Railway Children helps 24,000 street children around the world

•  Use Give or Take to shop and donate cashback to charity.

• Give by using a charity credit card
• Give more in charity shops by signing up to your local charity shop's Gift Aid Scheme  

Sign up to your charity shop's Gift Aid scheme

When you take your unwanted stuff to your local charity shop, ask them if they have a Gift Aid scheme in place. You could help them make even more money without any cost to yourself.

For example, for the last eighteen months, Sue Ryder Care has been pioneering an innovative scheme called 'Sign on the Line' which asks taxpayers donating unwanted goods to sign up to the Gift Aid scheme. It means for us at the end of this financial year an extra £1m that they wouldn't have had. This enables the charity to collect an extra 28p in tax relief for every per pound raised by selling the items in its shops.

It has been possible to collect Gift Aid on cash contributions for several years. But Sue Ryder Care was the first charity to devise a scheme which would work for physical donations. Donors are asked to sign a short Gift Aid Declaration form which confirms that they are a UK tax payer, and gives the charity permission to sell the goods on their behalf.

The British Heart Foundation launched its Gift Aid scheme across its 530 shops in September 2007, and has so far raised £700,000. The animal charity PDSA's Gift Aid initiative has signed up almost 50,000 members since it went live last September, allowing it to claim almost £250,000 from HMRC.

Help the Aged, which has operated a similar system in its 364 shops since last April says it has made a "fantastic difference" to the charity's income. Oxfam, which already collects Gift Aid on high value items, hopes to offer the facility across all donations by the end of the year.

So, next time you go in with a bulging bin-bag of clobber, ask if they have this scheme and sign the form!

Give to charity by shopping!

Another way to give to charity without noticing is through the shopping website Give or Take. They have around five hundred retailers on the site and you can earn up to £60 cashback per purchase when you buy things through their site.

Tantalisingly they offer you the opportunity of keeping the money or donating it to charity. It’s up to you how generous you’re feeling! They have links through to fashion sites, homeware, DVDs, CDs, hotels, cosmetics, mobile phones and all kinds of goods and services. It's shopping with less guilt, which can't be bad!

Give through your credit card

You can give to all sorts of charities by using a charity credit card. They all work in different ways but generally, the more you use them, the more the charity gets paid. Here are some of the best that we've found.

Biggest initial donation - Halifax

Halifax offers two charity credit cards, one for the NSPCC and the other for Cancer Research. When you first use either card, the Halifax will automatically donate £20 to the charity the card represents and thereafter will donate 0.25% of your purchases to charity.

Both have a six-month interest-free offer on purchases and balance transfers, but after this you’ve only got 59 days interest-free to pay off what you spend. Iff you don’t make this, the rate you pay is 16.9% APR which is pretty high. 

Best for continuous spending - American Express Red

The American Express Red card is part of the Red initiative raising funds for people in Africa who are dealing with HIV and AIDS.  The scheme has loads of contributors who produce special Red products and give a percentage of their sale price to the global fund to help fight aids in Africa. 

American Express gives a whopping 1% (three times more than the others) on all purchases to Red.  There are also some bonus offers, like a 10% discount at Thorntons.co.uk. 

This card is certainly not for those in debt; you can only transfer existing credit card balances at certain times, you will pay interest on the full balance being transferred onto the card and all purchases will be charged at 16.9% APR.

Best for ongoing donations- MBNA

MBNA offers a range of charity credit cards representing Breakthrough Breast Cancer, WWF, The National Trust and The British Heart Foundation. 

The Breakthrough Breast Cancer card offers 12 months 0% interest on balance transfers and three months 0% interest on purchases after which they will charge 15.9% APR.  It donates 0.25% of your purchases to the charity plus £2 for every year that you have the card, although the initial donation when you first use the card is only £5. 

For The British Heart Foundation, the rates are the same, but MBNA will donate £7.50 when you first use the card and then 0.35% on every purchase (or 35p for every £100 as they put it).  It also will give the £2 annual contribution to the charity regardless of how much you spend.

Contributions for the WWF card are 0.4% of purchases and back down to 0.3% for the National Trust card.  However, on the first use of the National Trust card, MBNA will donate up to £36 to the charity, and for the WWF the donation is up to £40.  As with the other cards, a £2 annual donation will be given for both of these cards, regardless of how much you spend.

Green and ethical cards

Barclaycard Breathe allows you to help the environment whilst you spend.  It has a 14.9% APR, which is similar to other charity cards, however the way it works is slightly different.  Instead of donating a percentage of your purchases, it donates 50% of all of its profits after tax to projects that tackle climate change, quite a hefty sum.  The card also offers 0% on balance transfers (the only costs are the 2.5% handling fee) for 12 months and only 5.9% APR on purchases made on public transport (excluding transport for London), to encourage you to get out of your car and on to a train or a bus and reduce carbon emissions.  The card also gives you lots of green offers and discounts including 10% off at Halfords and up to £50 off British Gas home insulation. 

To apply for Barclaycard Breathe, click here. 

The Think credit card allows you to do your bit for the environment and be rewarded for spending your money ethically.  It does this by first of all buying and protecting half an acre of Brazilian rainforest in your name when you first use your card.  Then they will donate 25p for every £100 you spend (0.25%) to Cool Earth, a charity that protects the rainforest by using donated money to buy sections of rainforest on behalf of local communities who will ensure they are properly preserved. 

The card also gives you added benefits of reduced interest (only 7% compared to 14%),  for six months after your purchase, when you make purchases from their ethical partners, who are a load of retail outlets who have made pledges to run their businesses in the greenest way possible.  The card charges 7% interest on balance transfers for six months, after which the rate rises to 14% APR and the interest-free period is 59 days.

To apply for Cooperative Think, click here.