The 80/20 Principle: A Golden Resource for People on North Carolina Social Security Disability

October 5, 2011, by Michael A. DeMayo

If you are on North Carolina Social Security Disability, chances are that you are on a tight budget. You are trying to scrimp and save. You are carefully investing the assets that you retain. Whether you are just beginning the process of applying for North Carolina Social Security Disability or you’ve managed to transit through the process successfully and get entitlements to help you make ends meet, you are still coping with how to tie your life together with your shoestring budget.

The 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) Can Help

Budgeting your time, money, and energy is all about making the right trade-offs.

What inputs can you put into your life (or any system) that will lead to maximum results? And what inputs are yielding subpar results? Surprisingly, there are always imbalances is life. Certain things you do – stocks you pick, friends you cultivate, subtle decisions you make about your North Carolina Social Security Disability application – can lead to outsized results, both positive and negative.

You can put enormous effort into certain endeavors and get ultimately very little out of all that effort. 80% of your efforts will only lead to 20% of your results on any given task. On the flip side, 20% of your efforts will lead to 80% of your results. This imbalance is at play in everything you do: 80/20 applies to the clothes you wear, the foods you typically eat, the people you hang out with, and how you budget your time and money.

So how do you apply the Pareto Principle to budget on a shoestring?

The answer is to identify what inputs are yielding you “outsized results” and what inputs are yielding “undersized results.” Then make changes to focus more time/attention/money on the 20% that yields 80% of your payoffs. For instance, take a look at your grocery bill. According to the Pareto Principle, approximately 20% of the things you buy will give you 80% of your nutrition. Conversely, 80% of what you buy from the grocery store will only give you 20% of the nutrients your body needs.

So what’s the irrelevant stuff? What stuff can you stop buying and still maintain a healthy lifestyle? Thinking along those lines, you might start cutting out the so-called “empty calories” like soda pop, sugary desserts, and processed snacks, chips, and breads, and instead focus on the “20% products” that do give you good nutrition: meat, vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts, etc.

80/20 can, at least in theory, help you spend less on your food and extract the same amount of nourishment.

Be creative. Apply the 80/20 principle to purge your time and money budgets. Use it to identify what gets you outsized results and what gets you undersized results.

Connect with a North Carolina Social Security Disability law firm.

More web resources:

The 80/20 Principle Defined

Applying the Pareto Principle to Your Home Budget