I got a solicitation today from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, probably because I gave them a small donation back in August or so when a neighbor who knew someone that died from leukemia asked for one and that put me on their mailing list. It contained a nickel, as well as a page and a half of Ziggy-adorned address labels.

Free Money Finance has a great guest post about giving generously during hard times. I encourage everyone to read it.

One particular section, however, has elicited a few negative responses.

I was catching up on some of my personal finance blog reading when I came across a post by Meg at All Financial Matters about whether and when spending money is good or bad (which itself is a reaction to this post at Living Almost Large). Meg's conclusion is basically that, of course spending itself is not wrong, but spending excessively is definitely wrong. In her words:

Jim over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity asks whether his readers give to panhandlers (he doesn't). I don't give to panhandlers, but then there aren't very many in the small upstate town where I live. I doubt I would give to them in a larger area either.

Happy to announce that my story of How petty greed translates to more fees was added to the Carnival of Money Stories #32, hosted by The Baglady. There are some other good lessons to be learned from the stories in this week's carnival, so if you haven't read through it already, check it out.

I got an e-mail today from TradeKing describing a temporary referral program in which TK would give $100 to Toys for Tots for each referral. It got me thinking about other similar philanthropic incentive programs I've seen, like:

This post is a response to two posts from Free Money Finance. Please read them before reading my comments below.

• Americans Give Record Amounts -- Still Paltry Totals
• Taxes are Paid, Not Given

I'm not targeting FMF, as I've seen these types of comments elsewhere. But since he mentions the whole "taxes vs. giving" issue, I'll use his posts to launch my own commentary.