Living on a Shoestring Budget: Needs

Living on a shoestring budget is hard on anyone, but especially those who struggle with materialism. Sometimes it is hard to separate what we really need from what would feel good at this particular moment. A meal out here, a new outfit there, it all adds up and causes the budget to be tighter. Why are we so driven to make sure our ‘feel good’ needs are met before our long term needs?

At the root of this problem, I have found that we are all looking for wholeness and completeness. We want peace and good feelings. When there is brokenness and/or pain, we look for ways to either cover up the pain or make the pain go away. Drug addicts temporarily cover up their pain by altering the state of their minds. Compulsive shoppers try to cover up their pain by finding a new outfit or new gadget. Some watch tv or movies all the time in an attempt to distract themselves from their pain.

The problem with this is that we have trained ourselves to respond to pain in unhealthy ways. We want to ignore the pain instead of getting to the root of it. We teach ourselves that we can keep ignoring it until it goes away, but that does not happen fully until the pain/source of pain is healed completely.

Therefore, short of finding healing for the inner unrest, those who live on a shoestring budget must teach themselves to sort out what they need and what they are using to try to cover up the pain.

One example is food. Americans have a tendency to eat way too much and spend more than they need on that food. Those who have not eaten for a number of days will say the hardest part was getting over the boredom of not eating because food is as much entertainment as it is nourishment. Therefore if we get tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, it is easy to crave some big meal at a restaurant. Our emotions tell us that we will die if we do not fill this craving. Then, despite the limited dollars in our pockets, we go out to our favorite restaurant and spend on one meal what we may have spent on five or ten meals otherwise.

Another problem is boredom. Some bored people think that a new gadget or outfit will ‘heal’ their boredom. We may have way more than we will ever need at home, but in our search for meaning and purpose, we get bored of life the way it is and want to change it the only way we know how: shop. After all, is that not what commercials do? They tell us that our lives will be infinitely improved if we buy their product. It is a lie.

What we really need to be happy is to know who we are and why we are here. Keep this in mind before you head to the store to spend more money.