Until recently I thought Julia and I were digging a bit into savings to donate more. With the tighter funding climate for effective altruism we thought it was worth spending down a bit, especially considering that our expenses should decrease significantly in 1.5y when our youngest starts kindergarten.

I was surprised, then, when I ran the numbers and realized that despite donating 50% of a reduced income, we were $9k (0.5%) [1] richer than when I left Google two years earlier.

This is a good problem to have! After thinking it over for the last month, however, I've decided to start earning less: I've asked for a voluntary salary reduction of $15k/y (10%). [2] This is something I've been thinking about off and on since I started working at a non-profit: it's much more efficient to reduce your salary than it is to make a donation. Additionally, since I'm asking others to fund our work I like the idea of putting my money (or what would be my money if I weren't passing it up) where my mouth is.

Despite doing this myself, voluntary salary reduction isn't something that I'd like to see become a norm:

• I think it's really valuable for people to have a choice about where to apply their money to making the world better.

• The organization where you have a comparative advantage in applying your skills will often not be the one that can do the most with additional funds, even after considering the tax advantages.

• I especially don't think this is a good fit for junior employees and people without a lot of savings, where I'm concerned social pressure to take a reduction could keep people from making prudent financial decisions.

• More issues...

Still, I think this is a good choice for me, and I feel good about efficiently putting my money towards a better world.

[2025-08-16: I've now increased my reduction from $15k to $135k going forward, on an annualized basis, as a result of (a) my salary increasing and (b) Julia's employer deciding to no longer support voluntary salary reductions.]

[1] In current dollars. If you don't adjust for inflation it's $132k more, but that's not meaningful.

[2] I'm not counting this towards my 50% goal, just like I'm not counting the pay cut I took when I stopped earning to give.

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