How much wealth would you accumulate before giving the rest to charity?

[Mise]

There really isn't a number above which I would give everything to charity. And doing this by wealth, rather than income, makes it even more difficult.

I judge myself as a human being partly on how much I give to charity. A large part of the motivation I have for earning more money is to make it easier for me to give more of it away. The more I earn, the easier it is to give to charity, so the more I give (and more as a % of income, I suppose). The more comfortable I am, the easier it is to justify giving money away. I simply don't think about it as "accumulate sufficient wealth then give the excess to charity". So I can't answer this question.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Here is something to consider, me thinks:

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
― Socrates

 

[Borachio]

Methinks so too.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

Socrates

 

[kochman]

The question is not "When do you start giving to charity?", but "At what point do you have enough wealth that you feel that instead of increasing your wealth further, you just share the rest to some starving child or similar?"


I'm just curious to see if there's some threshold where the unshared wealth is seen as morally wrong. Where is that threshold for you, at today's dollar value?

Well, I'd say that was about $20k less/year than I make now, when I started sponsoring a young girl in another country... It doesn't cost much, $30/month.
I make around the average income of the USA now.

 

[Archbob]

A trillion zillion dollars. Frankly charity organizations take more than 50% in "administrative costs".

I'd probably give more to my local church that sends volunteers to local soup chickens and such.

 

[Borachio]

Double it.

 

[El_Machinae]

A trillion zillion dollars. Frankly charity organizations take more than 50% in "administrative costs".

I'd probably give more to my local church that sends volunteers to local soup chickens and such.

How much of your church's budget is spent on administrative costs?