Two hundred and sixty dollars think about that amount of
money and what you could buy with it. Let’s use Walmart for example and let’s
say you have a sales tax of 6% like I do in Michigan. You can get an HP 11.6”
Stream Laptop, a Canon PIXMA MG2920 Inkjet All-In-One printer, and a PNY 16GB
Compact Flash Drive all for $259.67.
Now think about how long it takes you to make $260. Say you
get paid minimum wage and you work a part time job of 25 hours every week.
Again I’m going to use Michigan’s minimum wage. After the minimum taxes are
taken out it’s about $167.98 every two weeks, so it would take one month to get
over this amount.
Now imagine not having a job, not having a semi-steady
paycheck. Imagine suddenly having to leave your home because someone in the
household is hurting your or your child(ren). The thing is this happens more
often than we would like to believe. One day you could lose everything and the
only option is a shelter, whether it’s a homeless shelter or a women’s shelter.
These shelters aren’t there to make money, they are there to help people. Most
of them rely almost completely on donations.
I get it; we can’t all donate $50 a month or more. It’s just
not feasible for everyone, however we can do something. I’m a couponer, I get
1-2 papers every week, costing about $3 at most. I use these coupons to help my
family afford things such as food and hygiene items. However, I don’t need 4
shampoos every week. It takes my family about a month or two to go through one
bottle.
I can get shampoo and soap for under $1 nearly every single
week, often I can get it for less than $0.50. So let’s say I decide to set
aside $5 a week making that about $260 every year. I decide to put that towards
donating items to shelters. Let’s say I get 2 shampoos and 2 3-count bars of
soap every week for $5. That’s 8 items every week or 416 items per year for
$260.
Say one family of three uses a bar of soap and a shampoo
every month that’s 8 families that can get enough shampoo to last a year and 26
families that can have enough bars of soap to last a year.
Five dollars a week doesn’t seem like much to most people.
For a lot of us that doesn’t seem like a whole lot. However, for a person who’s
without a house and/or a job and is relying on shelter’s that’s a lot. Most people
think about donating money towards shelters. While that’s awesome because it
can help feed and put a roof over people’s heads, it often doesn’t cover things
for personal hygiene.
So I’ve made a challenge to myself and to anyone who reads
this. For two months donate $5 worth of personal hygiene products to a local
shelter, even if it’s 5 VO5 shampoos that cost $0.97 each. I plan on making a
trip to the local women’s shelter every two weeks to donate the items that I’ve
collected for them.
The thing is once you get started donating you won’t want to
stop, because not only are you helping someone but you’re helping yourself. I
believe in karma, for every good deed you do, one will happen for you.
I hope you all take some time and think about this. I hope
the week goes quick and easy for you all. Have an awesome day!
♥♥♥,
Aub
No comments:
Post a Comment