by Lynn Bulmahn

Do you have expensive acquired needs that you could easily do without? It pays to understand the difference between an acquired need and an actual necessity so you can stop shelling out money for wants disguised as needs.

Often, people are convinced that some convenience, product or service is a necessity when it actually isn’t. Called an “acquired need,” it is actually a want and not something we can’t live without. By paying for such conveniences, we waste money for things that are optional.

Wants vs. Needs

I recently was reminded of the wants versus needs debate. A friend still had a home phone. I have phones at work and home. Thus no need for a landline. A home phone would be an acquired need.

Many high school students can’t read as well as most eight year olds could a generation ago. They rarely crack a book. All their lives, they’ve been given video games and almost-unlimited access to streaming TV and social media, which are all rather expensive. With such items, is the young person’s education (and his eventual ability to earn a living) helped or hindered? I believe the latter is true. Such items are “acquired needs” and very expensive wants. The cost is not just monetary: Consider what a huge struggle it will be for a poor reader to obtain a higher education or high-paying job.

I pay nothing to view television. With a converter box and rabbit ears antenna, my old TV can pick up six or eight over-the-air stations. (I live in a smaller community, so that number is no doubt much less than what’s available in big cities.) There are enough programs to fill up an hour or two each night. I can check out a free DVD at the library should I want to view a movie. And many shows are available via the net. Paying for cable or satellite is an acquired need. My TV entertainment is free!

Evaluating Acquired Needs

Acquired needs are not just electronic. When I worked downtown, the landowners charged us all to park. Most employees went along with this, not realizing on-site parking was an “acquired need.” There was an unused plot of land a block away, and Leo, an older worker, told me he’d parked there for years. I did likewise, thus saving hundreds of dollars over a decade. Hey, I needed the money a lot more than the parking lot owners did!

Ronnie and Michelle like to go out on date nights. Long ago, they realized that wine with their dinner was an acquired need, one which made the restaurant a huge profit and bloated their bill. They pay for many more evenings out by drinking something non-alcoholic. Tea is cheap, and water is free.

A professor required his students to buy an expensive book, studied for a short time. Realizing it was an “acquired need,” Anne couldn’t find a digital version so she checked the book out from her hometown library. Before returning it, Anne took good notes and scanned some pages onto her flash drive to study for finals.

Living in the country, Frank and Nell found that they’d have to pay extra to obtain trash pickup outside the city limits. This was an acquired need they could skip. How? They reduced the amount of garbage by recycling and composting most of it. A trash compactor did the rest. They occasionally took filled compactor bags to their other property in the city, where they were required to pay for garbage collection whether or not they regularly used it.

It pays to understand the difference between an “acquired need” and an actual necessity. People don’t need to shell out money for a “want” disguised as a “need.” Do you have expensive “acquired needs” that you could easily do without?

• Use a Luxury Tax to Trick Yourself into Saving
• How You Relate to Money in Retirement
• Changing Financial Behaviors in Retirement

Reviewed April 2021