needs vs wants
Survival and luxury
Needs vs wants is the distinction between necessities and desires—what you must have versus what you'd like to have.
The phrase appears constantly in personal finance advice and parenting conversations about money: Before you buy something, ask yourself: is this a need or a want?
Needs are essentials like food, shelter, and basic clothing; wants are everything else.
The boundary shifts with context and expectation—a car might be a need in rural Texas, a want in Manhattan.
- bare necessitiesMinimum requirements for living
- necessitiesWhat you cannot lack
- luxuriesNon-essential costly pleasures
- essentialsIndispensable items or elements
- desiresStrong wants or cravings
cravings · priorities · survival · indulgence · guilty pleasure · budget · splurge · retail therapy · basic · frivolous · food · shelter · impulse buy · requirement · must have · wishlist · tradeoff · scarcity
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- Consumer Financecredit, credit cards, credit score, credit scores, credit reports
- frugalityfrugality, thrift, frugal, penny-pinching, economize
- sustainable livingrecycling, composting, solar power, wind power, renewable
- money tipsbudgeting, emergency fund, investing, debt repayment, rainy day fund