How can you divert the money you are wasting to make a difference in the world?

According to an article on USA Today, American’s are completely and utterly blowing their money away. What people are spending most on include things such as coffee, alcohol, lottery tickets, unnecessary clothes, unused gym memberships, and many more things. I have a feeling not many people are aware of how many are suffering from poverty around us. And how easily we can give just the smallest bit, and how big of a difference it would make, yet this is how we are spending our money:

• The average American spends over $1,000 on coffee annually
• America spends around $66 billion (BILLION) in lottery tickets (when the chances of being killed by a vending machine, getting attacked by a shark, going to the ER for a pogo stick injury, and being killed by a flesh eating disease are all more likely than winning the lottery)
• 18% of people use their gym memberships
• The average college student spends $900 on alcohol

Almost 3 billion people lack access to toilets and almost 1 billion lack access to clean drinking water. 2.7 million newborns worldwide die within their first month of life. 179 million infants in the least developed countries are not protected from diseases by routine immunization. 3.2 million children under the age of 15 currently live with HIV. 161 million children do not attend primary school. We have the luxury and choice to spend our extra funds how we want, and instead of helping those in poverty, which will provenly in return benefit our country, we are spending it on unnecessary things because we just want and want and want.

The reason why most people don’t donate is because it is “not the right time” but will it ever be? The excuses seem to run from one to the next: we’re saving for a wedding, we just had a kid and money is tight, our kids are going off to school, our kids are getting married, we’re saving for retirement. People never seem to have $10 to spare on a donation but they spend it on coffee, lottery tickets, fidget spinners, a cool new phone case, or a new shirt for no occasion.

Trust me, I cannot go without coffee either. That is not the point of this article. The point of this is article is to make you more self aware of how easily you spend money on things that are not detrimental to life. Why can’t we spend a little on something else for once? Something that could save a life. Make a difference, feel better about yourself today, donate something, anything.

https://borgenproject.org/dona...

- Kaitlin Quaste