Still, I prefer to think in terms of “wants” versus “don’t wants” rather than “needs” versus “wants” – it makes me feel better to remind myself that no, I don’t actually want everything under the sun (as the “needs” versus “wants” division implies that I do), and that I can afford all of what I need and almost all of what I want.

Of course, we can survive without intellectual enrichment for a period of time, just as we could survive without proper nutrition for quite a while. But in both cases, we would gradually see the effects in our declining health.

They do suffer from diminishing returns, however. Incrementally, each new game adds less to that enrichment than the one before, and at some point adds nothing at all if you can never play it. It’s like buying tickets for concerts that you will never attend. And food that you consume in excess of your caloric requirements has real costs associated with it as well.

I think Trent’s re-framing the discussion with the question, “Is that item really adding significant value to your life?” is insightful, because it acknowledges intellectual and emotional needs as well as physical ones.

Johanna – I think Trent’s question “does this add significant value to my life” applies to any *wants* as much as to *needs.” And that his point is that to cut back on spending & accumulation, you pare back on the *wants* if you’ve got the *needs* under control.

I’ve never been much of a pack rat myself though the past few years I have been into clothes and fashion A LOT. Not only am I now slim enough to wear pretty much anything I want (this is very exciting for me as I was never able to do this before!) but I know what I am doing! (I used to be a fashion victim). This is something important to me for my self esteem.

Due to this new-found obsession, I’ve noticed that I have collected A LOT of clothing over the past year. Although I do love looking/feeling good, I knew there had to be a limit somewhere as far as how many clothes to have on hand.

To remedy this problem, what I do now is whatever I bring home (usually from the thrift store), I take out of my closet. So if I purchase 5 items, 5 will come out of my closet. It takes me time to do this, as it is rather tough to get rid of some items but it gets done. The unwanted items go in a bag and it gets donated to charity. Believe it or not, I do this every 8 weeks or so. I am probably spending more money than I should on clothes, but I take pleasure in knowing someone else will benefit from the donated items and the charity will get some money out of it. AND, my closet (while still full) doesn’t get too full!

For some people, these purchases might seem ridiculous but I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all allowed to spend on our own interests, we just have to be more aware of them.

Your litmus test:

“Is that item really adding significant value to your life? Is that item just one of many that are backed up in a queue that you mean to deal with/watch/enjoy/play with/wear/use/listen to later? Would your life really be worse in any significant way if you had never bought that item? How about if you sold that item right now?”

is the perfect definition of what I’d call a “want,” not a “need.” Take, for example, my guitar. Does it add value to my life? Yes. Is it one of many things that I mean to use but don’t? No. Would I be worse off if I’d never bought it? Probably. (Although who knows – I might have taken up a different hobby instead.) Would I be worse off if I sold it? For sure. (Unless I was selling it to buy a better one.) And yet, as something that’s purely for entertainment, it’s clearly a “want.”

Same goes for your game collection. And almost everything else I own. And probably most of the things that most of us own.

Moral of the story: (1) “Want” is not a dirty word, and buying/keeping things that you want but don’t need is not necessarily bad, and (2) where you start to go wrong, and where it looks like Trent did go wrong, is by spending lots of money (and devoting lots of storage space) to things that you don’t even want.