Save the world or save your kids?

We're in the process of moving house and one of the first considerations when choosing where to move was a good local school. Consequently we've really stretched ourselves to buy the place we want.

As a result I will have to stop my monthly charitable donations. I've been making these for years and have always thought that if a self-confessed middle-class, middle-aged man like me can't donate something then who can. But now I find myself abandoning these charities in the name of my son.

And similar choices go on daily. I find myself putting the Fairtrade and re-cyclable goods back on the shelf on the grounds that they are "just too expensive".

So my message to any twenty- or thirty-somethings out there is this: accrue your brownie points early and hope you've done enough to avoid bad karma by the time you have a mortgage that feels heavier to carry than your one-year-old after 5 miles.