Dave Ramsey talks about budgeting as “telling your money what to do before you have it”.  It’s an interesting concept, and once, that up until recently, I didn’t quite understand.  Very much like the old theory “the universe abhors a vacuum”, very seldomly, if you don’t designate where your money is going, you’ll always have barely enough.  I have found that to be true before I began tithing.  It never seemed to be either enough or barely enough, but now, with my tithe, I still feel like I’ve lived like I did before, maybe a little tighter, but not really going without.

In life, it’s kind of the same way.  What makes us productive and driven is direction.  Without it, we live day in, day out, with no sense of goals or desire.  It’s like living in limbo.  Not really an ideal situation.

Don’t get me wrong, goals and direction isn’t something we just something we choose, like throwing a dart at a dartboard and decide “that’s the one”, otherwise it’s not a critical want.  If we strive for something just to have that sense of accomplishment, it’s a hollow victory.  The win ultimately is not satisfying and becomes a short term glimpse of happiness, not working on the long term need of fulfillment.  Essentially it’s like throwing a wad of paper into a giant black hole.  The wad of paper isn’t going to do a damn thing to that hole.

A “critical want” is something so ingrained into you, that it’s part of our identity.  It’s not something someone decides for you, but something you have decided for yourself.  It’s associated with your personal truth and should generally be something you’re impassioned about.  If you don’t know what that is, you may want to do some soul searching.

In respect to money, as I continue to walk through Dave Ramsey’s baby steps, I have to remind myself, as I build my emergency fund, that this money is for use “in case of emergency” and that the meaning for this money is not to buy myself a tech gadget, or anything else that may be awesome.  It’s supposed to keep myself in track as I pay down my debt.  Where the short term goal would be fulfilling, for a short moment, the feeling of being debt free would be a sense of accomplishment that will last me a lot longer than the evolution of the next iPad or iPhone.  Don’t get me wrong, I do intend to eventually get the gadgets that I want, but I’m going to do it when it won’t effect me to do so.