Please help me keep the mitzva of maaser!

amother

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:23 pm

I'm embarrassed to admit that I never got a hold of keeping track of maaser. I'm married a few years. I started off by creating a spreadsheet of all gifts and income from me and dh, and another with the tzedakah we gave. It didn't work, I stopped keeping track, and even if I would have continued I wouldn't know how to match up the income with the tzedaka list. I guess I need to ask a rav what to do retroactively about these last few years of marriage. But going forward, I want to be more on top of it. Please, I'll take any suggestions! Please nothing too complicated if possible- I have a very busy frazzled mind. Thank you!

Trademark

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:26 pm

We have a very simple system. Every time we make a deposit we transfer 10% right away to the maaser account. That way we know it's done and we don't have to keep spreadsheets and track it.

amother

Birch

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:26 pm

The simplest is probably to set up a separate bank account for maaser.
Every time you earn money, immediately transfer 10% into that account.
Give all maaser from that account.

amother

Bergamot

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:29 pm

This will only work if you have a consistent income-
We set up another account connected to the account our deposit goes into automatically and set up that every week the day after pay day the correct amount of masser transfers to that account.

I have a special debit card to that account and use that for any tzedakah campaign.
We can also take out cash as needed and if we use from our regular account then we go in and transfer back the correct amount from tzedakah to regular.

If we ever get Tax returns/not regular payment or something like that we’ll do a transfer for that thing on its own.

Makes it easier when everything is streamlined and not have to think about another step every single time

amother

RosePink

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:33 pm

We have a separate account in the same bank as our main account. Every month I go through our main account, and for each deposit of paycheck etc I transfer 10% to the separate account. It takes a few minutes a month. I do each as a separate transfer so I can keep track. Then, we give Tzedakah using the debit card or checks associated with that account.

amother

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:38 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

Thank you everyone!! This idea resonates most with me- my husband really is in charge of the banking and things but I'm a control freak and feel like this is something I want to take care of- so I would want to go through it myself. How do you remember to do it every month? And it doesn't take a long time transferring each item individually?

amother

Bone

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:43 pm

We work with The donors fund.
Transfer our maser there so it’s all tax deductible, and then use their vouchers, card, or transfers to give tzedaka.
Super organized and recorded…was amazing when we had a tax audit on our charity!

amother

Birch

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:50 pm

amother OP wrote:

If you get statements by mail, that can be a great visual reminder to do the transfers. Don't file/throw out the statement until transfers have been done. It can also be easy to see a physical list of deposits and cross them off one by one as you do transfers. If you have online banking, transfers shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes total.

amother

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:51 pm

amother Birch wrote:

That's a good point, maybe we can switch back to mail from paperless

amother

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:53 pm

amother Birch wrote:

Can you lay out for me what that would look like?
Is this it? Sep 1-him- 100
sep 1- me- 100
sep 15 him 200
sep 15 me 300
And transfer 10,10,20, and 30?
I guess where it gets complicated is other "incomes" such as gifts (esp cash, unless we deposit those but we don't always) and other things that we need to ask a shaila about giving maaser on such as money from grandparents that is sort of as support but very generally

amother

RosePink

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 8:57 pm

amother OP wrote:

Set a reminder on one day of every calendar month. Each transfer takes me less than 30 seconds on my bank's app. We have maybe 3-8 deposits a month (how often do you get paid already?) So maximum 5 minutes?

(Actually I don't remember every month. I compare deposits and withdrawals to find the last time I transferred to our Tzedakah account. That's why I do each one individually. But setting a reminder on your calendar is much easier. )

amother

RosePink

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 9:00 pm

amother OP wrote:

Sort of. We pay taxes so tends to look like 53.67 and 77.99 Smile

actually makes it easier to track when we transferred.

Start with income that goes into your bank account, you can always add other gifts etc. later.

amother

Gray

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 9:07 pm

What Trademark said. You don't even have to know math. Move the decimal point of whatever money came in one digit to the left and there you have your ten percent to transfer to a maaser checking account.

amother

Aconite

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 9:17 pm

I keep a running total using a math notebook app that runs calculations and give maaser for each day.

So let's say we have

# Tuesday 19 Elul

$150 // DH income
$25 // babysitting
$100 // my income
total = $275

10% of total rounded up = $28

and I'll send $28 to whatever tzedakah is next on my list or where I'm in the mood of giving.

(I try to give more than I technically need to.)

amother

Birch

Tue, Sep 05 2023, 9:52 pm

amother OP wrote:

For deposits - yes, exactly how you wrote it. Transfer 10% of each (income) deposit.

For cash/support, ask a shayla if you need to give maaser. If yes, what you can do is also transfer to the maaser account 10% of the cash you receive, but do it the day the cash comes in, so that you don't forget. If your bank account doesn't have money available to transfer for the cash income, then you can separate 10% of the cash and put it in a separate envelope marked maaser. Again, not sure if the cash you're describing needs maaser taken from it, ask a shayla.

amother

Saddlebrown

Wed, Sep 06 2023, 5:17 am

We do it the old fashioned way. We have an envelope marked 'maaser', whenever we receive money be it income in cash or income into the bank, or I sell something, or someone gives us a monetary gift not designated for a specific thing, or we receive a benefit into the bank account, I immediately write on the envelope the amount which we owe to maaser (adding any on previous written down amounts), so like "owe $48.50" or whatever. Then the next time I go past the bank, I withdraw the amount, put it in the envelope and cross out or minus from the "owe" amount.
It's easier if cash. Say, my husband comes home and has just been paid in cash for something, he takes the maaser immediately, and we put it into the envelope, no writing required.
It's not complicated at all.
Any money that comes in, take off the maaser and stick it in the envelope.

InnerPrincess

Wed, Sep 06 2023, 10:39 am

My company fortunately does have a system that lets me divide my paycheck. 10% automatically goes into a seperate maaser account.
Once in a while, I use that to 'buy' a checkbook from the donor fund, which we use for meshulachim.
I also have a debit card for it.

mra01385

Mon, Nov 13 2023, 11:58 pm

Now I was told by my rav that if one relies on tzedaka to help ends meet then they are not obligated to give maaser. So if they get food vouchers for yomtov, tuition breaks, Tomchei shabbos etc, then they are not allowed to give maaser. Maaser is something that one should do but is not an obligated mitzvah like mitzvah of giving tzedaka.

amother

Rose

Tue, Nov 14 2023, 12:05 am

mra01385 wrote:

Ibelieve not required. Even people who rely on tzedaka can see bracha from giving maaser, and anyone is allowed to give tzedakah.