Want vs Need - How This Simple Choice Can Make You Broke

Everyone knows the difference between something being a Want or a Need, right? Well we should, but we often don’t make purchasing decisions without really asking ourselves this question and then we spend money when we really should not be.

Have you ever really looked closely at where all your money goes each and every month? Most people have no clue where most of their money goes. I will honestly say that I don’t always know where mine goes either. I have been making a conscious effort though to ask myself if the things I want to buy or the things that that I normally buy each month, are truly a Want or Need? And honestly I am realizing that a lot of purchases are Wants, not Needs.

The hard truth is that I am looking around at everything in my home and analyzing everything that we spend money on each month and it makes me sick to my stomach, because most things are a Want, not a Need. Take a second and look around at the things in your home, think about all the money you spend each month, are you seeing dollars just racking up that you are blowing away like I am?

Let’s think about this and dive in a little deeper here…

Think of your home...Is it bigger than what you truly need for yourself and you family? Is your mortgage higher than it needs to be, making you what I like to call “house poor”? Could you sell your home, make a profit, pay off some debt, and get yourself into a mortgage payment that would better fit your financial situation?

Think of your kitchen cupboards…Are they full, but you find yourself buying more each week? Are you buying the expensive, organic, non-gmo, etc products when you could be buying a cheaper brand? Are you buying convenient packages of foods that are more expensive than if you were to buy items that you have to put a little effort into? Example is fruits and vegetables... When things come conveniently packaged, they cost most...think on that a second.

Think about the luxury items you use...Your expensive hair care, skin care, and other products like these. Are there cheaper equivalent options you could get? Most the things you probably have you really do not need them. I mean we all need toilet paper, but do we really need the Flushable Wipes? Are those truly a Need? Do you really need to buy that $50 bottle of shampoo or Face Cream? Is there a much cheaper one out there you could buy instead? Do you need that pretty smelling Bath and Body Works bath wash, or could a plain bar of Dial soap do the trick? All things to think about.

How many times a week do you eat out? Remember, your cupboards are full, so you have food to make; you are just being lazy. Trust me I sometimes am just so tired and stop on my way home from work to grab dinner, but I do this very occasionally now. We used to do this a few times a week, and that just didn’t make sense.

Let’s think about television...Do you pay for a TV service, plus Netflix, Amazon Prime Movies, etc? Do you really need to watch all that TV? Couldn’t you be doing better things with your time? Example: Read a book, spend quality time with your family, learn ways to grow your money and make it work for you, etc. We spend so much time watching television shows that really do nothing to better us or our financial situation at all. We as a society need to change this, in my opinion.

Now I hope these few examples got you starting to think about where and what you spend your money on. Start asking yourself when wanting to make a purchase...Is this a Want or Need? Make better choices wherever you can when it comes to this.

Now as you are looking around at all the stuff in your home that you truly don’t need…SELL IT! Make some money back, pay off some debt, put it in savings, or invest it! Recoup some of those hard earned dollars that are just cluttering up your home.

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Did this article help you? Did it get you thinking about how you spend your money? I would love to hear how it got you thinking about your current situation. Feel free to share your story with me at Hello@ElizabethLBalmer.com.

As always, if you found this to be helpful for yourself, or maybe could help someone you know, please share it. I hope that this article will help others to break the horrible cycle of being broke, because they don't make the right choice when it comes to spending money on a Need vs a Want.

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