At this time of global, national and household budget angst, here are a few bits of inspiration from music, literature and significant lives…
The Rolling Stones in their song “You can’t always get what you want” note that you might be able to get what you need though. However, even if we are clear what we need (and how that might be less than we want), what about the supply of resources?
Charles Dickens summed in David Copperfield over 160 years ago: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and six, result misery.”
But what about another way of looking at it?
In his biography of Churchill, Roy Jenkins makes the point that Winston realised from his late teens that despite his enormously privileged family income he could spend far more than he earnt. So (as author from the Calvary Barracks in India and as a speaker around the US) he devoted much energy in his life from his early 20s onwards to earning more, rather than worrying about where to spend less!
And John Welsey, the 18th Century preacher, during the hard economic times of the early industrial revolution, exhorted this less hedonistic but similar stance to Churchill: “Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can”
So the choices
1) Focus on needs and not wants to help cut spending to below income
2) Focus on earning more so you can have what you want…
In both a balanced budget, or even one in the black, is the aim…
