This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Vanguard Investments Canada. To learn why I’m a fan of Vanguard, check out my recent blog post. Or, head on over to vanguardcanada.ca for info on their funds, how to start investing, and how you could save thousands of dollars on fees by choosing low fee funds for your investment portfolio.
The other week, a member of my Facebook group asked how people automate (or try to automate) their charitable giving. Well, talk about good timing because for my latest podcast interview I have Leena Patidar on the show, and she’s the founder and CEO of Coin Up. It’s literally an app to help you automatically give money to charity without you having to put much effort in, but still giving you those handy charitable tax receipts and making you feel like you’re doing some good in the world!
As you’ll find out in the interview, Leena is a serial entrepreneur with a killer resume. She could honestly have continued her career and become a very successful and high-paid CEO if she wanted to, but giving back was always something that she was passionate about. So, she eventually developed Coin Up, the merging of her passion for giving back to those in need and her entrepreneurial skills.
When I heard about Coin Up and Leena’s story, I was so excited to have her on the show. Giving back and donating to charity are often overlooked when talking about the elements of personal finance, but giving back really should be a line item in your budget.
You don’t have to donate a lot either. Although many people follow the tradition of donating 10% of their income to charity, I’ve always believed that you should just give whatever you can afford. It can be $50/month or $5/month. Giving anything is better than not giving anything at all, so I challenge you to take a look at what charities are out there that speak to you and make room in your budget to donate a sum to help them with their services.
How Does Coin Up Work?
You’ve probably heard of apps that help you add small additional amounts of money onto your debt or into your investments. Usually how those apps work is every time you make a purchase with your credit or debit card, a percentage of that amount you spent will also be taken out of your savings or chequing account and put onto your debt or investments. It’s basically a way to automatically accelerate your financial goals without you really noticing.
That’s similar to how Coin Up works too. When you sign up with Coin Up, it will round up your everyday credit or debit card transactions and will donate that spare change to your selected charity every month.
For more info on how to set it up, check out Coin Up’s FAQs.
Who Can Use Coin Up?
Currently the app it’s only available in the U.S., but Leena mentions in the episode that they hope it will be available in other countries like Canada very soon.
How Do I Download Coin Up?
You can either download the app from Apple’s app store, or you can sign up on their website. Right now, the app isn’t available for Android.
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