What are Life Basics?

By glblguy

What I call Life Basics are the following:

  • Housing or shelter
  • Food
  • Clothing
  • Transportation

These are the items or expenses that above all others, must get paid first. Life Basics are used in the following scenarios:

  • When you have an income that varies from month to month. In your budget, you pay your Life Basic expenses first, then other expenses.
  • When you are faced with a major financial crisis and can only pay some of your expenses and bills and not all of them.

Let me give you an example. You go to work one day, only to find that you have been laid off. You have little or no savings, and received only a small severance (if any at all).

Over the next few weeks, you still haven’t found a job and your bills are due, but you don’t have the money to pay them all. You pay housing, food, clothing, and transportation first. Credit card bills or other miscellaneous bills can wait

How crazy would it be to pay your credit card bill, but lose your house or worse, pay your credit card company but not be able to feed yourself or your family?

Life Basics are those items critical to your survival and should

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2 Responses (including trackbacks) to “What are Life Basics?”

  1. Lisa Small Says:
    December 15th, 2010 at 1:21 am

    I always read articles from people who “OMG” I had to give up my Latte’s and eating at fine restraunts, and Luxury! They tell us how we should do that to cut our monthly expenses. I am so tired of hearing from those people. We don’t do those things in the first place. We struggle to pay the utilities and buy food. Tell us how we are suppose to cut costs and survive. Where are we suppose to cut costs? We turn down our furnace and are cold. Our usage is less than the fixed fee just to have the service in the first place. The same with electric and water. Food is the store brands, coupons and Aldi’s. We need to hear from real people in real life survival situations. Not situations of loosing “luxuries” and crying about it.

  2. moose Says:
    December 27th, 2010 at 11:32 pm

    I know i havent appreciated many things buti should and i dont know how hard people work for these things that we need like utilities but i should and i will

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