As I grow older, I do seem to sneak more wants into my life. Balancing wants and needs is not just denying purchases, it’s an ever-changing way of looking at your life.
Going to bed hungry makes going to sleep difficult. Eating an evening snack like a handful of potato chips helps. When I’m running too late or too tired to cook, having frozen dinners works.
Could I do without these? Yes. But denying all wants isn’t good. A small piece of any budget should be what was called mad money, money to be spent on whims. Note the word small.
Driving
Gas prices are coming down a little. That will ease my budget a little. There are other ways to help too.
Separating wants from needs includes separating necessary and unnecessary trips to town. My drive to town is nearly half an hour. When added to time to dress for town and change back to farm clothes plus time to get whatever, that’s an afternoon. What else could that time have been spent on?
Homestead ‘To Do’ lists are endless. Repairs, chores, gardening and more never get done completely.
Trips to town are done with lists of things to get done. It makes for hectic trips, but only one day covers a lot of territory. I make three trips to town every week, but one is on the wants list much of the time.
Oops. Wants? The idea is to reduce the wants, isn’t it? But it goes back to balancing wants and needs. Working seven days a week wears a person down. I now take one day to sell at Farmers Market, if the garden is producing and the woodchucks are not around (four this year, so far), followed by an afternoon hiking away from thoughts of chores and work needing done.
And it’s important to have a little slack in your life and budget.
Budget
Everything seems to be rooted in money. Making it. Spending it.
For the homesteader with limited funds, separating wants and needs on a budget is very important. And having that budget is essential.
Over my life I’ve had jobs paying daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly. It is so tempting to skip making and keeping to a budget, just pay as you go. Until the bills mount up to more than your income.
A budget doesn’t lock you up financially. It frees you up, out from the pressure of owing, paying late fees, the spiral of debt that’s so hard to climb out of.
Making a budget isn’t hard. Start with two lists. One is headed income. The other is headed expenses.
If income exceeds expenses, you are in good shape. It expenses exceed income, you are in trouble. Either the income must increase or the expenses must shrink.
And that’s where we started: balancing wants and needs.
This is the third in this series of posts on homestead finances. The first was Telling Wants From Needs. The second was on Separating Wants and Needs.
