Can I afford this? Should I?
I am a big fan of the budgeting software You Need a Budget (YNAB). I like the interface. I like the method. I like that I was allowed to start simple and grow with it. So it’s no surprise that this video inspired me to make this post.
(I don’t have any relationship with YNAB other than the fact that I’m a subscriber and user.)
In the video, the coach explains that we often struggle when making purchases. We ask, “Can I afford this?” And the next question that usually comes after this question is, “Should I buy this?”
She points out eloquently that “afford” means different things to different people. For some people, it’s not incurring an overdraft on their bank account, or that it doesn’t max out their credit card. And so, because there’s no universal meaning for “afford”, it’s quite senseless to use the word in the question at all.
The reason, she explains, that we ping-pong between these two questions, is because we lack clarity about our priorities. And, in classic YNAB fashion, she flips the issue on its side.
The question that eliminates the back and forth between “Can I afford this?” and “Should I buy this?” is, “What do I want my money to do for me?”
So what does budgeting software have to do with evidence-based practice?
I would argue that as practitioners we go through this same back and forth all of the time. We ask, “Can I afford the time and energy to keep up with the evidence?” and then we ask, “Should I?” And just like in asking whether you can afford to buy something with money, the word “afford” in units of time and energy also means different things to different people. And so, similarly, using the word “afford” when it comes to your time and energy is also senseless in the question.
The main difference the case of evidence-based practice, is that the answer to “Should I?” is always, “Yes. Ideally in a world that was perfect, I should be keeping up with the most available evidence.” which always brings us back to “Can I afford to do that?” to which the answer seems, most often often, “Hell, no.”
So we ping-pong between feeling guilty about not spending time and energy keeping up to date while at the same time feeling starved for time and energy to do the thing we feel like we should.
And just like in the YNAB video, the question we are NOT asking ourselves, is the same one that resolves the affordability ping-pong game: “What do I want the evidence to do for me?”
Answering this question for yourself brings clarity to your knowledge priorities. Coming up with a knowledge-development strategy has everything to do with priorities; and budgeting, as I’ve learned, is basically knowing your priorities.
