financegirl on Mar 10th 2008 Charity
I like the idea of random acts of kindness, and hope to do more of them when I’m debt-free.
This afternoon, I went through the McDonald’s drive-thru and tried to buy lunch for the car behind me. I thought this was fairly straight-forward, and I’ve heard of people doing it before.
Well, I get up to the window, and the guy says, “That will be $5.26.” So I tell him I want to pay for the next person too, and he says, “OK, we can do that.” He takes the money for my order, but then when he tries to look up the next order, he tells me that he’s sorry, but he doesn’t know what the next order is because they get mixed up (since it’s one of those two-lane drive-thrus and people don’t always end up in line).
“OK, thanks anyway,” I say, and sheepishly drive away, sure that the person behind me heard the whole thing.
I guess I could have told the worker to just pick an order, and then that would be the person who gets their meal paid for, but I didn’t think of that.
Maybe I’ll have to try this again at another place.
financegirl on Mar 3rd 2008 Charity, Reviews
I just watched Oprah’s new reality TV show, The Big Give.
I really wanted to like this show. After all, it’s a reality show where the contestants compete to give money away, not to win it. I loved last year’s Oprah show where each audience member was given a $1,000 debit card and told to spend the money on others, documenting the whole thing using hand-held video cameras. So why does The Big Give feel so…icky?
This show treats giving like a competition. The contestants are in it to win it. There’s all the classic Apprentice reality-TV cliches: challenges, randomly chosen teams, judges and eliminations. “Give Big or Go Home.” Is this supposed to be inspiring? Do I need to have a “creative presentation” in order to make a difference in someone’s life? What if I don’t have connections to Jamie Fox, a rich uncle and one of those oh-so-convenient Sprint cell phones? What then, Oprah? Am I a failure in the game of charitable giving?
Sure, there were some tear-jerker moments. But I kind of forgot about all that once the Naked Chef told that guy with the crazy fashion-show-happy partner to “grow some balls.” Get out!
