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Things I Refuse To Give Up...Despite The Cost

Monday, March 3, 2014 - 04:15

Do you have certain items or services you refuse to give up, despite their high cost? And how do you make room in your budget for them? For example, I refuse to stop buying healthy, fresh food. I don't buy organic by any means, but when feeding my family healthy food is very important to me. My son is a picky eater and loves fresh strawberries. So, I am the fool buying fresh strawberries at $6 a pop. But, if I don't, he doesn't get any fruit in his system.

I "splurge" on fresh fruits and veggies constantly, and because of it I have to make cuts other places. I buy a lot of generic products. I also don't buy pop or treats very often. I also started buying those fresh fruits and veggies at Sam's Club where I can get more bang for my buck.

I have friends that feel the same way about coffee. They'll gladly cut other things out of their budget so they can buy good coffee. Or maybe it's your gym membership. I know that I feel a hundred times better about myself if I work out. Even Tide has a laundry detergent commercial admitting that their product is expensive but you get what you pay for.

Another example is the price of gas. I remember when gas first started going sky high in Minnesota. My husband and I live in Duluth, and our closest family members live two hours away.  It was and is very important to us to spend time with them. I remembering saying to my husband, "I'm not going to let the price of gas stop me from visiting my family. That's ridiculous." And we kept it up for a while. But then we started noticing it wasn't "just" the price of gas. It was bringing the dogs to the kennel, the meal we would grab on the drive, etc. It no longer was just the one expense. It snowballed. We decided about a year ago that we were going to have to pick and choose what events we were going to attend. We couldn't be driving down every other weekend or even every  month.

My question to you is what expenses do you refuse to cut out? And is the cost worth it?

At LSS Financial Counseling, we can help you look at the BIG picture. Give us a call today at 888.577.2227 or go to our website. We'd love to hear from you!