Did you roll your eyes when you saw that title? It’s OK to admit it if you did.

As a child, I was routinely told charity begins at home, and therefore never really got round to doing much about ‘giving’. While my parents didn’t struggle for money, they were not rich by any means. I therefore grew up with the belief that giving to charity is something rich people do; something I’ll consider doing next year; or something I’ll do when I’m not in debt.  But I’ve slowly discovered giving to charity isn’t limited to donating £2 a month to the RSPCA or PDSA or WWF or whatever advert pops ups on your TV in the next 30 minutes.

Charitable giving doesn’t have to involve parting with your cash at all.

There are hundreds of ways you can give meaningfully. Organisations are crying out for volunteers with all sorts of skills from IT, to communication, to just being an ‘adult’ at kids clubs. When you donate your time rather than the loose change in your pocket, you get to see first hand at the difference you are making.

If you are 16-25 years old, V Inspired is the best place to start:

“vinspired is the volunteering site for 16-25 year olds in England. We’re here to help you find your perfect volunteer placement, and we’ll make sure you get recognised for the impact you make on your community. How much time you give is up to you, from a few hours or the odd evening to summer jobs or full-time placements.”

If you’re outside of that age-range, or want to try something totally different:

Community First Responders work with their local NHS Ambulance Trusts to provide life-saving treatment to those in their immediate vicinity, bridging the gap between that first 999 call and the ambulance arriving. Full training and generally (dependent on the individual trust), full equipment is provided.

Police Special Constables give up their free time to police their community, but are otherwise fully-fledged, fully trained police officers who do it because they want to help people, and not because of the paycheck. It need not take over your life either: 4 hours a week is the minimum you need donate.

Volunteer firefighters do the same for the fire and rescue service in their area.

The examples above are great if you’re time rich but cash poor. But what if you’re cash poor and time poor? You may be working 2 or even 3 jobs trying to dig yourself out of debt and have absolutely no time left whatsoever, beyond the bare minimum needed to sleep.

There are still options available if you want to give something back, and one of the most rewarding for so little time is to donate blood.  Each donation you give can save up to 6 lives. It takes a maximum of an hour to do every 14 weeks, and you get free juice, tea, coffee, biscuits and crisps in exchange.

There is almost no better way to spend just one hour of your life and yet help so many. I put this off and put this off for almost a decade, coming up with a variety of excuses along the way; “I’ll do it next time”, or “I don’t like needles” or one of a thousand other excuses I came up with to appease myself. In July 2009 I ran out of excuses and gave blood for the first time. It was an amazing experience, and knowing that you help directly save lives is a feeling you just cannot beat.

The National Blood Service website has more details if you want to get involved.

Want some other takes on it? Trent over at The Simple Dollar (another personal finance blog that I read regularly) has a different view – he budgets money for giving to charity. If you can afford to do it, then do it! Cash rich, time poor is the ideal excuse to give raw cash to causes you identify with. Trent is further along in his money goals than I am, and I hope one day to follow his lead.

Free Money Finance has a couple of posts on the topic of giving, and ultimately does both. They follow the same principle of Trent by budgeting for giving financially, and also volunteer their time.

Charity doesn’t begin at home. Only financial well-being begins at home.

• Cash ISAs vs. Regular Savings Accounts
• Frugal Friday! Cutting Electricity Bills
• 2p Petrol Duty Increase Coming
• Petrol Set to Hit £1.50/litre by Summer
• Say Hello to Kublax

This is part 2 of how this blog came into being. You can catch up on part 1 here.

As I sat in the empty house alone, I was so close to jumping in my car and using the remaining quarter-tank of diesel to get to Beachy Head (see inset picture) to jump off and end it all that it still scares me today. The one thing that kept me from doing it was my mum.

I used to have a fantastic relationship with my natural parents, but since getting married in 2005, both relationships had taken a tumble. It wasn’t that I loved them less, it was just visiting them would cause arguments with my wife. In the end, it was easier to not visit. This sounds terrible now, but it made sense at the time; I don’t think I actually spoke to my dad for almost 2 years towards the end of my marriage. What kind of son did that make me?

Mum kept in contact by text message, and I’d pop round in secret occasionally, while my wife slept. When I told my mum where I was on that cold winter day: practically homeless, a marriage in tatters, up to my eyeballs in debt and wondering about the purpose of life, she saved me there and then. “Come home, you’re always welcome here”.

And that’s what I did. I boxed up the few possessions I had, and moved back home.

My mum and step-father made me visit a solicitor a few days later to discuss my divorce and my financial matters. As it was I didn’t know how much I owed, to whom, or on what terms. All I knew was that according to my wife, I never earned enough and I was always in my overdraft not long after being paid. This was always a shock; I’d work more and more overtime to try and get ahead, and always end up with the same result. One month I cleared almost £3,000 after tax, yet still kept falling backwards.

Perhaps I should have taken charge, demanded to see my account for myself, but I didn’t have any reason to believe what my wife was saying was anything but the truth. Marriage is about trust, after all.

It was only after I moved back in with my mum that I cracked open a small pile of bank statements I’d found while moving out, checked online banking, got to grips with my credit card bills and loans that I managed to take stock. I owed personally, just over £15,000. Fifteen thousand pounds. That was a massive shock. But, by all accounts I was in a better position than of my wife; it seems she must therefore have owed £35,000 if our joint was somewhere around the £50,000 mark. But the true horror came as I discovered for the first time why, despite being on good incomes, we were so immensely in debt.

My wife was an online gambler. I knew she played the odd bingo card online, but I didn’t know the precise level of her play. It appeared that when she had emptied her account she’d start on mine, or vice versa. I was finding hundreds upon hundreds of pounds leaving my account to various gambling-related websites month in, month out. When we didn’t have any money left, she’d use my credit rating to get loans and credit cards to top us up. And so it continued and continued until both our paychecks were going on servicing interest payments and nothing else. No wonder our relationship failed, in hindsight.

And worst of all, until that point, I didn’t know why it had failed.

So, on advisement, I registered my separation with my solicitor in January 2009 and began divorce proceedings. It hurt to do it, but felt good at the same time.

The first positive, forward step I had taken in my life for a very long time.

Continue to Part 3…

• The Credit Crunch Has Positives
• A Humble Return
• Is Debt Worth It? Does It Matter?
• 10 Economic Predictions for 2010
• My Net Worth Update - Sep 2009