Olympia, discounted

This isn't the most glamorous thing to dive into, but I thought I'd talk a little about charitable giving, on both a local and larger scale. I do all of my major charity donations online, making one donation per day between Christmas and New Year's Eve. A lot of charities offer gift-matching during this time of year, and my husband's employer does, too. Plus, having a set date for giving helps me organize the related paperwork, and makes it less likely that I'll forget to write off that $50 I donated in March or whenever on my taxes. This year I chose seven nonprofits that I value and, ah, worry might be even more at risk after January 20th.

Environmental issues:

The Conservation Fund
Environmental Defense Fund

Refugee Support:

Catholic Relief Services
UNICEF: United States Fund

Journalism support:

Wikipedia
My local NPR affliate

Plus-one:

Engineers Without Borders My dad, who died of cancer in 2013, was a geotechnical engineer, and I donate to this organization both to honor him and also because it's nice to have at least one item on this list that's intended to improve something, rather than preserve something.

I also volunteer at my local food bank, and I strongly encourage other people to do so. It's fun! And there are SO MANY snacks! And you get to help people, while simultaneously diverting an insane amount of unnecessarily thrown-out food from the waste stream! But if you don't have time to actually work at your nearest food bank, it's easy to call or e-mail them and ask if there's anything specific they need.