Just a minor tweak to the building your own charity idea.

Jack’s said a few times that starting one’s own charity and controlling its actions unofficially to have more perfect charitable giving is what rich people do, albeit more eloquently than I did (and I might have gotten a detail wrong; no disrespect intended.)

In my experience, that’s close, but it’s usually easier to buy an existing charity that got started and basically abandoned, then change the name etc. It’s like buying a restaurant for its liquor license. Getting 501(c)(3) in place can be a lot of red tape.

I haven’t done it personally. More commonly done certainly doesn’t mean better. But that’s what I’ve seen more commonly done, and it might at least be worth looking into if you’re thinking of starting a 501(c)(3) organization.

Love the show.

Credit Cards – I usually pay cash for gas, but sometimes I use my paypal card debit as a credit card. I usually keep a small amount in my paypal account. Last year, I was heading out of town with a daughter, and used my card at the pump. Few hours later I get an email notification that my card was declined at a local discount store, along with a suggestion that I upgrade my card as a credit so such purchases would not be declined.

When free that night I called paypal, I let them know I did not make the charge (which never went through), that I even wasn’t in town to make such a purchase. Paypal asked the last charge I made, which was the gas pump. Their agent them told me that she never pays for gas at the pump because of this issue. She also asked how long I was out of town for, did I need my paypal card before I got back home. They wanted to make sure they didn’t leave me stranded. Easy for them to fix, they simply cancelled my card and mailed me a new one.

I decided it made sense to keep my paypal account set up this way. I keep $100 of so in there and transfer the balance into my checking

Regarding credit cards, we had a friend whose debit card was compromised and used at a site that was associated with Fry’s. The guy’s bank account was cleaned out, and even though it was a debit card, the bank fixed it but it took time. They never figured out where his card was originally compromised, but they did figure out that Outpost (or whatever that site was called) authorized the charges without having the correct zip code and other data that should have caused the charge to get declined.