Not So Insane Financial Advice aka How to decide if you really need that yellow duckie

Here in my one lucid moment I thought I'd share some sage economic advice, the perfectly sane way to decide if one really needs that $300 purse or another one of those little yellow duckies.

Most people think in terms of cost. They compare what they think is 'regular price' to the 'sales price'. Thing is you never really know what regular price is because it seems things go on sale for 20 - 5% off sometimes. So how do you really know if it's a good buy or not?

And money seems to go something like this: "Is there any checks left in my checkbook?" or "Have I reached my limit on my Visa yet?" Oh yes, paper can sure seem unlimited.

There's a much better method and those of us who are chronically ill/disabled with CFS, FM understand this one probably better than anyone else: how much energy do you have in your day? For well folks in this scenerio you can translate it to "How many hours can I work in my week?" (there is a limit of what one can do). Since the amount of time and / or energy is indeed limited and it has to cover certain priorities (hopefully) first it works well to first figure out how many hours it will take to cover those necessities, and then how many you have left. Then figure out how many hours you will need to work to pay for desired item.

When it occurs to you that you'll have to work 324 hours that week to pay for everything you will easily know you really can't afford that 101st little yellow duckie no matter how cute he looks floating in your bubbles!

Dr W and Duckie