by Tessa Garcia

Created on: May 26, 2008   Last Updated: June 10, 2008

During these difficult and challenging economic times, how does one save money by identifying ones needs vs. wants? Want came from a need. We have to figure-out whether what we want accurately answers our need. For example, we need for nutritious and affordable food. The need was there but is type of food we want the answer to our need.

If we will answer our need with what we want about food we will end-up obese. Obesity, defined as a body mass index of 30 or greater, is an epidemic in the United States and other industrialized nations, and it is rapidly becoming one in developing nations. As countries transition to westernized lifestyles, obesity tends to increase.

Now, let us relate our needs to our wants based on the four buying considerations in Marketing. Buying consideration always start with a need, followed by compatibility, next will be durability and last consideration will be the cost.

Try to observe we will be using all these buying considerations in the correct order. We went to the market since we NEED food for a party or for our daily meal. Even if we tell ourselves we just bought the food, still we decided to buy that food for whatever particular NEED (meal or occasions).

COMPATIBILITY is where want comes in, which is just "secondary to need". People have the tendency to associate COMPATIBILITY with want for convenience that's why we chose to eat easy microwaveable meals without checking the salt content. Convenience is also tied to time and we don't want to cook or even learn how to cook.

Soup would be a fast and easy meal. However, people identify soup to ramen cup noodles which is packed with MSG (monosodium glutamate). Monosodium glutamate (commonly known as MSG) is a sodium salt of glutamic acid, a non-essential amino acid. It is used as a food additive and is commonly marketed as a "flavor enhancer". Although once stereotypically associated with foods in Chinese restaurants, it is now found in many common food items, particularly processed foods. Examples include: Canned soups, Pre-prepared stocks often known as stock cubes, Condiments such as barbecue sauce, Frozen dinners, Frozen seafood, Common snack foods such as flavored potato chips and flavored tortilla chips and Most fast food.

We must be aware that frozen food uses a too much salt as flavoring and preservative. Salt is the major cause of a lot of illness like diabetes, heart disease, gout, kidney stones and a lot more. We should check the frozen food we would like to buy since most

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