I agree with all the posts.We should be all free to give [or not give] as we like. Well, of course we are, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it.Three years ago, our doorbell rang and DH answered it. I heard the voice of somebody who sounded elderly and hectoring in equal measure.After a while he came in to the room and said 'who IS that woman?'I looked out of the window and saw a thin old lady that I had never seen before. DH thought it must be a neighbour. He had given her £5! She said that she did dotty things to raise money for charity, and she wanted the money NOW not afterwards as she couldn't possibly come back to every house again.I told him not to be so stupid next time.I since found out that she really did do dotty things to raise money for charity, but far from being a neighbour lived in another village entirely. She told him that all his neighbours had given her £5, thus embarrassing him into giving the same amount BEFORE she had even done the event [which she enjoyed doing and all the associated kudos.]She came back last year, I had forgotten who she was but we had visitors and I was serving a meal, so asked her to call another time and she was outraged!Went off muttering. She came again last month, and this time I told her that we didn't sponsor anybody except our own relatives and friends, and she tried to argue with me about this, unbelievable.I had to say goodbye firmly and close the door, and she went off muttering again.Now, she is probably eccentric, and she does raise money doing whacky stuff, but she also hectors people into giving her money, even naming the amount of money that she, a total stranger, wants! You can't give money to everyone, and had she been a close neighbour then we would have done, if only for the sake of harmony,
but we limit this form of giving to people that we know well.I don't think we should feel guilty about it either, it's our own hard earned money after all. As to supermarkets, I am sick of having to run the gauntlet of people shaking buckets at me both inside and outside, when already struggling with a large trolley, a shopping list and a cross DGS1 who wants to go home and play chicken invaders on the computer.