Generosity Is Part of Financial Planning, Too

November has a way of changing the conversation around money. As the year begins to wind down and Thanksgiving approaches, our attention naturally turns toward gratitude—what we have, who has helped us along the way, and the people and causes that matter to us. It is also the beginning of what many organizations call the giving season, when charitable appeals, community needs, holiday drives, and opportunities to help seem to arrive from every direction.

That can create an interesting tension for a household that is trying to be intentional with money.

You may genuinely want to give more, but you may also be paying off debt, building an emergency fund, saving for retirement, preparing for a major purchase, or simply trying to make the paycheck stretch a little farther. Wanting to be generous doesn’t make those other responsibilities disappear.

And that’s precisely why generosity belongs in the financial plan.

Generosity Doesn’t Have to Be an Afterthought

Giving is sometimes treated as whatever money happens to be left over after everything else has been paid for.

For some households, that may be the right approach for a particular season. But for others, generosity is a deeply held value that deserves to be considered alongside their other financial priorities rather than squeezed into whatever happens to remain.

The distinction is important.

If generosity matters to you, waiting until December to figure out how much you can afford to give may put you in the position of making emotional decisions under a deadline. A thoughtful appeal arrives, a friend asks you to support a fundraiser, a local organization needs help, and suddenly you’re trying to determine whether saying yes will interfere with something else your household has already committed to.

Planning doesn’t make generosity less generous.

It can actually make it more intentional.

Generosity Can Look Different in Different Financial Seasons

There isn’t one financial season in which generosity suddenly becomes appropriate.

For someone following Ramsey’s Baby Steps, for example, giving is incorporated throughout the process rather than postponed until someone has completely eliminated debt. Ramsey Solutions currently describes giving as a priority throughout the Baby Steps, including budgeting for giving while working through the early stages. The framework also emphasizes that the amount and form of giving can evolve as a household’s financial capacity changes.

That distinction is worth considering even if you don’t follow the Baby Steps.

A family aggressively paying off consumer debt may not be able to give at the same level as a household with substantial discretionary income. A young family building its first emergency fund may have a very different giving capacity from someone approaching retirement with significant accumulated wealth. Someone experiencing a temporary reduction in income may need to adjust giving for a season without abandoning the value of generosity altogether.

Financial progress happens in seasons, and generosity can have seasons, too.

The goal isn’t to create a competition over who gives the most. It is to make sure that the way you use your money reflects the priorities you say matter to you.

Tithing, Giving and the Freedom to Choose

For people of faith, generosity may have a very specific expression. Tithing—traditionally giving a tenth—is an important practice for many Christians, while others may approach charitable giving differently. In the Ramsey framework, a 10% giving guideline is commonly used, and Ramsey currently describes a tithe specifically as giving to one’s local church while distinguishing it from broader charitable giving.

But the larger financial-planning principle is broader than any particular percentage.

Your giving plan should reflect your convictions, your circumstances, and the priorities of your household. For some, that may mean a consistent tithe to their church. For others, it may include charitable organizations, direct assistance to individuals, volunteer work, or a combination of financial and nonfinancial generosity.

The important thing is to make the decision intentionally rather than allowing generosity to become whatever happens to remain after every other financial priority has been satisfied.

Your Giving Plan Can Start With Your Values

Before deciding how much to give, it can be helpful to consider why you want to give.

Perhaps you care deeply about your local church or faith community. Maybe you want to support organizations working with children, homelessness, veterans, food insecurity, education, disaster relief, or medical research. Perhaps there is a particular organization whose work has personally affected your family.

There is no universal list of causes that everyone should support.

That is precisely the point.

A giving plan should reflect the values of the household creating it.

You might ask yourself: What causes consistently matter to us? Where have we seen meaningful impact? What kinds of needs do we feel personally compelled to respond to? What do we want our children to learn about generosity?

Those questions can turn giving from a series of individual transactions into an expression of what your family believes is important.

Giving Doesn’t Have to Mean “More”

There is another misconception worth challenging: that becoming more generous necessarily means giving away more money.

Sometimes it does.

But generosity isn’t measured exclusively in dollars.

GivingTuesday describes generosity broadly, including money, time, talent, goods, voice, kindness, and other forms of participation.

That opens up possibilities for households at very different stages of their financial journey.

A family aggressively paying off consumer debt may not be able to make the same financial contributions as a household with significant discretionary income. That doesn’t mean generosity has to disappear from the first family’s life.

Perhaps the gift is volunteering.

Perhaps it is providing a meal.

Perhaps it is donating useful items rather than purchasing something new.

Perhaps it is using a professional skill to help a nonprofit.

Perhaps it is inviting someone who is struggling to dinner.

Perhaps it is simply making room in the budget for a small, consistent contribution.

Generosity can take different forms in different seasons.

Generosity Can Also Be Part of Your Legacy

When we talk about financial legacy, the conversation often starts with an inheritance: What will I leave to my children? Will there be something to pass down? How will my assets eventually be distributed?

Those are important questions, but legacy can be much larger than an account balance.

A financial legacy can include the values you model, the causes you support, the way you treat people who have less, the habits you teach your children, and the stories your family eventually tells about how you used what you had.

For those following the Ramsey Baby Steps, this connection is especially explicit in Baby Step 7: Build Wealth and Give. Ramsey describes the final step not simply as accumulating wealth, but as becoming increasingly generous and leaving an inheritance for children and grandchildren.

That is an important distinction.

The goal of building wealth doesn’t have to end with How much can I accumulate?

It can eventually become:

What can I do with what I’ve built?

Perhaps that means helping your children start adulthood without the financial burdens you experienced. Perhaps it means funding education, supporting a ministry, establishing a charitable fund, helping a family member purchase a home, or giving generously to organizations whose work you believe should continue long after you’re gone.

And perhaps the most meaningful legacy isn’t financial at all.

It may be teaching the next generation that money is a tool—one that can provide security, create opportunity, and bless other people.

Giving Season Is Easier When You Prepare Before It Arrives

This is one reason November is such a useful time to think about generosity.

By the time GivingTuesday arrives on December 1, followed by the final weeks of the year, many people are already making decisions quickly. GivingTuesday has grown into a global generosity movement rather than simply a single day of fundraising, and its organizers encourage participation through many forms of giving and community involvement.

You don’t have to wait until December 1 to decide what generosity will look like for your household.

You can decide now.

Set a giving amount or range that fits your current financial season. Identify the organizations or causes you want to support. Decide whether you want to give money, time, goods, skills, or some combination. If you’re married, have the conversation together so that giving decisions reflect shared priorities rather than one person making spontaneous commitments on behalf of the household.

Then, when the requests begin arriving, you have a framework.

You can say yes thoughtfully.

And you can say no thoughtfully, too.

Saying No Doesn’t Make You Ungenerous

This may be one of the hardest lessons about generosity.

There will always be another worthy cause.

Another fundraiser.

Another person who needs help.

Another opportunity to make a difference.

If you believe every legitimate need requires an immediate financial response, it becomes nearly impossible to create a sustainable financial plan.

Generosity requires discernment.

Sometimes the responsible answer is, “That isn’t where we’re able to give right now.”

That doesn’t mean you don’t care.

It means you have recognized that financial resources are finite and that responsible stewardship sometimes requires choosing where those resources can have the greatest meaning for your household.

A planned “no” can actually protect your ability to say meaningful “yeses.”

Generosity Can Teach Something Numbers Can’t

There is also a dimension of giving that doesn’t show up neatly on a budget spreadsheet.

Children who grow up seeing generosity modeled learn that money isn’t only about what you accumulate or what you can buy. They see that resources can be used to help someone else, strengthen a community, support a mission, or meet a need.

That doesn’t require extravagant giving.

It can be as simple as involving children in choosing where a family donation goes, putting together a food basket, volunteering together, or setting aside a portion of their own money for someone else.

Those experiences can shape the way a person thinks about money long after the particular donation is forgotten.

And that may be one of the most valuable forms of legacy a parent can leave.

The Tax Question Can Come Later

There is also a practical financial-planning component to charitable giving, particularly for households making larger contributions or considering more strategic forms of giving.

Depending on your circumstances, the type of asset donated, the organization receiving the contribution, and your overall tax situation can matter. Cash is not the only potential way to make a charitable contribution, and some households may benefit from discussing charitable strategies with an appropriate financial or tax professional before making a significant year-end gift.

That conversation is worth having before the deadline rather than after the donation has already been made.

We’ll take a closer look at some of those year-end giving and tax-planning considerations as GivingTuesday approaches.

For now, the more fundamental question is simply: What does generosity look like in your financial plan?

Gratitude Changes the Question

Perhaps that is why beginning this conversation in November feels appropriate.

Gratitude changes the way we look at what we have.

Instead of beginning with, “How much can I afford to give?” we might begin with, “What are we grateful for, and how do we want that gratitude to influence the way we use what we have?”

Those questions don’t produce a single financial formula.

They aren’t supposed to.

A household that is deeply committed to generosity may make different financial choices than a household focused primarily on becoming debt-free or building long-term financial security. The important thing is that those choices are intentional rather than accidental.

Your financial plan isn’t only a document about retirement accounts, debt balances, emergency savings, and investment returns.

It is also a reflection of what you value.

And if generosity is one of those values, it deserves a place in the plan.

A Thought for November

As Thanksgiving approaches and Giving Season begins, take a few minutes to look at your financial plan through a different lens.

Not just What do we need?

But also:

What do we have that we can share?

Not just What can we afford?

But also:

What matters enough to us that we want to make room for it?

And perhaps one question that reaches even farther into the future:

What do we want our money to say about what mattered to us after we’re gone?

Generosity doesn’t have to compete with responsible financial planning.

When it is thoughtfully planned, it can be part of responsible financial planning—and part of the legacy you leave behind.

Disclaimer

This content is provided for general educational and informational purposes only. It is based in part on Financial Peace University® principles by Ramsey Solutions and is not intended to provide personalized financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Individual financial circumstances vary, and readers should consider their own situation before making financial decisions. Tax laws and regulations are subject to change and may vary based on individual circumstances.

For personalized financial coaching, please contact Otting Financial Coaching. For personalized investment or financial planning guidance, please contact Blueprint Investments and Tax Planning or consult another qualified professional.

© 2026 Otting Financial Coaching

Sources & Further Reading

• Ramsey Solutions, The 7 Baby Steps, including Baby Step 7: Build Wealth and Give.
• Ramsey Solutions, Tithing and Giving, including the distinction between tithing and broader charitable giving.
• GivingTuesday, information about the 2026 GivingTuesday movement and forms of generosity.