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I heard the phrase “crisis spending” on one of NCN’s podcasts. I don’t know if he meant it this way, but I thought the phrase was a great descriptor for exactly the type of spending that so many of us do: spending in reaction to an unexpected event.

I recently did some “crisis spending” myself — I spent about $600 on clothes to replace those that were lost in our luggage. That sounds like a huge amount of money to me, especially since it really didn’t buy very many clothes. It was an unplanned expense that followed right on the heels of an already-expensive (but fun!) vacation. Other examples of crisis spending might include things like replacing a broken washing machine, getting the clutch repaired on your car, or even just an unexpected $70 fee for a yearbook. What do all of these things have in common? They seem like things that must be handled immediately, but they’re really not.

Don’t confuse urgency with necessity, especially if you don’t have the money to spare. It IS ok to say no, to yourself and to others. You can use a laundromat or pay a friend to use their washer. You can take the bus or carpool with a coworker. You can explain that you don’t have the money for a yearbook right now, but that you will suggest ways your child could earn it himself or he can wait until you do. You can wear the same non-work-like clothes every week for nearly a month ’til you finally breakdown and replace some of your clothes.

Of course, if you or a family member becomes injured or ill, that’s a different matter. But for the rest, it has helped me enormously to learn to tell the difference between something that feels urgent and something that really IS important to take care of immediately. When you have money set aside for these “crisis spending” moments, in addition to an emergency fund, it turns what feels urgent or disastrous into just an annoyance. For example, I didn’t LIKE spending that $600 on basic clothes, but doing so didn’t put me behind on bills. It didn’t “force” me to put groceries on a credit card. I didn’t stress & worry about it. I was just annoyed — and grateful that I could replace the clothes.

Ironically, the way I got to the point of having money on hand for crises was by learning to tell the difference between the urgent and the truly important.