I wrote this post a while ago and my thinking has moved on a little since then so I thought it would be worth adding further thoughts as a comment;
1) In the original post I suggest people should save more when they are young rather than give, but I don’t offer an explicit rules based alternative. I think rules based giving makes a lot of sense, and helps to compartmentalize so that we don’t spend time and mental energy weighing up every spending decision we make vs opportunity of EA donation. I now have thought about how to solve this problem in my own life, which is to switch from ‘I aim to donate x% of my income’, to ‘I aim to donate x% of my spending, until I reach level Y, at which point I donate all income above my consumption level’. I like this rule because it is simple and robust from lifestyle creep. If I want to save money for buffer building etc. my EA goals won’t get in the way. However, if I’m willing to pass on saving to spend money now, then I should be willing to donate in proportion.
2) I wish looking back that I had not mentioned the thing about saving for a house. As was mentioned by others in the comments this is a very specific issue and doesn’t apply generally. A much more generalisable point is that savings allow us to take greater risks, especially with our career. I think there are a lot of employers who understand that some of their employees are risk averse and react to this by paying them less. I also think people who are career risk averse do not develop as far or as quickly. From the people I have dealt with in my life so far (which I appreciate is a very small sample), very few seem to get to retirement with the ‘right’ amount of money for their level of consumption. People either have too little or way too much. I think a good use of money is making sure you fall in to that latter category, and once you are confident you’ll end up there start donating to the point that your excess above desired consumption is minimal.
3) The title Giving Later; Giving More has (I think) led many people to conclude that I’m suggesting investing money with a view to donating the original amount plus the investment returns later. This is not at all my point and I am generally of the opinion that the discount rate for donations, especially in the area of global poverty / health is much higher than one could feasibly expect to make by investing. My point is that having a buffer may allow you to have a much more productive (and therefore financially rewarding) life, and therefore the return on investment of this buffer (I believe) is far in excess of this discount rate.
I wrote this post a while ago and my thinking has moved on a little since then so I thought it would be worth adding further thoughts as a comment;
1) In the original post I suggest people should save more when they are young rather than give, but I don’t offer an explicit rules based alternative. I think rules based giving makes a lot of sense, and helps to compartmentalize so that we don’t spend time and mental energy weighing up every spending decision we make vs opportunity of EA donation. I now have thought about how to solve this problem in my own life, which is to switch from ‘I aim to donate x% of my income’, to ‘I aim to donate x% of my spending, until I reach level Y, at which point I donate all income above my consumption level’. I like this rule because it is simple and robust from lifestyle creep. If I want to save money for buffer building etc. my EA goals won’t get in the way. However, if I’m willing to pass on saving to spend money now, then I should be willing to donate in proportion.
2) I wish looking back that I had not mentioned the thing about saving for a house. As was mentioned by others in the comments this is a very specific issue and doesn’t apply generally. A much more generalisable point is that savings allow us to take greater risks, especially with our career. I think there are a lot of employers who understand that some of their employees are risk averse and react to this by paying them less. I also think people who are career risk averse do not develop as far or as quickly. From the people I have dealt with in my life so far (which I appreciate is a very small sample), very few seem to get to retirement with the ‘right’ amount of money for their level of consumption. People either have too little or way too much. I think a good use of money is making sure you fall in to that latter category, and once you are confident you’ll end up there start donating to the point that your excess above desired consumption is minimal.
3) The title Giving Later; Giving More has (I think) led many people to conclude that I’m suggesting investing money with a view to donating the original amount plus the investment returns later. This is not at all my point and I am generally of the opinion that the discount rate for donations, especially in the area of global poverty / health is much higher than one could feasibly expect to make by investing. My point is that having a buffer may allow you to have a much more productive (and therefore financially rewarding) life, and therefore the return on investment of this buffer (I believe) is far in excess of this discount rate.