The battle of Needs v. Wants is nothing new in our house—it’s been raging there for decades.
My husband was SuzeOrman way before Suze was Suze Orman.I am referring to his mantra: Is That a Need or a Want?
I bristled as I wrote that.
We were married in 1982. Layoffs rampant. Jobs? What jobs? It was the era of Reaganomics. As for the trickle-down effect? We were upstream and couldn’t afford a paddle.
According to our parents’ scripts, we were the young newlyweds. Act One? Get the “starter” house. Act Two? Fill it with stuff and children. Act Three? Sell the house, trade up, get more and better stuff, send the kids to college. Act Four? The golden years, acreage, the custom-built log home on the lake. Curtain.
I bought into the role. My husband, unfortunately was not from Central Casting.
I wanted to live in the quasi high-end neighborhood with tree-lined streets, bungalows, an organic grocery store on the corner – the area where all our friends were buying. I wasn’t the only one who wanted us to live there. So did our real estate agent. He said that we should never mind the sky-high monthly mortgage payments, the 15% interest rate. We were young! We were smart! We were sure to make oodles of money!!
My husband balked. How could this guy be so sure? Where was his crystal ball?
So, we looked at the houses that we could pay for, with the little money that we had.
And if the real estate guy was right? And in a couple of years the money truck dumped its load on our front lawn? Well . . . until then . . . everything had to pass the need v. want filter.
So, what was a need?
An affordable roof over our heads. Check.
Groceries – purchased from the Super Saver grocery store, where items were shelved on pallets. Check.
Gas for the one car and utilities paid? Check.
Clothing was bought when an item needed to be replaced. Jeans had to have a shelf life of three to five years, as did socks and underpants, although I found a loophole – pregnancy!
