Give it away. Give it away. Give it away now!

One of the big news items this week was Mark Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg became a father for the first time – a baby girl, Max. Even bigger than Zuck becoming a father was the announcement he made along with the birth news.

Zuckerberg wrote an open letter to Max with his wife Pricilla Chan. In it they talk about their hopes for their daughter and the world she is entering. To accomplish the dreams they have they’ve determined to donate 99% of their Facebook shares to charity (through their own Chan Zuckerberg Initiative). This amounts to nearly $45 billion…with a B.

News reports shared that they will begin to sell off these shares at a tune of $1 billion/year. That’s billion with a B…a year.

This is indeed news worthy.

30. The new 70.

I first heard this report while listening to NPR. The report mentioned some of the initial feedback from around the world including billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg made an astute observation about Zuckerberg and the generation he represents,

The traditional approach to giving – leaving it to old age or death – is falling by the wayside, as it should. Mark’s decision shows that when it comes to philanthropy, 30 is the new 70.

I love that thought…30 is the new 70. I love the idea the traditional approach to giving is falling away.

The Reverse Debt Snowball

Kia and I have gone through the Dave Ramsey, Financial Peace University course a couple of times. We’ve read his books and listened to his radio show. More importantly, we’ve followed his advise, and other than our house, we are completely debt free.

Since we are debt free, we’ve taken his advise in reverse. We took the debt snowball concept (determine all your debt, and one by one, pay off your debt lowest to highest), and applied it to things we wanted to do. We bought a car, installed a fireplace, fixed my son’s floor, went on an incredible anniversary trip, and paid for a missions trip to Mexico for our entire family.

It’s been so cool to see what we can do when we simply dream, plan and save. It’s also lead me to dream about giving. In my case, I want 40 to be the new 70.

So for 2016, we’re creating a new reverse debt snowball, and big dreams for giving will be on that list.