Do you know the difference between a “need” and a “want”? Do your children know the difference between a “need” and a “want”? These seem like simple questions but so many of us don’t seem to have the ability to properly analyze potential purchases before we rush out to make them. Ouch! I hope I stepped on your toes because I struggle with these same issues. The decisions are even tougher when you have to help your children with this same question – “need” or “want”?
Isn’t it funny how we are convinced that we “need” so many things? In learning how to control spending you simply have to learn to gut out these tough, tough choices. As a nation we have been blessed with some much that many of us live gluttonous lives of consuming all those things we think we desperately need – or, and this is much worse, things we “deserve”!
Just as making better choices about food is essential in a weight loss plan, making tough choices about whether we really need something or not is needed for spending control. To make this all so much harder, we are raising a generation that is convinced that they cannot wait even 24 hours for what they want. I think that I did a pretty good job of helping my children learn these financial principles because they are doing well making good spending decisions as young adults.
If you are living life solo as I am, you will quickly have to learn to make tough calls about what to buy with this paycheck or what can wait until the next one… or the next… or the next. A personal example of this was when my metal garage door deteriorated and cracked last winter. After a few weeks of fearing that it would collapse on our cars as it flopped around when it was raised, it finally got to the point where it wouldn’t lower at all. Yes, in the dead of winter we were unable to close the garage door at all. The harder part was that I didn’t have the $800 to buy a new one. It would be 5 long months before I could save up that money.
What I learned during those 5 months was that even though you think you can’t, you can. This is a life and faith principle that is so important in many different parts of your life. As we worked harder and harder to control spending so that we could save up for the new garage door, we came up with a new family slogan for 2011. This year has been the year of “you thought you couldn’t but you could!” God was so faithful to keep me safe and sound despite the added vulnerability of a garage door that would not close. My faith is stronger because of those five months and because I discovered that a good way to learn how to stop spending is to be faced with a garage door that needs to be replaced! Oh… and one more thing. This situation was both a “need” and a “want!”
