fair trade ethics?

When I buy coffee and tea to use at home, I make a point of always buying fairly traded brands. When I make teas and coffees at work, I always use the fair trade option rather than the Nescafe. I pride myself on these choices.

Yet when I go to a coffee house in town, I never ask for fair trade coffee. I never really bother to buy fair trade chocolate as I prefer cheaper Cadburys that I used to eat as a kid. I don't buy fair trade bananas, or flowers, or in fact anything else.

Should I be hanging my head in shame instead of being proud of my fair trade coffee round at work?Probably.

I don't know about you, but its hard to be consistently ethical, even when I've decided that something is important. Its so easy to just buy the cheapest brand, or forget to ask for the better option. From now on, I'm going to try harder. I will be attempting to trade as fairly as possible. But when no fair trade product is available in the shop should I avoid the un-fair trade products or should I buy them anyway as surely some of the money goes to the third world producers?

Being an ethical shopper is certainly never easy for me.

atheists should tithe

Actually I don’t mean that atheists should tithe at all, I mean that humanists should donate a reasonable proportion of their income to charities, but it wasn’t as catchy.

An atheist, is strictly speaking, a person who doesn’t have a belief in God. This statement implies that atheism says nothing about morality or how one should live one’s life. However, many atheists would also consider themselves humanists. Humanists basically believe that humans are on our own in the world and that we need to make the best of it. This means that humanists specifically rule out appeals to deities of any kind. This is why I really mean that humanists should be doing something.

Tithing is the practice of giving 10% of your income and/or wealth to the church - it is implicit that this is the church that you belong to. Its therefore unlikely that atheists or humanists are going to think that this is a good idea at all; because they’re not, as a group, big believers in churches (or other places of religion). However, the practice of tithing was partially used to support the good works of the church to the poor and 10% is a reasonably large quantity, one that should certainly make a difference. So that’s why I used the word tithe.

There is a general reason why everyone should give some of their wealth or income away, regardless of their position on God(s). That is that quite simply, it’s a nice thing to do.

For those people in the world who have consider themselves members of a religion with a scripture inspired by God (or Gods), there is a second reason. God said so. If you look in your scripture I’ll put money on you finding it there – although perhaps not in those exact words. The rest of this post isn’t aimed at you, - although you are more than welcome to read and comment on it - so if you don’t agree, please consider that first.

But what if you are an atheist (humanist), do you have any compelling reasons to give money away?

Well, if you are a humanist, this existence is all of the life and experience you are going to get. It also means that:

• Nothing is going to improve the lives of the poor and suffering, if nobody, anywhere does anything about it.
• Nobody is going to save the environment if some humans don’t do it.
• People are going to die early from disease and accidents unless some people do something. And when they die, that’s it.

Christian Aid has the slogan “We believe in life before death”, humanists would add “and that’s all the life we get”. So it should be more important to humanists than to anyone else, to extend everyone’s life and quality of life.

There is a general rule in life that if nothing is going to get done unless somebody does something about it, you’d better start doing it yourself or nobody will. So, humanists should be donating serious amounts of money. Starting today (yesterday if you have a time machine). Just as the religious are exhorted to act on their beliefs, so should the humanists. And part of that means putting your money where your mouth is.

If you truly believe that there is no one but us to turn to, then act as if no one else can help us with our problems and start contributing to the solutions by giving money (and lots of it).

money scripts: voting (part 1)

In common with a lot of people, I’ve grown up with some scripts relating to money. By this I mean things that I have absorbed in childhood that I have never questioned. Some of those are related to voting.

first voting script
As a child, the importance of voting was drummed into my head. Interestingly, not because that’s how to get your voice heard, but because men and women died trying to get universal suffrage in Britain. Now, that’s all well and good, but how is it related to personal finance?

Well, in order to vote in the United Kingdom, you have to be on the Electoral Register. The electoral register is also used by credit reference agencies to confirm your address and not being on it damages your credit score. So there we go, registering to vote will improve your credit score.

isn’t it nice when your values make financial sense

I believe that potentially irrevocable global warming is underway and that we all should do as much as possible to reduce our destruction of the planet. I’m not asking you to agree with me on this. If you disagree strongly, I won’t change your mind and you won’t change mine. If you think other things are more important then so be it.

Given that I feel this way, is nice to know that a good way of being environmentally friendly is to cut down on the amount of energy I consume. I no longer leave the tv on standby, I use compact flourescent bulbs for lighting, and I switch off lights and appliances when I no longer need them on. When I last bought a kitchen appliance (a washing machine) I chose one that was A rated for energy that had the features that I particularly wanted.

This is a good way of being environmentally friendly from a personal finance point of view because it saves me money.

Using less energy by switching the tv off properly and switching off lights and appliances costs nothing and reduces my electricity bills. Using compact flourescent lightbulbs is generally calculated to be cheaper overall, even though they cost slightly more to buy in the first place and the prices are coming down all the time. The washing machine I bought not only had the features I was looking for, but was also the second cheapest machine in the shop – I could have bought less efficient appliances for more money.

Its so nice not to have to make a compromise between what I believe to be the right thing to do and what is good for my bank balance.