Looking at cutting back? Think about what you need!

When my wife and I moved to New York from the relative comfort of Southwest Virginia, we were optimistic about our job prospects. She had a verbal promise of employment from a major cosmetics company, and I had a placement coordinator who was very excited about my options. However, her cosmetics job evaporated, my coordinator disappeared, the movers cheated us, etc., etc. Bottom line, we soon found ourselves counting pennies and scrambling for employment. We landed on our feet, but there were a few scary months in which we got behind on the bills and found ourselves questioning our decisions, our move to New York, and even our sanity. In the process, I learned a little bit about the hierarchy of needs.

I was already familiar with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which organizes human growth according to needs, with food and air at the bottom and morality at the top. However, as my wife and I were watching our resources dwindle, most of Maslow's higher needs went straight out the window. I'm not saying that I don't place a high price on morality. I'm just saying that when my family is hungry my morality goes on sale.

After I dispensed with Maslow, I developed the following hierarchy of needs. If you find yourself out of work and watching pennies, this little list might be of some use:

Physiological needs: Food, water, air, shelter. Luckily, air is usually free. For the other three, though, there is a lot of leeway. To put it bluntly, food is a need; fillet mignon isn't. If you're looking down the barrel of poverty, cut back on eating out and consider foods that are less expensive. Salmon steaks are out and hamburger is in.