Lazy Man and Money

Let’s Fight Autism Together!

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Last week, I wrote about donating some money to help homeless women and children. Even though it was a small amount of money, it felt good.

Today, I’d like to ask you to join me in helping me raise some money for autism.

I know, you have all your charity money planned for. I’m the same way. This is the rare exception, where I’m changing my plans and allocating some more money.

The Story Behind the Cause

tired runner
Look at Lauren. Can’t you spare a little cash for charity?

Sometime in 2016, I got sued by Le-vel for my Thrive Review. My review was harsh, but Truth in Advertising’s were worse in my opinion the first one and the follow up. Anyway, Truth in Advertising has high-powered lawyers and I’m just your average private citizen.

When I spread the news about Le-Vel’s harassment, Lauren Sprouse reached out to me to help. It was amazing because I had tried to find a first amendment lawyer in Texas and everyone wanted tens of thousands up front. With her help and the firm she worked for MZF Law Firm, we were able to beat Le-Vel. The internet can now not only read my review, but hundreds of others in the comments.

Lauren reached out to me a couple of weeks ago. She’s planning to run the London Marathon as part of the Run for Autism team. This was around the time when London terrorist attacks were still fresh in everyone’s mind. And Boston Marathon terrorist attacks will always be on my mind. Finally, I first started writing about MLM in part because salespeople were making ridiculous unsubstantiated claims such as MonaVie cures autism. I had a long back and forth with a parent in those comments and his argument amounted to, “I have to try everything.” (That parent was one of the few people to come back to the blog and say how silly his argument was.)

It’s hard to not feel for people in that position. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’m fortunate enough to not be in that position. MonaVie did a billion in sales and when the pyramid imploded was foreclosed upon for only $15 million. If only we could have aimed that billion dollars directly at autism. Surely that would do a lot of good, right?

The past is in the past. We probably can’t raise a billion dollars anyway. However, together we can do something small that may really help fight autism in a way that MonaVie couldn’t.

Lauren has set up a donation page here.

To encourage you to give whatever you can, I’ll match the first $250 that comes in. Just leave a comment here of how much you donated and your name. Trust me, giving will feel good.

Lucy’s Hearth + Rockstar Finance + Lazy Man = Love

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Today’s going to be a quicker article. I wanted to let you know some good charity things that are going on with an online personal finance community, Rockstar Finance Forums.

I had caught a social media update (I think it was Facebook) from my friend J$ from Budgets Are Sexy who created the Rockstar website. They were looking to give away $20 to someone in every state. There was only one string attached, it had to be used to do something good. Unsurprisingly, my state, Rhode Island, was one of the few not represented. I joined the forums and asked how I can help them get to their goal.

In a few days I received a $20 Visa card in the mail with a letter about using it to do good.

Then a strange thing happened. This card became an albatross on my mind. I tried to think about the most good I could for $20. I didn’t want to do a normal charity because anyone can just type some credit card numbers into a computer. And since Adam Ruined Giving I’m more mindful about what to do with such gifts.

My son’s school was raising money to buy some Hippo Rollers, which are fortunately not about rolling hippos… though it’s fun to imagine they are. That would have been a perfect place to put the money to use. The only problem was that I wanted to give this money selflessly. I didn’t want it to be perceived that I’m trying to buy some kind of favor. Perhaps I was greatly over-thinking it, but it was also typing numbers into a computer. Between the two, I delayed just long enough for the campaign to finish, so it was no longer an option.

Finally, I decided on a local charity, Lucy’s Hearth. Here’s their stated mission:

“Lucy’s Hearth is a 24-hour emergency and transitional shelter for mothers and their children who are homeless due to economic hardship, family crisis, divorce, eviction, and severe shortage of safe, affordable housing. The primary goal is to foster independence and help the residents gain the life skills necessary to prevent future chronic homelessness.”

Does that sound like a good enough charity to you? It did to me. Rather than typing credit card numbers into a keyboard, I went down to Lucy’s Hearth.

[Click image for larger version]

If that picture is a little confusing, it’s because I added $20 of my own cash from my wallet to match Rockstar Finance’s contribution. They forced me to take a donation receipt, but it’s small enough that I don’t think I’ll claim it.

I offered to go pick up some supplies for them. They said that they were already going out later that day and it would be just as easy for them to add it their shopping and get some extra things. I figured that they are better better experts at buying what they need than I am, so I handed the money over and thanked them for what they do. They thanked me for the donation and everyone got warm “fuzzies” for a bit.

I wonder if I technically failed in doing what the letter asked. It asked that I use it to bring “unexpected” joy. The people at Lucy’s Hearth receiving donations don’t consider it unexpected. However, the women and children they help probably find it unexpected. And I’m hoping that a place to stay with some warm clean sheets brings them joy.

Your Turn

How and where would you have used the gift card? Let me know in the comments.

The Season of Giving

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The last few years, we’ve added another tradition to our holiday season.  A local agency that provides services to the poor has an “adopt a family” program during the Christmas season.  You sign up, are assigned a specific family (anonymous) and buy Christmas gifts and other supplies (canned foods, toiletries, etc) for them.  The family provides some ideas on possible gifts.

My wife and I both grew up in working class families, with parents who struggled to get by financially.  We both became the first in our families to attend and graduate college and are both well-established in white-collar careers.  We’ve jumped a couple rungs on the socioeconomic ladder and consider ourselves to be very fortunate.  The downside is that our kids don’t have the same appreciation for the struggles many families face.  We can try to tell them, but it doesn’t have the same impact as actually experiencing the struggles.  When we’re at Target explaining that we’re buying paper towels and toilet paper for another family, I think it makes more of an impact that we are fortunate.  We worry about things that funding retirement plans and 529s at a high enough level; other families struggle to cover the cost of basic household goods.

We took the kids to Target for the shopping spree.  They are 9 and 6 are quite high-spirited (especially at stores), so it’s quite a challenge to keep them corralled.  In addition to the paper goods mentioned above, we also bought several nice, fluffy towels.  Then onto the fun stuff – toys.

My son and I were given the task of picking out about a dozen Hot Wheels cars for the family’s boy.  My son tired of the activity after a bit, but I continued to methodically search through the cars.  My wife asked me if there was a method to what I was doing.  Definitely – I was looking for cars that I would have enjoyed as a kid – I had tons of Hot Wheels when I was younger.

As with most things, the dollars have a way of adding up.  A couple of times, my wife asked if it was OK to spent a bit extra on a few items.  My response is always the same – sure.  Six months from now, we won’t remember that we spent twenty dollars more than we intended to – but the recipient family will remember the gift it bought.

We hit the toy aisle hard, purchasing several toys and a few board games for the family.  We pushed two carts of goodies up to the register and checked out.  We asked for gift receipts for everything, resulting in a cascade of paper flying out of the cash register (there’s no option to receive one all-encompassing gift receipt – we asked).  The kids were a bit cranky by this point, but the mission was accomplished.  Well, mostly accomplished.  Everything still needed to be wrapped – and I’m the designated wrapper in the household.

Is it worth it?  Absolutely.  This year, the family we “adopted” gave us a thank you card (via the organization’s employee).  The woman had become emotional when she saw all the gifts.  Some of the presents would be going under their tree, while others would be delivered by Santa on Christmas.  We helped keep the Santa magic alive for those kids this year.  That’s priceless.

[Editor’s Thoughts: We gave a few toys through a campaign that at my son’s day care. They didn’t ask for something as extensive as this. The requested toys didn’t include Hot Wheels though. If it did, I may have been in a pickle if I used Kosmo’s methodology. I’m not sure if the General Lee is available nowadays. Also, I wouldn’t want to get something with a Confederate flag on it.]

Is Donating My Car a Scam?

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Happy Consumer Protection Friday. (If I keep writing it perhaps others will join in and make it a real thing.)

Typically, I cover MLM scams because I find it interesting how they confuse victims into thinking they are legitimate business opportunities. This week I’m switching it up. I’m going to look into car donation charities. You’ve probably heard those annoying, earworm, jingles sung by kids on the radio (yes Kars4Kids I’m looking at you… and please make an attempt to learn to spell).

Are they good charities or should you put your money elsewhere? Let’s find out.

To start, I should mention that I normally wouldn’t have thought about car donation companies being scams. I’ve gotten rid of one car in the last 15+ years and it was a sale as a private party. I don’t remember how I moved the cars before that.

Car donation scams cross my radar when this LA Times headline piqued my interest: California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris sues to shut down 2 car donation charities.

It’s not very often that I hear about Attorneys General suing companies. It is less often that those companies are charities. The article was full of information that I didn’t know. This was perhaps the gem: “…car donation organizations give a much smaller portion of the donations they receive to charity than similar sorts of fundraising campaigns, spending nearly two-thirds on salaries for their own employees and other administrative costs.”

So if you donate a car worth $9,000, you are really only giving $3,000 to the people who need it.

Is that really a scam? I say that a scam is in the eye of the beholder and my opinion of a scam is not necessarily going to be yours. That said my opinion allows for a very broad definition.

These car charities definitely fit my opinion of a scam. Why? Simply because it isn’t what a consumer (or in this case the charity gifter) would expect. It feels to me that the organization exists to create well-paying jobs for the people who work at the organization… and maybe give away some money to help others in need in order to sleep well at night. Aside from the salaries at the charity, there are also high advertising costs (the radio airtime on those jingles isn’t free) to bring in the money for the jobs and the recipients of the charity. Finally, I presume that the cars often need to be fixed up before being passed on to the recipient.

So then I went to look for more articles. I found this one on Kars 4 Kids, which said:

“According to [Doug White, professor at Columbia University], many car-donation-based charities that operate under this simple model ‘hoodwink’ the public, losing a large portion of the money raised from the sale to the middlemen who recycle the car or sell it on behalf of the charity. Kars 4 Kids is one of the few that does most of the work in house and thus avoids many of these losses.”

I’d definitely call “hookwink” the same as “scam”, wouldn’t you? However, it at least sounds like Kars for Kids might be a good charity because it doesn’t use the middleman, right?

Not so fast.

NBC’s New York affiliate found:

“Financial statements for two nonprofits associated with Kars 4 Kids show the charity lost more than $5 million on real estate investments in 2010. In the same time frame, Kars 4 Kids spent about $6 million on programs for children.”

That makes it sound like it’s “Kars 4 Real Estate Investments” doesn’t it? There’s also this:

“In 2009, attorneys general in Pennsylvania and Oregon forced Oorah to pay $130,000 in fines for failing to disclose the religious purpose in ads.”

You didn’t realize that Kars 4 Kids (which gives its money to Oorah and Joy of Our Youth) is a religious organization. I didn’t either. It’s fine to donate to religious organizations, but maybe people would donate to a religion of their own faith… if the jingle actually disclosed it.

Fortunately, it looks like I’m not the only one to cover this. It seems like BankRate has a consumer warning. About.com is very blunt: “The ads that you see everywhere that offer to help you make a car donation to charity are almost always rip-offs.”

So how do you avoid these car donation scams? I’d personally just avoid donating cars and money to them. If you have a car that is working condition, perhaps you can sell it for cash. Then donate the cash to a reputable charity that you’ve researched and vetted. This way, you know where your money is going.

P.S.

Years ago I created a car site with a friend’s help. I had forgotten about it until this article. It turns out that How to Donate a Car is one of the most popular articles. Now I have to go back and see if the author I hired was accurate.

I Love Gisele’s $700 Coffee Table Book!

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On Monday, I published a Devil’s Advocate post on Pharma Bro. If you were hiding under a rock, he jacked up the price of a medication by 40 times what it used to sell at. The “collective internet” (if there is such a thing) is upset at him… and justifiably so.

There was another bit of “crazy pricing” “news” that slipped under the radar last week. Pharma Bro’s drug wasn’t the only thing that seemed to be jacked up from $18 to the $700 range. News came out that Supermodel Gisele Bundchen will be making a $700 coffee table book available in November. In case you are wondering, it will contain all the things that make Gisele the highest paid model in the world… pictures.

They are probably a little more interesting this one:

Gisele Showing the Love
Gisele Showing the Love. She’s the older one. The younger one is my son’s future wife.

At least with a pharmaceutical, you’d be getting something potentially life saving, right? Who needs a $700 coffee book, rigth? Doesn’t this feel like Kanye’s $120 T-Shirt?

I’m sure the book itself is not cheap to make. Our wedding photo album wasn’t cheap, and it didn’t have nearly the 300 photos in Gisele’s book.

However, the big difference here is what I got to at the end of the sale page. I feel like they buried the lead:

“Gisele is donating all her proceeds from the book to charity.”

And that’s the difference. That’s why people love Gisele and hate Pharma Bro. Sure go ahead and charge an outrageous price, but if it’s optional, the money goes to charity, and you are being straight-up with what you are selling, I’m on board.

I’m not sure if my wife would be on board (and it certainly isn’t in the budget). That only increases your chances of being one of the lucky 1000 people who will own the book, right?

In a related story, I got a tip that a non-profit charitable organization may be able to get a signed football by Gisele’s husband, Tom Brady, to auction off as a fundraiser. I was told this by someone affiliated with such an organization. She may not have meant it this way, but I’ve got a new savings goal for my Digit Account.

I have a feeling my wife might be a little more open to this purchase. However, the next time she’s watching a red carpet show and complains about me watching football, I might remind her that we could have had a Gisele book instead.

How do you feel about donating to charity to get things? On one hand, I feel like donating to charity is it’s own reward. On the other hand, I feel like I might as well get something cool if the thing is of nominal cost (such as a football or a book).

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