2021 Frugal Living Challenge

Treasurequeen

Re charities: each time I go food shopping I pick up a few bits for the food bank and drop it off in the collection point on way out of shop. It’s only a few things but it’s something. I also donate to the poppy appeal once a year. I donate my clothes and books etc to charity shops, rags go into air ambulance collection bin. Sometimes I get free vouchers for cat treats or dog treats, I get them  and donate them to animal charities or to local vet collection. I buy from charity shops so in my eyes that’s supporting a  Charity. In the past I made a lot of donations but it got so ridiculous when they sent me so much junk mail that I saw they were wasting money and stopped. One local Charity  shop I used to support used donation money to buy fake plants and a posh rug to make it look “welcoming” half the donations are not for sale they are just decorative items. 

Did my first food shop this month and came in under budget spent £59.00 but that’s stocked my tin cupboard up, my freezer and I got a few jars of coffee as they were reduced to half price. Got a few items for food bank too.  Couldn’t find teabags as shelves were empty. 

QueenJess

I always make sure I make donations anonymously (eg through payroll) or otherwise tick boxes to make sure I don't get any mail - I don't want them wasting my donation sending me mail.

For some reason it reminds me that I once had a charity knock on the door and they were trying to convince me to buy a lottery ticket for a chance to win money (was quite a few thousand as well). I assume they made a pittance from those sales. Something about the whole thing really irritated me and I ended up being that person who complained. I was insulted that they only think I would ever give to charity if I was going to win lots of money myself and I thought the whole thing was distasteful - including how they were trying to sell it to me.  I guess that is how the world is working now after the parliament vote yesterday? 

Sallyp2

Charities are now big businesses.
I used to work at a high street retailer head office and the breast cancer charity said in one of their presentations that they had spent over £1m rebranding themselves. Well I didn't notice a big difference. They were still pink and had a bow! It made me laugh that the 3 charity ladies each had a designer label handbag, posh heels and came & went in a black cab. 
Wasteful extravagance when so many people are in dire need!
Charities are businesses now and have pricing structures for their shops. Its very sad and the ethos gets eroded over time!

QueenJess

Sallyp2 said:

Charities are now big businesses.
I used to work at a high street retailer head office and the breast cancer charity said in one of their presentations that they had spent over £1m rebranding themselves. Well I didn't notice a big difference. They were still pink and had a bow! It made me laugh that the 3 charity ladies each had a designer label handbag, posh heels and came & went in a black cab. 
Wasteful extravagance when so many people are in dire need!
Charities are businesses now and have pricing structures for their shops. Its very sad and the ethos gets eroded over time!

 

I guess they do what they have to in order to sell and make money in a consumerist world.  I don't have to like it though!

fionaandphil

Sallyp2 said:

Charities are now big businesses.
I used to work at a high street retailer head office and the breast cancer charity said in one of their presentations that they had spent over £1m rebranding themselves. Well I didn't notice a big difference. They were still pink and had a bow! It made me laugh that the 3 charity ladies each had a designer label handbag, posh heels and came & went in a black cab. 
Wasteful extravagance when so many people are in dire need!
Charities are businesses now and have pricing structures for their shops. Its very sad and the ethos gets eroded over time!

We have until recently lived next to a big charity home and the amount of money we saw being regularly wasted was shocking.  Very little thought ever seemed to go into how they were spending money from donations.  I had intended to do more volunteering for them but offered my services elsewhere for smaller local charities instead.

Sallyp2

fionaandphil said:

Sallyp2 said:

Charities are now big businesses.
I used to work at a high street retailer head office and the breast cancer charity said in one of their presentations that they had spent over £1m rebranding themselves. Well I didn't notice a big difference. They were still pink and had a bow! It made me laugh that the 3 charity ladies each had a designer label handbag, posh heels and came & went in a black cab. 
Wasteful extravagance when so many people are in dire need!
Charities are businesses now and have pricing structures for their shops. Its very sad and the ethos gets eroded over time!

We have until recently lived next to a big charity home and the amount of money we saw being regularly wasted was shocking.  Very little thought ever seemed to go into how they were spending money from donations.  I had intended to do more volunteering for them but offered my services elsewhere for smaller local charities instead.

Totally - 100% agree with you. Local charities get so overlooked and welcome anything, time / money / donations and tend to waste very little. Obvs a generic statement on my part.

The gov reduction of aid, albeit only temporary, has been overwhelming condemned by the big charities. However, while I may not like it, like Queen Jess, I do feel charity begins at home and when you see children going without dinners in school holidays, people having to scrimp and save pennies to make ends meet, I do begrudgingly agree that we cant help everyone in the world no matter how noble your intentions. 

Sallyp2

Its quirked my interest. So I've looked up on google the top UK charity CEO wages. Given the prime minister earns about £150k a year. The figures below make interesting reading. You can tell I'm bored today!

Makes you realise now why they are all so quick to condemn the government aid budget cut.

For all of us who are managing tight budgets and questioning our monthly outgoings, see the CEO wages below. They ALL earn way more than me, who is trying to balance the household accounts on a monthly basis. If you have money worries, perhaps give your monthly donation to your own debt pile first.

Charity	CEO salary (£)	Source	CEO name	Salary data sourced	Charity turnover (£)
Age UK	190,000	[4]	Jonny Towers	2015	86,400,000
Amnesty International UK	210,000	[4]	Shalil Shetty	2015	24,900,000
Anchor Trust	420,000	[7]	Jane Ashcroft	2015	374,700,000
BBC Children in Need	134,425	[9]	Simon Antrobus	2019	55,000,000
British Heart Foundation	180,000	[11]	Simon Gillespie	2013	158,900,000
British Red Cross	173,000	[13]	Mike Adamson	2017	251,700,000
Cancer Research UK	240,000	[4]	Harpal Kumar	2015	621,000,000
Macmillan Cancer Support	170,000	[11]	Ciarán Devane	2013	190,000,000
NSPCC	162,000	[16]	Peter Wanless	2016	106,800,000
Oxfam	124,000	[18]	Mark Goldring	2016	400,000,000
National Trust	179,000	[19]	Fiona Reynolds	2012	494,000,000
Prince's Trust	140,000	[11]	Martina Milburn	2013	610,000,000
RSPCA	140,000	[11]	Jeremy Cooper	2013	121,000,000
Scope	129,000	[21]	Mark Atkinson	2015	99,500,000
Shelter	122,500	[23]	Polly Neate	2017	58,000,000
Sightsavers	<100,000	[7]	Caroline Harper	2015	>100,000,000
St Andrew's Healthcare	433,000	[24]	Gil Baldwin	2017	205,600,000
St. John Ambulance	140,000	[11]	Sue Killen	2013	910,000,000
Wateraid	128,000	[25]	Barbara Frost	2016	84,000,000
Wellcome Trust	445,220	[26]	Jeremy Farrar	2017	1,134,000,000

QueenJess

I don't think it is that simple.  CEO is a skilled job if you do it right and I don't mind them being paid a fair wage for it.  Saying that, I have no idea what a fair wage actually is for a CEO, but they would never be able to attract anyone decent if they paid minimum wage for it.  I do know that these wages look a lot less than industry.

Yes - we definitely can't help everyone and so I do pick and choose my charities each month to help the ones I personally want to.  I think the foreign aid though is more than just charity and doing our bit - it sends a political message and reduces our influence globally.  In any case, many of the things we were contributing to will stop with absolutely no warning and lots were partway through programmes of work that they can no longer finance.  They should have at least had a transition period.  It's all very short sighted.

Sallyp2

QueenJess said:

I don't think it is that simple.  CEO is a skilled job if you do it right and I don't mind them being paid a fair wage for it.  Saying that, I have no idea what a fair wage actually is for a CEO, but they would never be able to attract anyone decent if they paid minimum wage for it.  I do know that these wages look a lot less than industry.

Yes - we definitely can't help everyone and so I do pick and choose my charities each month to help the ones I personally want to.  I think the foreign aid though is more than just charity and doing our bit - it sends a political message and reduces our influence globally.  In any case, many of the things we were contributing to will stop with absolutely no warning and lots were partway through programmes of work that they can no longer finance.  They should have at least had a transition period.  It's all very short sighted.

Hopefully things will be transitioned and those projects that have started will be managed properly. I don't think it will be an all or nothing scenario. Projects just won't get immediately cut off. There will just be an assessment of ongoing spends.

There is still a sizable sum being given out to various bodies. Let's hope it gets spend wisely with both humility and respect

fionaandphil

@sallyp2 not surprising to me, I can remember looking at one particular charity some years ago and their managers (not CEO) earned six figure salaries.  I understand it for a CEO of a large organisation but not for a buildings manager or the like. 

For this year I think that some of the big donors are planning to make up the shortfall in overseas aid but longer term I think it will be gone forever and these projects will just close.  Very short sighted I think.

We are much more selective now and have donated extra to our local charities in the past year.