Budgeting Power

Gas prices have been on a yo-yo journey through much of this year as the war in Iran continues with conflicting stories of how close we have been to agreements every other day. We are currently not at the highs experienced earlier this year, but prices remain higher than they have been in years and are almost a dollar more expensive per gallon than a year ago.

While covering this, many media outlets speak to how it strains family budgets, especially as grocery prices also climb. To me, this highlights the need for many to live with a budget.

It is tougher to know just how much more you are paying for gas if you don’t know how much you were paying for gas in the first place. If you don’t know how much you spent on groceries last month, it’s tough to know if you really did spend more this month or if that number at the register just felt bigger.

And let’s not discount the ability of all this news coverage to make you feel a little off kilter just because you hear it that often. If someone tells you things are getting worse and worse, you may start to feel it just because it’s that much in the ether and not because of any personal evidence.

What budgeting does is give you knowledge. The increase in gas prices is undeniable, but just how much this affects someone can vary greatly. If you live in a city and your commute to work happens on your feet, this isn’t going to break your budget. If you live in a rural area and your workplace is 50 miles away, that strain is going to be real.

But then again, if you live in that rural area and buy a lot of produce from a farmstand, your food bill may be under control. If you are in a city and many of your meals are delivered to you, things might start to turn again.

This isn’t to say that the news is wrong and trying to scare people. This isn’t to say that there is one way to live that leads to greater happiness than others. This is to say that what matters most is how something affects you personally. The more you know about your own situation, the more you can make moves that help you in your own situation. There really is power in knowledge and the best thing you can do in uncertain times is to concentrate on the knowledge that will help you most so you can be as certain as possible for yourself.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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