I got lucky

 It always seemed a bit unfair that I was born into an educated, white, middle-class family in the United States.  Given all the other circumstances I could have been born into, I got very lucky!  So it's always been important to me to help other people get a leg up.

When my husband and I were still in college, we started to look seriously at how much of our income we really wanted to keep.  Now, in our late twenties, we're able to give about half our income.  We find that we still have an excellent quality of life living in a city we love and spending a lot of time with family and friends.  And we have the satisfaction of knowing that we're helping other families around the world have healthy lives.

One thing we've been interested in lately is finding the charities that do the most good – after all, we want to actually be helpful and not just feel good about ourselves!  So it's important to us to find charities that are good at what they do.  We've found GiveWell very helpful in making decisions about where to give.

I've found that giving a lot is not nearly as difficult as people think — in fact, it can be a lot of fun.  I write about philanthropy and the good life at Giving Gladly.