with amazing moms in the World School Entrepreneurs Collective, spent time with family and friends in our home base, and watched our kids take on new challenges in multiple languages. I'm also very grateful for my husband and his flexibility in shifting his work needs all around the globe. And I'm also very grateful to explore three new-to-me countries: that would be Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Montenegro. It's been a lot, and thankfully, this year isn't even over.
But before we jump in, how has your November been treating you? I was affected a little bit by the shutdown, but it also means I got to kick off ski season with my family. I'm starting to put together our spring travel plans, which will include the Naples, Italy, World School Pop-Up Hub at the end of April. I'd love for you all to join us in Italy if you can. For this long holiday weekend in the U.S., we are currently on a Trusted House Sitters sit with dogs, cats, chickens, a horse, and a mini donkey up in the Colorado mountains.
We get nature time, lots of animal experience, and since it's a sought-after time for travelers, we rent our house out to pocket some more travel funds. If you've ever thought about renting out your home while you travel, book a coaching call with me to discuss all the must-know tips and tricks that we've learned over the years. Also, Trusted House Sitters is running an awesome sign-up rate right now. Check it out in the show notes.
Are you based out of London in the UK, Orlando, Florida, or Dublin, Ireland? I love looking at the listener locations. If you're in Orlando, can you send me a text? Maybe we can arrange a meetup the next time I'm there.
But this month, we're going to feature London, a perennial favorite among world travelers. And also, it is that city of over 8 million people that is considered a forest. The Greater London Tree Canopy covers 21% of the area, which is above the UN criteria of 20% for a forest. This may be one of the many reasons I do love London. I'm planning to visit for the Podcast Show next May, which is the biggest international podcast event of the year. I also went last year with a friend for a beautiful wedding at Eltham Palace, which has been a royal residence outside London since the 1300s.
But I'm going to bring in the expertise of Amber O'Neill Johnson, who blogs at theheritagemom.com about her world school adventures with four kids. She especially focuses her blog on including diverse voices in traditional curriculum and infusing culture and love for others into an intentional home environment. Her London blog highlights their favorite sites in this vibrant city, and I've linked it in the show notes. Amber and her family visited the British Museum to see particular artifacts from their schooling, notably the Rosetta Stone, which was key to deciphering Egyptian scripts since it also had the decree in Greek as well. While they didn't get to see it, they did get to see many other historical artifacts that they had been learning about prior to visiting.
If incorporating your family heritage into family schooling is important to you, Amber shares more in her book called A Place to Belong: Raising kids to celebrate their heritage, community, and the world.
Shout out to our Apple Podcast reviewer who said, "Susie brings on such a fun array of guests. I always learn so much. The episodes are packed with info and offer tons of cool travel inspiration." Head to Apple Podcast to read the rest of the review and leave your own five-star review.
Okay, let's get started with our recap of episodes 25 to 27. Thank you to Liz Quain, Kathy Ima Bayashi, and the three Rome-based kids, Micah, Sammy, and Zuri.
In episode 25, Liz shared her family's nine-year world schooling journey and the many ways her twins were educated along the way—all six ways to educate your kids. For younger kids, I would really focus on self-directed learning, child-led learning, and going to world school hubs, being around other kids, maybe enrolling them in local schools if you're in a country long enough to do that, because that's especially for them to learn another language and really immerse in the local culture and meet local kids. Nannies, tutors, that kind of stuff, that's for younger kids. I wouldn't focus on super academic stuff or online schools, I think until the kids are at least eight. I mean, it kind of depends. You can do some Outschool classes, but for younger kids, I would really relax. It's not important to stay on grade level. There's a thing called a learning pyramid, and forcing kids to learn via the lecture and reading is one of the worst ways for kids to retain that information. The best way is if kids are going to have to teach others how to do the thing. And then obviously, the step above that is immersive, like learning by doing.
There are so many different ways. I think it also depends on the kids. Some kids do well with teacher-led or parent-led learning; other kids are really against that. There are a lot of kids, depending on their age, that start world schooling in middle and high school. They hate school, they're so burned out, and so they need to de-school. So it really depends on the kids, you know, where they are in their life, their age, what they're interested in. I'm really glad that we tried the different ways. Check out her in-depth episode and her world schooling course for more details if you're just starting out at world schooling. There's no need to feel overwhelmed when there are experts out there who can help.
In episode 26, Kathy and I spoke about our shared passion for raising remarkable boys. While many of these observations are, of course, generalizations and may not apply to all kiddos, I have noticed how certain activities that we spoke about, like having conversations side by side versus face to face, are especially helpful for me to connect with my boys.
Kathy: The first step, before anything else, is for a parent to be aware of what those challenges and gifts are...
Suzy: ...of having a little boy, because if you are not aware, if you don't have the knowledge, you can't advocate for him. By advocating, you know, sharing some resources, giving some suggestions... I'm asking for a little more flexibility in kindergarten, but more restrictions as they get further on. But asking a teacher, "Can you please provide some accommodation?" Like, you know, the other class at the end... Katie shared a great one, a great... "A note that just says this: skipping rope. And let him stand outside. Send him down to the end of the school with a note signed, and send it back to me so that he walked from here to there." Or, "Give him a window and jump," like, just something. That works sometimes. Some people will accommodate. Some people will get really excited about the information you're trying to learn about the different way that they learn and different ways some schools are not really built for them to thrive in. And then when all of that doesn't work...
Kathy: ...then it will be easier for you as a parent to listen to and share to help them thrive in the system that's more difficult. I would say the first thing is as much physical activity there. So leave home 15 minutes earlier and stop at the park and let them run before they get to school. As soon as they're done school, stop at that park and let them run it off.
Suzy: Expect that they are going to have to dance when they get home because they've had a meltdown together and trying to hold it together for the whole time they've been in school. Expect that there will be some dip in their self-esteem because they're not going to do the same that those little girls are and thriving. So make sure that you plan ways to keep...
Kathy: ...their self-esteem intact, whether it's spending more time hiking as a family or building something as a family. And the other thing I have in mind: I have seen a negative impact, like almost 100% of the time, on little boys who spend time on screens. And it's like we're setting them up to fail in school even when that's part of their everyday lives and the areas that we can control.
Suzy: Whether you have boys or not, these tips can help us all support the boys of the next generation. Check out our episode, book, and coaching for more information.
And finally, in episode 27, the Rome-based kids, Micah, Sammy, and Zuri, were such a joy to talk to. Thank you to Erin for arranging this. Those kids are wrapping up their 11-week hub in San Miguel de Allende. And as a parent, I'm sure we all want to know what our kids think of these experiences we are often putting a lot of time, money, and energy into. While we do have the big picture in mind and we all know that travel is almost always worth it, I hope it's validating to hear from some kids who are just loving their time together. They value slowing down and really experiencing the culture of an area. And if you're looking to start a hub, listen to their ideal world school hub suggestions.
Micah: How about you, Micah? What would be your dream world schooling opportunity? So it's in Greece, but also in Turkey, but also in Rome. It's a, like, a traveling one. I know those exist where you go with some group of families and they travel to another location with them and travel to another location with them. I want to do something like that, and I'd want to be like focused on mythology of all those different places and the different versions of mythology of the same myths. That would be so cool.
Suzy: Would people be in their RVs or would it be something where you would stay in one city for a while and then just move between the cities?
Micah: I think we would have like, kind of like we do here, where we have a certain neighborhood that everyone gets to stay in, and we would have designated neighborhoods in every place, and we would have them book every place in advance and go to them together.
Suzy: Very cool. What is your favorite subject to world school?
Micah: Archaeology or mythology. Yes, that makes sense with your wanting to go to Greece and Rome.
Suzy: How about you, Sammy?
Sammy: My favorite thing to learn about is the culture. I love learning about the culture in any country I go to and its history.
Suzy: How about you, Zuri?
Zuri: I think the language. I try to learn as much of the language as I can.
Suzy: That's great to go to Spanish-speaking countries and practice. Check out their episode for more insights from these awesome world-schooling kids. And check out Erin's info for where Roam Base is headed next.
Now for our deep dive, all on generosity. Thanks to Adobe Podcasts for hosting the recording studio at FinCon in Portland this year, where this conversation was recorded. I met Rebecca in a session, and we quickly bonded over family travel and giving back. I love the work she is doing in the financial independence community about charitable giving. There is so much to this conversation. This time of year, it is especially important to express our gratitude for all we have and extend our good fortune to those around us and around the world who may not be as fortunate. While you're listening to my conversation with Rebecca, I encourage you to think about what generosity in your family travel and your world schooling looks like.
There are so many ways to give back. You can donate time, money, resources. Like I mentioned in my conversation with Rebecca, there are certain organizations that are especially in need of funding right now with the shifting political landscape that you might consider incorporating into your monthly budget.
Okay, let's get to know Rebecca. Today I'm joined by Rebecca Herbst. Welcome. Tell me more about you and your family.
Rebecca: I live in Utah right now with my husband and my son, who's two years old, and I have another one on the way. Thank you. We're both originally from New York State and have lived in a bunch of different places. I've also lived abroad, but Utah is right now our home. We like to ski. We're outdoorsy people. It's a good lifestyle for us.
Suzy: Utah is a lot of fun. We're neighbors—over here we're in Colorado—and we do a lot of those same things. You also mentioned you are an early retiree.
Rebecca: Yes, and my husband as well, which I think is kind of unique. We pulled the early retiree trigger about five years ago now. So I think I was, yeah, 32, 33. My husband was 30. Yeah, he's a little younger than me. And so I think it's a little unique to meet two people that have theoretically left their jobs forever and that were doing it together. And so it's really beautiful that we're able to do it as a couple while raising our kids.
Suzy: That is so much time that you get to spend with your kid and your growing family, which is very exciting. So we are at FinCon, which is a conference for creators in the personal finance space. We connected at a session, and you had a lot of questions about slow family travel. You've traveled in the past; maybe there's a future for that with your growing family and world schooling. But that's why I thought it great that we could chat in this podcast session. You focus on generosity in your work within the personal finance community, so we're definitely going to talk about that as well. But first, to get to know you, tell me more about your personal travel origin story.
Rebecca: Truly a meeting of minds here of different interests coming together at FinCon. I have always had that curiosity for other cultures, for other places. I was working at a Fortune 200 company, a commercial real estate firm, and they had a program called the International Leadership Development Program, where you could go and work abroad for a year. So I did a year placement in Singapore, loved it so much, stayed on, and ended up taking a job there and ended up spending three to four years in Singapore. I visited so many countries in Southeast Asia, Asia overall, and truly, like, I think learned to be a world traveler then.
Suzy: That is a beautiful part of the world and far from the U.S. So if you are there, it is wonderful to take advantage of the opportunities to hop around that area. We did Southeast Asia before kids, and I cannot wait to get back to...
Rebecca: I also cannot wait to get back to it. You know, Asia is such a kid-friendly place. Kids are welcome in a lot of spaces. I just love traveling to places where there are other children running around. Kids see themselves in the children in the community, and I think they pick up a lot from seeing how other people live. Singapore is incredibly safe. So a lot of my friends who have raised kids there are sometimes like, "Our kids don't know that you can't just leave your wallet on the table to save your spot at a restaurant." Singapore is a great stop.
Suzy: Absolutely. That is a first question a lot of people have as they're thinking about family travel. Maybe they traveled before kids, but now with kids in the mix, they want to go places that are safe. Most places in the world are safe. There's general things you can do—not being out late at night is pretty easy with kids. Well, thank you for sharing more about your experiences in Singapore. You also were like, "Okay, you've done some world schooling, you've lived half the year in Spain," when we were first talking. What questions do you have about world schooling or being able to live abroad in the future?
Rebecca: I'm a total newbie here, and I know nothing. And so, the way I think I originally presented my question to you is: I have always had this dream of living a dual city lifestyle. And that could be anything. I live in Northern Utah where the Rockies are. The winters are amazing. I love to ski. The summers? No, no, thank you. And so summer is an obvious one, because if my kids aren't in public school, then okay, we can disappear for July and August or June and July. But what about the other times? Like, how do we handle schooling and very specifically stability? Yes, I'm living like this wonderful early retiree lifestyle now with a two-year-old, and we can take trips whenever we want and take whatever plane rides we want. But at some point, my son's going to enter school, and we're going to be stuck in a way that I have not experienced in a while. So my question to you is really like, how can we provide stability without feeling like I'm just going to homeschool my kids? Those are my options: public school or homeschool. Yeah, think about the flexibility.
Suzy: I love this question because it brings up so many opportunities. For one, when you do have younger kids, and you know what daily life is like with a toddler, and when you travel with a toddler, it is not a vacation. It is just parenting a toddler in a scenic location. There is a lot of flexibility though, to traveling with younger kids when you're well before the school age. Those are the years during the pandemic when I had like a baby and a toddler, and so I don't totally missed that we didn't get to travel a ton then because I was happy being home with not sleeping. But I have met a lot of people who travel with kids at that age, and this is where slow travel comes into play. Like, you can imagine, "I'm going to one location for two months," or whatever timeframe feels right for you and your family, but I would say longer than two weeks, let's say. You can bring those comforts from home. Your daily schedule is built around naps or whatever routine is comfortable for you and your family. And then when you're out at the playground, it's not just the playground on the street, it is like hearing other languages or seeing new things.
When my kids were two and four, we did two months in Canada. So we drove up, brought all the comforts of home, and got to see a lot. And I actually wish we had slowed down and just been in like one or two places. So, I think it's about being creative with what feels right for you and your family and also bringing some of those comforts from home, keeping those routines, keeping the foods that they like accessible as they start to get more picky, which they will, unfortunately.
I think that is one aspect of it, is taking advantage of whatever season of life you're in. And then as you approach school age, the benefit of traveling with school-age kids is that there's a little bit more independence. They can carry their own things. We are down to like two booster seats instead of like a giant suitcase full of car seats. And it is so freeing to have less things while still being able to travel and see the world. If we're on a bus or public transit, I don't feel as worried about them sitting without a safety harness, let a say. So there's a lot of freedom to that.
But world schooling can look like whatever is interesting to you and your family. I do encourage, even when you're in your home base, what are some foods we can incorporate? What restaurants or cultural festivities we can go to that aligns with maybe Asian culture, because you have a couple years of that as a reference point, or ones totally outside of your comfort zone? So there are ways to world school in your home country. We listen to a lot of cultural... Culture Kids podcast is my favorite, and the kids love it too. Sometimes they're not feeling podcasts, but I listen to those in the car, different countries. I'm like, "Wow, that was a whole episode about chocolate in Guatemala," and they do a wonderful way of creating a very welcoming space. Documentaries that sometimes if we do watch TV, one of the favorites that we watched growing up was Dangerous Ways to School. There's a lot of different ways to just bring a global mindset into even a home base.
And then when we take it into the travel world, it's really about finding whatever works for you. There are drop-off hubs that you could do two or three weeks in the summer. There's no criteria, let's say. But I think it's just a different way of thinking about trip planning. And it's fine if people value a week in Disney every year for $6,000, that's fine. But that's not what I find valuable in travel. I would rather take that $6,000 and spend a month somewhere where I can really embed in the local culture, try new foods, hear different languages, different currency.
And this is a good time to do this when your kids are young, because you're maybe planning for the future: what does that look like for us? Maybe separately think about it with your partner. What would be for us, if we're spending our travel dollars, where do we want that to go that provides us value? Lots to think about when it comes to maybe what this could look like. And there are absolutely people I've featured on the podcast who are seven years full-time traveling, homeschooling, unschooling. I do find that some of those families tend to have like middle and high schoolers, and we're not there yet. So I don't even know what that could be to parent that age, but they're supposed to take more of an independent approach to their education anyhow. Like, even if they're in a public school, I want them following up on their assignments. So there's a level of freedom that might come with traveling with high schoolers, where they get to really deep dive in what they're passionate about. There are people who follow certain curriculums. There are people who join hubs or different things, or like what we're doing right now where our kids are half the year in a private school, but it's worth that expense in Spain because A, it's not that expensive, and B, we're getting that language exposure. That's a value for us, is the language piece.
So there's a lot that I've just discussed. And a lot of the families I've talked to have older kids, they've been doing this. So this has been really fun for me to think like you're just starting out on your family journey.
Rebecca: I see the value, I see the merits. Although, I am interested in what parents discern to be key measures of success for their child's education. Is it being a well-rounded person? How do you measure that beyond anecdotally? Is it getting into a good college? Is it getting a good paying job? Is it having lots of friends? I try to wonder what the guiding light is for me as a parent. I have a two-year-old, so I'm able to really determine how he spends his day. I'm able to decide what I think is important to him. I'm really curious to see when that switches and maybe this dual city lifestyle that I'm imagining is really interesting and cool, but like, is it right for Isaac? How that would evolve, right? What's the best for my child? In addition to what's maybe the best for our family, too. That feels like challenging to figure out. So I can't even say what that will be like. But, and then of course, just the operational structure of like, for example, public schools. Many public schools in the U.S. receive funding based on the number of days that kids show up to school.
Rebecca: Just to be honest, it's a really interesting point that someone asked me last night on a car ride, "What do you do with your time as an early retiree? Do you love to travel every day?" Do you think that like overall, the idea of like travel and exploration and learning is interesting, but travel for the sake of travel is completely not as sexy as it was when I was working? Because I'm not escaping my life anymore. Yeah, I'm not escaping my nine-to-five job anymore. And so when I choose to travel with my family, it tends to be more long-form. We also have a toddler, right? So it's like long-form, slow travel. We're on planes less, we're changing hotels less. We're usually staying in villas or homes versus hotels. I will say that actually like building a home, even if that is just where my family is, is kind of actually important to me as an early retiree.
Suzy: This is very inspiring, and I'm definitely going to link to your resources so that if people want to check out kind of how to get started on this, it's a muscle. It's like anything. Also, we talk a lot about in personal finance, like automating things. That's what I found helped. Like, Colorado does a Colorado Gives Day at the beginning of December. And I spent time like picking it out and putting this money in and, you know, it takes time and effort to do a one-time thing. Whereas eventually, especially when things shifted a while back and I read that monthly contributions, regular ones, are almost more important to charities because they can rely on it than these ups and downs. So setting it once and forgetting it... it wasn't 10%. We're working on getting there. But I think that was so easy because then it was just like a budget.
Suzy: Yeah, I think most people could probably take 30 minutes and go through their subscriptions, find one or two that they really don't need, that they can redirect that to a recurring subscription to a charity that is important to them. And that might be a $50 shift every month, but we know the power of compounding and the power of consistency. And over time, that makes... So there you go. We'll end on that as the tip for you, if that's something that you're interested in, is being able to give more is...
Rebecca: Yeah, so I founded a nonprofit called Yield and Shield, which aims to promote giving generously in a world of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). And so I've created a Learn to Invest course. I do coaching for generous people. And then most recently, I launched something called the Philanthropy Pledge, which is really my call to action to the FI world that we should truly be giving back. And my belief is like, the FI movement has gone through a lot of phases. The first phase is like: probably save as much money as possible, make as much money as possible, hit FI. I think we're in a phase now that's really beautiful, which is like: design a life that you want to live, use money as a tool for world schooling, for bringing your children valuable experiences. My hope is that the next phase is like, what is the legacy we're building? Right? So if you're traveling with your children abroad and spending time with them in different places, are bringing educational experiences to them, you are growing your children. What's the legacy you're trying to build for your family? Not just beyond being a worldly person. Like, what does it actually mean to be aware of others, connected with others globally? And I think generosity can look so different, right? You can be doing time volunteering, you can do skilled volunteering, you can donate money. My little slice of this is really to encourage people to try to figure out how, after so many years of wealth accumulation, how do you begin to give some of that away while maintaining your financial stability, right? And how to choose charities, how to think about your plan as a family, and just to really celebrate those that are helping others. Like, I want to celebrate you guys. I want to put you on a pedestal, and I want to show others that we can normalize this, we can publicize this. So that's been what's going on the past five years.
Suzy: ...where can you start small and build that muscle up and continue to look into resources like yours to help you feel more confident in your generosity and your giving. And maybe someday we'll do another conversation around what generosity could look like if people are traveling or world schooling. This has been so fun to meet you here at FinCon. I can't wait to keep hearing more about the good work you're doing. Thank you.
Rebecca: I mean, I struggled. I spoke at a CampFI, and the opening story that I brought up was, I don't know if you remember, towards the beginning of COVID, there were like wild Australian bushfires happening, and the pictures were just, you know, horrifying. I remember sitting there in my kitchen and just being so, I don't know, it was just this pivotal moment. There's a lot of horrible things that happen all the time, but it was just this pivotal moment of me looking at this donation page and being like, "Should I donate? Do I have enough?" And I was sitting on a million-dollar nest egg! Of course I have enough to donate some money. When you've spent years and years and years working so hard to save money, accumulate wealth, you're constantly being told, by the way, "You're not FI yet." So you're really adopting this mindset of like, "I'm not there yet." It is very, very hard to switch from the scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. At the same time, it's also really hard to start going to the gym if you've never been going to the gym before. So what do you have to do? You have to take baby steps.
You bring up a great example of like, okay, you've reached financial security. Let's start building this habit now so that I don't hit 70 and a half years old and just expect to make all these qualified charitable distributions from my retirement portfolio, and I've never given any money before. I've never gone through the process of exploring what charities I want to give to. I've never gone through the process of deciding what type of assets am I going to donate. Am I going to donate cash? Am I going to donate appreciated stock? Am I going to create a DAF (Donor Advised Fund), and I'm going to donate from that, right? So you've never done all these things, it's going to feel really hard.
So I try to think of like little challenges or things that we can do. And also with the Philanthropy Pledge, I'm like, this is the call to action. So the classic pledge is 10% of your income for the rest of your life. And it's a percent number because it needs to scale with what you're able to donate. Some percent's an easy number to understand, but it's also big. Like that's a big commitment, right? I've been doing it now for a while, so it doesn't feel like a big commitment, but if you've never done it before, it will. And it did to me at the time of these bushfires.
So there's also like a trial pledge where you can take the percent that you choose for a given amount of time. So, "I'm going to try a 1% pledge for six months." So what does that look like? Let's just say you're making $60,000 a year. What's 1% of $60,000? $600 over the course of the year. That's $50 a month. $50 a month. There's a chance that you're already donating. Like, there's a chance that you're donating to your friend's marathon fund. There's a chance that you're giving to your local food bank. Like, you may have taken the 1% pledge without knowing. At the same time, if you're not there, just try.
What does trying look like? Does it mean, "Let's choose one charity this month, and I'm going to donate $50 to that charity and just see how I feel"? And I'm going to do it for the next six to 12 months? Or you could say, "I have this whole portfolio that's just accumulating." You could say, "I'm going to donate this one share of stock to this charity," if the charity accepts stock. Most 501(c)(3)s do. Just do it because a lot of that money is kind of like fictitious money and changing anyways, so you might not even notice that it's missing. And that's actually the strategy that my husband and I do. So we don't donate any cash. We largely mostly donate appreciated stocks to charities that we've researched.
If you're not quite sure what charities, I recommend some charity aggregators that do really good research like TheLifeYouCanSave.org, TheGiveWell.org. These are aggregators that do strong research on what charities are most effective and where our dollars can go to do the most help. It's by no means like the answer, but it's certainly a place to start. So if you're like, "I don't know," you can start there. And then also start talking about it with your friends. Like, where are they donating? Who are they giving to? If it's someone who you trust, and they're a really smart and thoughtful person, and they're actually giving you like a real answer, that's also a good place to start as well. And it's just happening, right? Like your Netflix subscription. Exactly. Your Walmart Plus subscription.
Suzy: Thank you for listening through this journey with me. What are your thoughts? How have you or will you give back in your world schooling adventures? Share it with me in the "send us a text" link in the show notes. And as a reminder, please use the links in the show notes to support this show. Until next time, stay curious and keep exploring.
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