Comparing wants vs needs
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It is human nature for people to want to buy things that they think they need. However, there is a difference between needs and wants.
Want
A want is something you want to enhance your life but you can live without. For example, you can get to your work in a $1000 car or a $100,000 BMW 7 series. 99 % of the time a want is something you want to impress your friends or girlfriend with. This can cause some major problems if you are buying things you cannot afford and do not need. I, myself, have had trouble with buying things that I thought were needs but ended up being wants.
Need
A need is an item you cannot live without. Some examples of needs is water, clothes, shelter, etc. These are things you have to have everyday. Technically, you can live without clothes but depending on where you live, you can freeze to death depending on the temperature. Also, you might get arrested for walking around naked 
My take on this
I bought an Ipod Touch and after buying it, I realized that I can live without this. Instead of paying $250 for an item, I bought an Ipod Nano which was $120 cheaper. I can guarantee you that if you look around your house/apartment; you can find at least 5 items that were wants and not needs.
My question to you: What are some items you found lying around that you thought were needs but ended up being wants?
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5 Comments on this post
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Maggie said:
This is so true. I always to keep this concept in mind but sometimes I just have to have it. I know it’s not the way to go but peer pressure can make you do a lot of things.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:32 pm -
admin said:
Peer pressure can be a hard thing but one must learn to overcome that. The best way to deal with peer pressure is to find friends that will accept you for who you are. If you can do this, I see no problem in you distinguishing your wants from your needs.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:36 pm -
Armen Shirvanian said:
You bring up an important point here, in that it would be good for people to make a list of the items that are completely their needs. Then, it would be easy to separate between that which was an impulse purchase, and that which is necessary for daily functioning, as well as the items in between. The tendency is to put more items in our minds “need” category, so that we feel like we’re not spending as irresponsibly as we may be.
Armen Shirvanian’s last blog post..Your Main Source of Competition is Yourself
January 10th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
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