Necessities vs. Luxuries

Going through periods of waning finances is a good time to stop and think about what is necessary in life versus what is not necessary. I've noticed many in my generation and younger have a difficult time recognizing the difference between the two.

This article will refer to them as necessities and luxuries.

Necessity: noun. an indispensable thing.
                                [indispensable is an adjective meaning absolutely necessary].

Luxury: noun. an inessential, desirable thing.
                             [inessential is an adjective meaning not absolutely necessary].

Many would say there are only four basic necessities of life (air, water, food, shelter), but that only applies to Tarzan.

Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan; TomSoter.com

After all of an hour thinking about this, the following is my list of necessities in our day (in no particular order after the first nine):

• God [for many of us, but you have the freedom to not believe if you so choose]
• clean air
• clean water 
• food 
• clothing 
• shelter 
• love 
• knowledge 
• wisdom 
• energy/fuel
• companionship/family/friends  
• basic tools for building, repair & maintenance  
• patience
• means of supporting one's family or one's self
• gumption 

Acquiring these necessities are as varied as there are people. And I'm sure some of your necessities are different than mine, but most are indisputable. 

Examples of luxuries (in no particular order, and there are MANY more than these):

• manicure and/or pedicure
• shopping at a convenience store
• eating and/or drinking out 
• beauty or barber shop visit
• retail shopping
• entertaining in or out 
• liquor, cigarettes 
• vacation
• lawn service
• a new anything
• bottled water
• processed foods;  precut fruits and vegetables
• gym membership
• exercise equipment
• landscaped yard and lots of grass that needs watering
• a bigger house than one can afford
• more vehicle(s) than one can afford
• a university degree with huge loan debt
• impatience
• financing anything with a credit card or payday loan
• buying something unnecessary only because it was on sale

Examples of wrong priorities:

• Overheard in the workplace how broke someone was, then seeing that same person eating out with her children
• Choosing to spend a paycheck to pay for their child's birthday gifts and a party in a restaurant for her and her friends instead of getting their car back on the road by renewing its license and inspection sticker
• Impatiently applying for a $40,000 home improvement loan at an interest rate of 15%*
• Skipping out on the first three weeks of school to earn money for an expensive pair of tennis shoes to wear to school
• Paying more for a vehicle than the mobile home one lives in*
• Not using a budget and hoping for the best at the end of the month*
• A father re-selling a new refrigerator donated to his family so he could take them camping one weekend
• Spending money on entertainment instead of the rent or utility bills
• Getting one's nails done and hair frosted instead of buying tennis shoes for one's child so he could play sports at recess without getting blisters on his feet
• A divorced mother trying to maintain the same previous lifestyle for her sons, and losing their house in the process
• Paying on student loans for months instead of the mortgage payments

A precious lady who's gone on to be with the Lord some years ago told us about her husband selling their ranch unbeknownst to her, and they found him dead of natural causes the day he received payment for it. Unfortunately, they never found the money, and she was left penniless. Those tragedies would completely devastate and paralyze just about anyone, but not her. She found a job as a dorm mother at a college, where she worked for years to support herself and her son. She was the poster lady for 'where there's a will, there's a way.'

When the finances are good, we don't have to spend as much time questioning if something is a necessity or luxury as long as we are living within our means. I'm grateful to have family and friends who would help me out if I found myself in dire straits, but I also have a plan to downsize to living in a camper trailer if I find myself unable to earn enough money to support myself in a regular house. Or I can do what Elizabeth did and find a job that provides room and board. But the most important necessity I have will shelter me in the shadow of His wings, and that's the best place for me to be. 

*Personal experience

This One's Juusst Right

In the first two years of our married life, we lived in a one-bedroom bachelor-pad trailer house. We had to put the crib for baby #1 in the dining room, and by time I was expecting baby #2, we knew we had to make some more room.

Since the trailer was well built and included copper wiring, we decided to add on more space to it. And since it contained a perfectly good kitchen and bathroom, which are normally the most expensive rooms, we decided to primarily add space. I designed a brand-new outside of the house that completely enclosed the trailer house. The new space included a great room, a dining room, an extra bedroom and bath, office, and a screened-in back porch. We turned the old living room into a master bedroom, and I discovered a shower stall behind the paneling at the back of the fancy bar in the corner we didn't use. The previous owner had taken out an existing bathroom and enlarged the living room, so it was easy to convert it back into a small bathroom for our master bedroom.

We opened up an eighteen foot span in the side of the trailer adjacent to the great room we'd added on. The living room ceilings were 16' high with huge wooden beams and clerestory windows. Our builder, Pete Gonzales, kept telling me he wasn't a mason, but he built the most beautiful fireplace I've ever seen. I designed it as a right-angled triangle that stood between the dining and living rooms. It went all the way to the ceiling, creating rock walls on the back two sides. People who weren't familiar with our previous abode had no idea a trailer house was anywhere near our new-looking home.

We had more than doubled the size of our modest home, and it more than doubled the workload, too. I loved our newish home, but it soon turned into a huge source of frustration for me because I hadn't developed good habits when it came to keeping it clean and uncluttered. I never considered that when I was having so much fun designing it.

The new addition after we took the trailer house out; 

I'm sure I broke every architecture rule in the book, but we loved our house

Seventeen years later, we took the trailer house part out and built a new kitchen, dining room, master bedroom, bedroom, two bathrooms with walk-in closets, a large utility room, front porch, and carport. That added on another thousand square feet. I loved this house, too, but keeping it clean was still such a chore.

In the last remodeling effort, I used tin buckets to make the three porch lights to run along the long front porch; I punched different designs in each one of them and mounted them with  inexpensive ceramic light fixtures inside.

I now live in a house that's thirteen hundred square feet smaller than that last house I designed, and this one is a perfect fit. When the bigger house took most of the day to clean, it takes less than three hours to clean this one top to bottom. And I can do all the floors-- vacuum, steam-mop, and wax in an hour! I don't dread housework anymore. I have to say that it makes a world of difference to have the right tools, too, and the most expensive isn't necessarily the best.

Our front porch

My parents and I combined two households to move in together, so we both had to get rid of a lot of stuff. And the only problem we've struggled with is keeping the clutter at bay. One of the handiest features about this property has been the attic above the garage, which we use regularly.

Sometimes our eyes get bigger than our common sense when it comes to buying or building a house. Space is nice, but we also need to consider the cost of running and maintaining a larger place. And if we haven't acquired good cleaning habits in a smaller home, they don't magically appear when moving into a larger one. So when planning to upsize, plan on adjusting to the upsized workload, too. Develop those good habits beforehand, and maintaining your bigger house won't turn into a millstone around your neck.

Show & Tell

I have always been a bit introverted, except for around my family and close friends; I cut up as much as the rest of them. But in social and public environments I tend to feel uncomfortable and awkward.  I remember years ago in middle and high school wanting to be noticed and at the same time, not wanting to be noticed.

But even further back to my 3rd grade class, I always wanted to share on Show and Tell Friday but rarely remembered to bring something. My longing reached a tipping point one particular S&T day, and I looked around my desk and meager belongings to find something to show and tell about. I had a small pencil eraser that had come out of the end of a pencil, and I must've previously played around with it-- covering it with pencil lead and rolling it on paper, which made a track of gray like a printer. I decided I would share that marvelous discovery. So when the teacher asked if anyone had anything to share, I raised my hand.

I still cringe when I think about getting up and showing the class that little pencil eraser and what little it could do on paper. So desperate for attention, and getting it in a pitiful way. I don't remember the other students making fun of me or deriding me for presenting something so lame, in fact, some of them seemed truly interested. But I've never forgotten it, and I use the memory to remind myself today that I'd better not be posting lame stuff just to be posting something for show and tell. I don't want to waste people's time with useless words.

I do realize that one of the reasons I now write is to make connections with people, and writing is a very comfortable way for an introvert to do that. At the same time I am cognizant of my aversion to social settings and the strong desire to live in an isolated, emotional cave away from people, so I am attempting to improve those unhealthy areas of my life.

Writing also helps me sort out my thoughts, learn new ideas, change or crystalize my beliefs, and vent. But these days I find myself reserved about sharing my posts, and it's difficult for me to do any kind of self-promoting, which a writer has to do if one wants to sell one's written wares. A constant struggle for me. But I can promise you today that the stories in my novels and posts on my blogs are not empty show and tell efforts. I have the haunting memory of a pencil eraser to thank for that.