The simplest way to have more impact across your entire lifespan is to scale up your earnings, but don’t scale up your lifestyle.

This is an “earn to give” strategy, so it should apply to nearly every EA. Even if you are working for an effective cause at an effective organization, you should be earning a living wage that includes enough headroom to tithe. (If you're not, I’m sure folks at the Centre for Effective Altruism would love to hear from you.)

My mom’s parents grew up during the Great Depression, and that scarcity mindset heavily influenced my household growing up. I could never understand the 40% food waste statistic; ours was as close to zero as you can get without contracting a foodborne illness.

We never bought clothing at full retail. They were always on sale, and usually from the clearance racks. I am instinctively drawn to the basements and back corners of stores where they keep the markdowns. I've bought the majority of clothing and household items from Ross and TJ Maxx over my lifetime ( B&M and TK Maxx for the international folks).  I also wore a lot of my older brother’s hand-me-downs. I still buy a lot of things on sale from eBay, Amazon Resale, and even Meh.

Every car I ever owned was small, inexpensive, reliable (no costly repairs), and fuel-efficient—Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Subaru Forester, and now a used Tesla 3.

All of this while my salary went from $50k USD in 1995 up to $250k+ when I retired from the tech industry. So while my income and take-home continued to climb, my expenses rose at a much more modest rate. With the extra money, I started tithing to effective causes mid-career and invested a large percentage of it in stock and bond index funds.

This can be taken too far; Scrupulosity is the term often used in EA to describe this. And I probably took it too far at times, too. I lived in a dilapidated 1-bedroom in-law cottage for 7 years, partly because the rent was so incredibly cheap while I was working at a reduced salary for a nonprofit. Even though I was saving over $20k per year, I wouldn't make that choice today.

If you consider your entire contributions to effective causes over your lifetime, you can make even more impact if you choose not to scale up your lifestyle as your income increases. You can use those additional resources to invest and donate, or even work on a cause you care about later in lifewithout needing to worry about generating income (aka financial independence —FI. See @Rebecca Herbst's Yield and Spread for more on FI in EA.)