Budgeting food really can be a better quality of life. Think about how much you spend freely when you have a good job and are not paying attention to your spending habits. Just buying willy-nilly whatever you or your family wants. Maybe you’ve bought really good quality foods and named brands, some processed snack foods thrown in the cart. Veggies in bags and seasoned meats to “help you out”. Lots of food in the frig but “nothing to eat”. Kids too good for leftovers?

Turn this picture around. Job insecurity becomes food insecurity which becomes a budget. Waste is not allowed and certain packages in the cart are put back because they’re not “real food”. Leftovers in the frig become real food if you’re hungry. Now, thinking more about the true value of nutrition you eat better on less. Looking into your frig and cupboards – you think about what you can do with what you have, not what do I want that’s not there. This is called being resourceful and naturally happens when we become insecure – we want to be able to do the best with what we have – I truly hope so. Though, it’s not always the case. Many people have learned to be resourceful during different times in their life or different economic times that have affected them.

We learn that having a lot does not mean we’ve been living the best quality. Living high on the hog and buying without planning and letting food go to waste is just a bad habit, also. Facing job insecurity can be a learning experience for budgeting and buying wisely – once back on track it’s a way of living differently and much better for the experience gained. Quality can become a way of life by learning to budget.

To learn reusing and re-purposing and not buying everything brand new or buying just to have something – is a great opportunity to have a few times in life. A really nice aspect to looking at things, I find, is that I buy what I really want because I have to wait, so I buy something not because of a name brand or because of how it would make me feel if I owned their product. The things in our life should make us feel good, because we love them, we’ve earned them and worked for them.

Take advantage of learning to budget yourself, and when you don’t need it anymore and still use it, quality of life will stay with you.