Everybody expects to have a larger income "after while" and intends to save then, but when the larger income arrives, the cost of living has increased, and the pleasures and luxuries to which one has grown accustomed eat up the increased income. Many men and women who planned two years ago to begin saving as soon as hey made more money, are to-day making more money but are not saving a cent more than they did two years ago. Many people who read these lines know that is true from their own experience, for every one who looks back realizes that it is not one whit easier to save money today than it would have been when the income was but a few dollars a week. A larger income is often a temptation to adopt a more expensive mode of living.
The modest home which seemed cozy and attractive when the master of the house was earning only a few dollars a week is immediately abandoned when his salary doubles.
The instinct of the average American is to want his home, his dress, his pleasures, and his habits all to make a show far in advance of his actual earnings.
He impresses his friends and neighbors with the idea that he is making twice as much money as his pocket-book ever holds-and then he has to work in a constant fever in order to keep up with this impression. Let us live while we live is the slogan of too many American men and women of this generation--and that is exactly the point we are coming to.
Let us live while we live--is the cause of nearly all the poverty and misery of this Country. The man or woman who does not know the pleasure of adding week by week to a sum of money earned and owned, has missed one of the most enjoyable, stimulating, and ever-present pleasures which can be experienced. That statement sounds like exaggeration to the man who has never watched a $10 account in his savings bank book grow week by week. And he is not to blame for thinking so until he knows better.
There is pleasure in gratifying one's inclination for spending money, but the man who curbs his inborn inclination to spend--and saves regularly--finds that he experiences twice the pleasure in saving that he ever did in spending.
The secret of gaining wealth has been reduced to seven words by Robert Louis Stevenson: --
"Earn a little, spend a little less. "
Simple, isn't it?
Some people fail to accumulate enough money to take care of them in old age, sickness or misfortune, and it is because they think that saving is the easiest thing in the world. The fact is that it requires more sense to save money than to make it.
"DON'T work for a mere living; show a profit for your work every week; have something left from your earnings after all your expenses are paid. "
A son of a famous railway magnate was put at work every summer during his vacations from school and college. One summer he fired an engine; another summer he was a member of a surveying party; so that when the time came for him to take his place on the board of directors of various railroad lines, he knew the business which he was going to direct. He also knew the life of a fireman on a freight engine, and could have earned his living in that calling, if fortune had taken wings and left him dependent entirely upon his own work.
"A hard-working man always seems to be lucky.
On the same principle that luck usually breaks in favor of the best ball team. "--Ed. Howe.
