Needs and Wants!

What a month this has proven to be. Normally September is not a very good month so I tip toe around it until finally it is October 1st. This year there have been no great surprises, no tragedies, nothing memorable........yet. I'm still holding my breath as there is one week to go!
With the bank scares going on right now, it is a critical issue to make sure that any money deposited in a bank is FDIC insured. There is a web site called bank rate.com that gives different ratings on banks. But, after reading a few articles about the ratings, I found that one of the banks that recently had to be bailed out, was actually given a 3 rating on this site which translates to performing. And the rating is still standing; a 3! So not much faith can be put in these ratings. I wonder if the same thing happened during the depresssion. Of course, there wouldn't have been computers to give people such a great tool of information on different issues, news, topics, but I imagine no one back then dreamed that the stock market would crash and so many would lose their money, their life savings. I remember mom telling a story about living through the depression in the winter and about having to walk the railroad tracks picking up coal just to heat their house. She got sick that winter and said if it wasn't for Clairie Bell Jeffers bringing coal to their house, they would have frozen! This was the woman known as "the dirty old lady" who had a heart of gold. Pigs, ducks, and chickens felt right at home in her house, but I remember going over there and she gave me a big duck egg and you would have thought she had given me the golden egg! I am sure that Clairie Bell knew all about survival. Surviving the depression, surviving with little money, but it seemed she always had a kind word and, albeit a little dirt streaked, a smile on her face. At one point yesterday, I said we might all be down on the farm growing a big garden and happy to have it before this is all over! Would most people today know how to survive? That is a great question and it seems to me that most have their needs and wants confused. Everytime I think of this saying, I think of Myron Applegate who was great at saying that, "You have your needs and wants confused!" But for most of us, it is true. Come one, did I really need another pair of shoes, even if I got them at a thrift store for $3? Did Alliyah really need another book or another stuffed animal, even though they were a great bargain and I send her surpises at least twice a month? Maybe it is coming to the point where we will have to get our needs sorted out from our wants, our "just gotta have it" from our "need it to survive". Just a thought!