Every dollar I spend on myself is a dollar that could go much farther if spent on other people. I can give someone else a year of healthy life for about $50 [1] and thereâs no way $50 can do anywhere near that much to help me. I could go through my life constantly weighing every purchase against the good it could do, but this would make me miserable. So how do I accept that other people need my money more without giving up on being happy myself?
For me the key is to make most choices donation neutral. As money comes in I divide it into âmoney to give to the most effective charityâ and âmoney to spend as I wishâ. How to divide it is a hard and distressing choice, but itâs one I only have to make once a year. Then when deciding to buy something (socks, rent, phone, instruments, food) I know itâs money that isnât getting given away regardless, so I donât have to feel constantly guilty about making tradeoffs with peopleâs lives.
Julia and I have been using this system since 2009. [2] Itâs mostly worked well, but itâs needed some additions. The main issue is that declining to spend money on yourself isnât the only way to trade off benefits to other people against costs to yourself. For example you could decide to be vegan, donate a kidney, or cash out your vacation days and give away the money. For ones that generate money directly (cashing out vacation) the solution is simple: that money goes into the pool that canât be given away. For ones that donât generate money you would convert them into money via the good you think they do. Take the most effective charity you know about, figure out how much you would need to give to them in order to have the same positive effect, and then move that amount of money from donations to self-spending. For example, I might estimate that giving $100 to the AMF does about as much good as being vegan for a year, so if I decided to go ahead with being vegan I would decrease my annual donations by $100 and allocate another $100 to spend on myself.
I may or may not decide that having another $X to spend on myself is better than sacrifice Y, but whichever way I decide Iâm working to make myself as happy as possible for a given amount of doing good. Itâs not a choice that has additional lives saved weighing on either side of it.
(This doesnât deal with a potentially important category: things that only make you somewhat unhappy. For example, working a higher paying job you like less, or pushing yourself to host more effective altruism meetups than youâd really like to. I donât see how to deal with this, but I donât think itâs been a problem so far.)
[1] Specifically, I can donate to the Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes anti-malarial nets. The main effect is averting deaths of children who will probably go on to live around 30 years once you take into account other things they might die from. This comes to about $75 per additional year of life. There are also many other people protected by the nets where it doesnât make the difference between life and death but helps them live healthier lives. That brings the $/âDALY figure down to
about $50.
[2] I also wrote about this approach in 2010 when it was much younger.
Keeping choices donation neutral
Every dollar I spend on myself is a dollar that could go much farther if spent on other people. I can give someone else a year of healthy life for about $50 [1] and thereâs no way $50 can do anywhere near that much to help me. I could go through my life constantly weighing every purchase against the good it could do, but this would make me miserable. So how do I accept that other people need my money more without giving up on being happy myself?
For me the key is to make most choices donation neutral. As money comes in I divide it into âmoney to give to the most effective charityâ and âmoney to spend as I wishâ. How to divide it is a hard and distressing choice, but itâs one I only have to make once a year. Then when deciding to buy something (socks, rent, phone, instruments, food) I know itâs money that isnât getting given away regardless, so I donât have to feel constantly guilty about making tradeoffs with peopleâs lives.
Julia and I have been using this system since 2009. [2] Itâs mostly worked well, but itâs needed some additions. The main issue is that declining to spend money on yourself isnât the only way to trade off benefits to other people against costs to yourself. For example you could decide to be vegan, donate a kidney, or cash out your vacation days and give away the money. For ones that generate money directly (cashing out vacation) the solution is simple: that money goes into the pool that canât be given away. For ones that donât generate money you would convert them into money via the good you think they do. Take the most effective charity you know about, figure out how much you would need to give to them in order to have the same positive effect, and then move that amount of money from donations to self-spending. For example, I might estimate that giving $100 to the AMF does about as much good as being vegan for a year, so if I decided to go ahead with being vegan I would decrease my annual donations by $100 and allocate another $100 to spend on myself.
I may or may not decide that having another $X to spend on myself is better than sacrifice Y, but whichever way I decide Iâm working to make myself as happy as possible for a given amount of doing good. Itâs not a choice that has additional lives saved weighing on either side of it.
(This doesnât deal with a potentially important category: things that only make you somewhat unhappy. For example, working a higher paying job you like less, or pushing yourself to host more effective altruism meetups than youâd really like to. I donât see how to deal with this, but I donât think itâs been a problem so far.)
[1] Specifically, I can donate to the Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes anti-malarial nets. The main effect is averting deaths of children who will probably go on to live around 30 years once you take into account other things they might die from. This comes to about $75 per additional year of life. There are also many other people protected by the nets where it doesnât make the difference between life and death but helps them live healthier lives. That brings the $/âDALY figure down to about $50.
[2] I also wrote about this approach in 2010 when it was much younger.