Unemployment is Good for Your Budget

OK I know it is nearly Mid-March and I haven't written in a while. I apologize but here is a thought I recently had that is kind of funny: Unemployment is good for your budget. What do I mean by this? Suddenly you have no money coming in other than your unemployment benefits, you don't think you need anything. The truth is you still need things. You need medicine, you need clothing, you need cosmetics. You put your credit cards away and you don't use them...this is interesting to me because the justifications you had for getting them, "I will just use them for emergencies", no longer exist. The truth is that I was using them all the time for really stupid things when I was working. I always thought I could pay them off eventually. It didn't occur to me that I would be unemployed, I was in complete denial. After all of these months I have begun to realize what I was doing, I was living beyond my means. Yes, I know "DUH" but until now I just didn't get it. I am saving money and putting it aside now, which is something I didn't do before. I have also started thinking about doing things differently with my money once I am working again. I used to think I couldn't do it but as it turns out I can...go figure. It took my world falling apart to get me to realize it. Perhaps this was the lesson the universe was trying to teach me all along.