I believe that donating is better than saving, but I also believe it is wise to have some savings. There are some related posts, but as far as I can tell not about these questions:
- How much money do you save, and why? (E.g. 6 months of your usual costs of living, anything that doesn't go into my 10% donation, nothing at all)
- What do you do with your savings? (E.g. savings account at bank, cash in a vault, ETF, real estate)
I would like to learn how other effective altruists are handling this, and maybe change my behaviour if I hear better alternatives.
Here are my own answers as an example, and in case others are interested in the same information:
How much money do you save, and why?
I donate 10% of my income, and save whatever is left after regular costs. I keep those savings because I might want to become the owner of a house in the future and I probably can't get a mortgage that covers the full costs of the house, furthermore there might be times when I don't have any income.
What do you do with your savings?
50% is in a regular bank savings account, 30% is in investment funds from Triodos (the most ethical bank I could find), 20% is in loans to people in developing countries through Mintos (as far as I know regular banks in developing countries are not very good at helping people start businesses, which I believe would help their development).
Thanks for sharing!
How do you choose index funds? Do you try to take into account how much good or bad they do through their investments?