I should be celebrating having a little extra money in my budget, right? Instead I find that the temptation to spend it on the things that I have been living without for so long is overwhelming. It is rather like being on a diet for months and then going off. You tend to splurge on chocolate, ice cream and potato chips.
There have been a few things that I have been telling myself that I needed such as replacing my printer that died last month. I regularly print out flyers for my business, receipts, reports, etc. I bought a kodak easy share printer/scanner/copier to replace it. It was a good buy and I paid about $20 more than it would have cost me to replace the ink cartridge in my old printer.
I need to be very careful that my list of wants doesn’t creep over to my list of needs. It’s very easy to justify in my mind that something that I want is actually a need especially when I have a little extra to pay for it. For example, I was at Lowes buying the storm door and noticed they had area rugs on clearance. I have wanted one for the living room and it quickly became a need when I found them marked down from $198 to $50. Was it a great deal? Yes but I didn’t need a rug. I bought it and now will have to adjust my budget to make up for it.
After much deliberation, I have decided on my priorities. I have listed them in order of importance and will be funding them in this order:
- Emergency Fund — essential to keep my head above water in the coming months.
- Consumer Debt — I hope to have the majority of this paid off by the end of the year.
- Home Repairs — there are some things like the door that I just HAVE to get repaired before winter.
- Business Loan — Getting this paid off would increase my net income from the business by 1/3. Yup, it’s going to be a goner.
- All The Other Stuff — Everything else such as the lawn mower is going to have to wait until the four things above are paid off.
Related posts:
- What My Parents Did Not Teach Me About Money by the15 I have been thinking about this lately,...
- Where Did All The Money Go? Have you ever gotten to the end of the money...
- Why a “Money Merge Account”* Makes Sense in Today’s Economy This is a guest post by Doug Hutchinson. Doug is...
- Frugal Upstate: 25 Things I Do To Save Money Frugal Upstate: 25 Things I Do To Save Money Dawn...
- Seven Ways Cooking Ahead Saves Time and Money Whether you cook a week in advance or a month...
Tags: Add new tag, budget, save
We’ve been having this same problem since becoming consumer debt free in February! Hubby has a big “want” list and quite a bit of it is “for the house.”
Can you take the rug back? It’s hard to balance the needs and wants list. My wants sometimes become my needs. I want a GPS, no I NEED a GPS. I hear ya.
[...] on April 23, 2008Filed Under Spending | In my post yesterday on having extra money, I mentioned purchasing an oriental carpet on clearance. I stated that I would have to adjust my [...]
BB, I guess I could take the rug back but eventually I do need to buy one and I doubt I will find one for a better price. Although I shouldn’t have bought it in the first place, now that it’s here…