00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 640 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Derek from strong life coach. I encourage you to find your own journey to building your own strong life. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, this inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader, He said, I would look at and say,
00:00:29 Oh, that's just a want, nobody, nobody should buy that for somebody else. That actually may be something that for an emotional reason, it's very important to them. And I can't judge them for purchasing it. You know, the old joke is how much car is too much car to buy. How much car is too expensive to buy? Well,
00:00:49 the answer is a car that's about $3,000 more than the car that I can afford to buy welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast,
00:01:11 who learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you. And today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about what are needs when it comes to money, what our wants, when it comes to money and why there's this huge gray area in the middle, where our real challenges around decision making can come.
00:01:42 As we talk about stewarding your treasures, wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show,
00:02:05 when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When it comes to money. One of the things that you'll hear people talk about is needs versus once you know, those things that we absolutely need that require money to purchase versus things that we want. What's interesting about that is often when you talk to different people, though, what they define as a need,
00:02:33 and what they define as a want is very, very different. The language we use around what we need and what we want affects how we think about money. Oftentimes if we say it's something that we need, that's a way of basically saying, well, obviously I have to spend money and I have to spend anything I want on this. I have to spend as much as I can,
00:02:59 or as much as I needed to, or whatever I spent is justified because that was a need. And when we think about wants, it's often about when we see someone else doing something that we wouldn't do with money. Well, then that's a want, but the things that we do with money, those are needs, and the truth is that's not really completely accurate.
00:03:21 I mean, the truth is there are some things that are actual needs with money, and there are some things that are actual wants with money. The big problem comes in the fact that in between those two is a huge amount of gray. And even within each category, there are some difference of opinion or ability to have some distinctions between things, as an example,
00:03:49 eating food. Food is a need. You have to eat to survive. If you're in a situation where the choice is between eating and paying something else with money, paying for food is usually the right choice because clearly food is a need. It's a survival thing. Without food, you die without water, you die. Without the basics of functioning, you can have problems.
00:04:17 Most people list needs as food, shelter, transportation, clothing, and basic utilities. But the truth is not, all of those are life and death. You can live without some of those. For some length of time, it may be inconvenient. It may be difficult. It may make things hard, but it's not necessarily going to immediately end your life.
00:04:43 If you don't have transportation as well within those categories, there's a lot of room. Yes, you need food to eat, but that doesn't mean you need to go out to eat every single night and you need to buy filet mignon. In fact, some of the food that you can eat to survive is probably cheaper than some of the food that you actually currently purchase.
00:05:08 And for sure, most of the time, it's cheaper than going out to eat. And yet most of us spend a lot of money around groceries and eating out. And often we can move from a need into a want very, very quickly. You know, there are other things that are clearly wants, you know, going on a vacation to Hawaii is a want.
00:05:31 And does that make it bad? No, because the truth is if you've saved up the money and you've got the money to take such a vacation, and that's a goal of yours, it's something that's emotionally rewarding and you're going to have great experiences, take other people with you, do whatever you want. There's nothing wrong with that. But the problem comes in when we're a slave to our wants.
00:05:53 And because of that, we struggle to meet our, whenever we began putting, going out to eat on credit cards because we're spending money on once take transportation. That's another area. Yes. Getting basic transportation is a need being able to get from point a to point B whether with public transportation or a vehicle you own that is a need. But often what we allow ourselves to do is turn that need into a want because we want the newest,
00:06:25 the fastest, the shiniest vehicle. And we often finance it to do it. See part of what makes something a want is when you're in that mindset of instant gratification. When it's about wanting it right now, when it's about, we can't slow down and make a decision because the truth is the difficulty between needs and wants, comes into that gray. It comes into those areas where for one person,
00:06:56 a $70,000 car is something that is an extravagance. It's something that would, they would then have to finance and pay for over huge amount of time. And I know other people that because of their situation, they own businesses. They have huge amounts of income. They have plenty of saving. And because of that, writing a check for $70,000 car is really not that big of a deal.
00:07:20 When you look at it as a ratio of their income to outgo, it's, it's just, it's like me buying a happy meal. It's not that big of a deal. So it's not as simple as the price of the item. It's not as simple as what the item category is. It's also about your own personal situation. It's about how much income you have.
00:07:43 It's about how much debt you have. It's about how much outgo you have, but it's also about what are your own personal values and priorities what's important to you and your family? What are the things that y'all have decided? These are the things that we're going to focus on. Things that I would look at and say, Oh, that's just a want,
00:08:04 nobody, nobody should buy that for somebody else. That actually may be something that for an emotional reason, it's very important to them. And I can't judge them for purchasing it. You know, the old joke is how much car is too much car to buy. How much car is too expensive to buy? Well, the answer is a car that's about $3,000 more than the car that I can afford to buy.
00:08:28 We often measure things by comparing ourselves to others. And if they're doing something more extravagant than us, we see them as wasting money, but we don't take into account any differences in our situation. So much more than math, the needs and the wants. And the thinking around that is about psychology. It's around how you think it's about how you view things.
00:08:54 It's finding the things that are your why and your priority. And what's really important to you and being able to say no to other things, because you're saying yes to those things that are most important. That's what begins to eliminate the gray and make it where for your specific situation you can identify, needs and wants, and what's different between them. And once you do that,
00:09:22 then the decision making around money gets easier and easier and easier. Thanks for listening. Yeah. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively, listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of treasures,
00:09:57 you can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S four four two two two treasures tips. And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.