Money Thoughts

I’ve been submitting tips to sites for money mashups and I’ve also had a money dilemma recently that you can read about on Beyond Mom (basically our air conditioner died and we were given the option to finance a new one.)

This has me thinking about all the ways we spend money we don’t have (well, maybe not we, but me and other people that aren’t you if you’re smart enough to have always lived frugally!) From Auto Loans to air conditioners, it seems that someone, somewhere is financing it.

Furniture? You can finance it. Vacation? You can finance it. Even plastic surgery can be financed!

Anything without a specific financing plan can easily be placed on a credit card.

All this availability breeds necessity where there used to not be any. It is not hotter now than it was before air conditioning was invented. Everyone just did what they could and dealt with the rest. Now if a house or apartment doesn’t have air conditioning it’s considered practically uninhabitable.

While purchases like cars and homes might need to be financed to actually live and get to work and make money, it amazes me how many people put things like groceries on a credit card. If you can’t afford groceries, going to a local food bank is a much better plan for your long term financial health than spending hundreds of dollars at the grocery store.

Defining wants vs. needs is the first step to having financial control.