My Disclaimer

How to Receive My Calculator Code


For over 15 years now I have received an increasingly large number of requests for the various Perl, JavaScript and PHP programs I have written for these financial calculations. Initially I gave the stuff out free, then I switched over to a fun idea, trading my scripts for T-shirts and sweatshirts, first for myself and then for my daughter. We have received 43 shirts!

After a while, however, I realized I must have received quite a few hundred dollars worth of shirts and I could barely cram them all into my dresser. I thought I could actually do something worthwhile out of all of this instead. Plus someone suggested allowing people to make donations in my daughter's name, so I took that idea and stretched it a bit.

So in 1996 I started with my idea of Hugh's Charity of the Month.

Initially, I was having people make out a check with a set amount for the number of scripts to one of my select charities of the month. (See list below.)

Starting in December 1996, I automated the process and put people more on an honor basis. After taking in almost $18,000 in contributions I can gladly say that people out on the Internet are truly generous, and it hasn't all gone the way of money grubbing opportunists as many people think. I have also added the other charities back below into the list so people can select who they want to give the money to, but they still only have to send the check to me and I can forward them in groups. I am now on an extensive mailing list of countless non-profit organizations and get more envelopes from them than I could ever use. (I must get at least 20 or so solicitations a week now.)

So, the actual cost to you of my script is still NOTHING. And your contributions are all tax deductible (assuming you itemize as anyone with a mortgage probably does!) Yes, I know I could just offer this all out for free instead, but I want to keep track of who all is getting my scripts since they range from just everyday borrowers who want to see the code, or CGI programmers wanting some examples, to big corporations who modify them to no end and put them on their big, slick, commercial sites.

So, after reading all this, if you still want to get my old Perl scripts,

Use this Registration Form to Get My Scripts

Note the archive primarily contains my old Perl code from the late 1990's and a few PHP examples up to about 2006. I do not update it regularly anymore with my latest calculators.

Included will be brief instructions for installation on Unix or NT servers running Perl and CGI execution enabled. You can also e-mail me for further discussion on the topic.

Remember, charitable giving is good for your taxes, good for the world community, and good for the soul.

Some people also want to send me something. I suggest that anyone wanting to send me something to send an electronic gift certificate to Amazon.com or just some PayPal funds. Fast, easy and much more useful than a fruitcake. I will use any funds sent to me to help improve the local St. Louis economy. I also accept PayPal or gift certificates in exchange for minor modifications to my scripts. I'm cheap! Just ask my wife! I also do a little custom programming on the side. Perl, JavaScript or PHP, I do it all, and following my typical tendencies, I'm cheap, cheap, cheap! (Notice a trend?) Contact me for more information on my pitifully low rates. Anyone who actually wants to contribute to my actual charity (yes, a true 503(c) organization via a donor advised fund) can contact me as well for more information on donating to it. You can also help me out by contributing to my local church, Samuel United Church of Christ, or to my employer, Washington University in St. Louis, both of which are also fully tax-deductible contributions. For an example of my custom work, see my lovely downloadable calculator at: mortgagecalculator.org.

2006 and 2007 and forward...
I hardly receive anything anymore, and am actually surprised when I receive a check in the mail!
2005 Contribution Tally
Wow only $390 from a total of 9 contributors who actually mailed me a check. That puts my grand total in 10 years (1996-2005) to be $19,336.
2004 Contribution Tally
My number of contributers seem to keep dropping off. For the calendar year 2004, I only had 11 contributors, combining to total a sum of $285 dollars. But that is still more than zero, so I will keep up with my appeal for contributions.
2003 Contribution Tally
My total number of contributors for 2003 dropped to only 18, but my grand total was $985 this year, primarily due to one big contribution that accounted for nearly half of that, and another of $100. Now over the past eight years that makes $18,691 total from 652 contributors. It's amazing it has kept on this long!
2002 Contribution Tally
Contributions continue to dwindle. In 2002 there were only 21 contributors with a total of $390. The charity contributions may also have been down since more folks were actually sending some money to myself, since when you are the unemployed breadwinner of a family of four (which I was for the first three months of 2002), you become a charity yourself!
2001 Contribution Tally
Contributions for 2001 were even lower than for 2000 as fewer people need CGI scripts and fewer people feel like donating! My grand total for the whole year was only $812 from 30 contributors (and one gave $250 and another $100). It's not hard to understand why after September 11.
2000 Contribution Table
Here are the final numbers for 2000. Nothing during the Christmas season? How sad! That brings my total in the past five years to over $16,000!
Jan8$155 Jul7$120
Feb10$115 Aug3$30
Mar4$150 Sep8$410
Apr2$30 Oct2$20
May2$20 Nov5$85
Jun1$10 Dec0$0
TOTAL45$1,145
1999 Contribution Table
Since 1999 is over here are new numbers. I only used the folks who paper mailed me checks or who e-mailed me Red Cross receipts as confirmation. For 1999 there was over $2,000 in definite contributions from 78 donors. New grand totals, over 500 contributions with over $15,000!
Jan6$265 Jul7$180
Feb9$280 Aug4$140
Mar5$130 Sep3$40
Apr5$60 Oct14$405
May7$100 Nov6$210
Jun9$145 Dec250
Total78$2,015
1998 Contribution Table
Since 1998 is over here are the total numbers. Now, about 450 contributions total over $13,000!

Jan8$ 180 Jul7$ 95
Feb7$ 210 Aug5$ 105
Mar12$ 195 Sep8$ 220
Oct11$ 220 Apr19$ 335
May7$ 375 Nov7$ 150
Jun9$ 310 Dec7$ 80
TOTAL107$2,475

1997 Contribution Table
This year contributions are way down now that they are not "enforced". But still I am not one to complain. For the year there were a total of 137 contributors. Plus this list does not include contributions to the Institute for Biomedical Computing which are being sent directly there. So over the two year period, over 350 people have sent me checks for over $10,000! Wow! I still have all the envelopes on file too!
Jan14$ 185 Jul8$ 190
Feb14$ 225 Aug14$ 375
Mar15$ 240 Sep8$ 235
Apr21$ 405 Oct11$ 225
May5$ 238 Nov8$ 220
Jun11$ 315 Dec8$ 210
TOTAL137$ 3,063
More stats. For 1997 the charity receipts were as follows:
CharityCountTotal amount
Habitat for Humanity391090
Ronald McDonald Charities32665
American Red Cross29450
Christian Children's Fund16375
Carter Center10180
Others not listed

1996 Contribution Table
MonthCharityContributionsContributors My DonationTotal
Aug-DecIBC$188667N/A$1886
JulyCC$6559$45$700
JuneRMH$84025$90$930
May CARE$70523$75$780
AprilCCF$54017$55$595
MarchARC$69025$75$765
FebHPI$105520$105$1160
JanHFH$91030$80$990
TOTALS $7281216$525$7806

Hugh's List of Charities

Here is my list of the 8 charities I have used in 1996 for people to send in contributions, plus one I added inn 1999:

LIST OF SELECTED CHARITIES:

September - December 1999 Charity of the Month

Taiwanese Association of America - Taiwan Quake Relief Fund

I included the TAA in the Fall of 1999 because: 1) I am of Taiwanese descent and 2) because they had set up a relief fund for the September 1999 earthquake that rocked Taiwan. Now that the quake has been over a while funds are probably not as critical but I am sure they will be well used. The TAA sent the money directly to the local governments to use. Also it appeared the Red Cross was not contributing too much to the Taiwanese efforts.

However, the Quake Fund has now been closed and I don't know if the TAA on its own is really a tax deductible organization, so I am removing it from the list.

August - December 1996 Charity of the Month

The Washington University Institute for Biomedical Computing

Note: October 2000 I am now removing the IBC from my list of charities since they have unfortunately been phased out at Washington University.

This was the department at Washington University I worked in from 1993 through 1997. They did a lot of great work, but due to a myriad of factors they now have ceased to exist. I tried helping by having people send us donations, but alas that was not enough.

July 1996 Charity of the Month

The Carter Center

Well, I'm going out on a limb this time and putting in a new organization with a very visible "political" lean to it. At least it seems to if you just take it by its founders, former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. But the Carter Center is in fact a :
a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute founded by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in 1982. The Center is dedicated to fighting disease, hunger, poverty, conflict, and oppression through collaborative initiatives in the areas of democratization and development, global health, and urban revitalization. At present, the Center operates 13 core programs and initiatives active in more than 30 countries, including the United States
I will not state my own political leanings though my choices of charities here may be a sign (two organizations associated with Jimmy Carter and the American Red Cross, led by Elizabeth Dole!), But I will argue that both the most conservative Republicans and the most liberal Democrats would have to agree that the goals of the Carter Center are admirable, and having such a prominent couple leading it helps to give it more credibility and leverage in the political arena.

June 1996 Charity of the Month

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern West Virginia

Someone had suggested a Ronald McDonald House to me before, and I picked the one in Southern West Virginia because:
  1. My wife and I grew up in West Virginia!
  2. They have a smaller contribution base than most big city locations. Heck, Metropolitan St. Louis has a higher population than the whole state of West Virginia!
  3. They have a nice Web site
Ronald McDonald Houses in general are a great idea, a home away from home for families whose children must undergo extensive medical treatment at a facility far away from home. As the WWW site states:
  • Through Ronald McDonald Children's Charities, the McDonald's Corporation provides seed monies for each new house. Local owner/operator McDonald's also contribute support. Yet, each and every Ronald McDonald House operates independently and autonomously of the McDonald's Corporation.
So don't assume the McDonald's Corporation is keeping them going, because they are not!

May 1996 Charity of the Month

CARE

Remember when everybody used to talk about "CARE packages"? Well, CARE is actually an organization that is still very much around, just not all that much in the news except when they are helping with some big emergency relief effort somewhere. Yes, they are big, but that does not mean they are bad. In fact their size helps make them quite efficient. Their WWW site is also very informative.

May is definitely the month to name CARE as my charity since they celebrate 50 years in May. Wow, since 1946; that's pretty impressive.

April 1996 Charity of the Month

Christian Children's Fund (now ChildFund)

Okay, you are thinking, "Oh no, not the one Sally Struthers is always promoting!". Yes, that is the one, at least the one for which she USED to be the main spokesperson. Now she is the spokesperson for a different but similar organization (Save the Children). No matter what you think about Sally Struthers CCF does indeed make a difference in the lives of many children around the world. CCF is one of the original child sponsorship organizations and the best run one around. We are sponsors and feel it definitely is worth it, especially to give our 7 year old daughter a more personal view on why it is important to give freely to others.

March 1996 Charity of the Month

American Red Cross

Yes, for March I am staying American and what could be more American than the American Red Cross? With the never ending unslaught of natural disasters hitting the U.S. (is it my imagination or are there more and more of them these days?) the Red Cross definitely needs constant support. Not just of money, but of people, blood and energy. So send me checks for the Red Cross and volunteer your time and yourselves to them if you can!

February 1996 Charity of the Month

Heifer Project International

(Yes, I like International charities. I will include more national ones later.) HPI is an organization I learned about at church, but it really steps far beyond religious bounds. In their own words, they have

helped more than 1 million impoverished families worldwide become more self-reliant through the gift of livestock and training in their care.

For more information on them visit their WWW site.

January 1996 Charity of the Month

Habitat for Humanity

An appropriate first charity for this the "home mortgage" place on the internet. Of course, since the home buyers at Habitat get no interest loans they don't need the calculator! It's a great idea and a great organization.

More Charities

List of St. Louis area charities I personally support

List of other charities recommended by users of the calculators

Random lyrics of Hugh's favorite artists

Show me what it means
To live my life, a sacrifice
If only I would realize
How much it took to pay the price
I know I'd always give
Everything to You

 Jeremy Camp, "What It Means"
from the 2006 release "Beyond Measure".

Hugh Chou