“It is a great deal more easier tew drop down 10 feet on a ladder than it is tew highst up 5; I found this out more than 7 years ago.”-Josh Billings.

THE man or woman who pays more than a thing is worth shows either lack of experience in the world, or lack of common sense.

How to spend is a better provider than a big income.

The very rich can give the rest of the population of this Country lessons on how to spend so as to get 100 per cent out of every dollar, every minute, and every volt of energy.

Enough food is thrown out of the kitchen doors of the middle class people of the United States to feed half of Europe. Left-over food and out-of-date clothing are thrown to the garbage-man and the ragman–dollars tossed into the alley.

Strange–but the most of this waste comes from the back doors of families who have no fortune. It comes from people who are living up to their salaries. They are the men and women who despise the pennies and scorn economical ways. They have the foolish idea that wastefulness makes them seem rich. If these people were intimately acquainted with the family of a millionaire who has made his way up from a small beginning, they would discover that in his household everything is considered worth saving, from a handful of cooked peas to an hour of electric light. The household is run on business lines; on the same business rules which make the difference between profit or loss to a manufacturing concern.

How to spend means this:

To a man–Stand off and look at your home. Think what you can do there which you are now hiring some one to do for you; maybe in your personal habits; maybe in the care of your place. If anything new is to be bought, don’t buy it to suit the tastes of the neighbors. Buy what will give you the most service, convenience and comfort, at the least cost. Remember–the neighbors will make suggestions about how you ought to live, and what you ought to buy, but they won’t pay the bills.

How to spend means this:

To a woman–Be “the boss” of your kitchen. See that food is economically bought and properly cooked so that the greatest nourishment is pro?cured at the least cost. Train your children to earn every coin they receive. Make some of your own dresses and hats–you can do it if you try as hard to learn that as you try to learn golf or bridge or a new crochet pattern.

Study the game of living–it is the most impor?tant thing in your life, and yet many women think the knack of keeping house is born in them, just as knowing how to swim is born in a duck.

Make home-keeping a business–it is a business, and requires as much brains and managing ability as running a big department store, and it is headed straight for one thing or the other, either pros?perity or bankruptcy.

“Not to have a mania for buying is to possess a revenue.”

One of our most successful men of wealth left a small town in North Carolina and braved the unknown business dangers of New York. His income became $50,000 a year, but he continued to live on a few hundred dollars a year and put back the remainder into his business, which he later sold for $7,500,000. His words are these: “When young men ask me how to succeed, I tell them, ‘Don’t spend money on yourself until you no longer need it to expand your business. Any young man willing to pay the price can rise to success.’ ”

“Life itself is a fight. Our enemies are inertia, selfishness, and the love of ease and pleasure. To overcome these enemies requires the fighting attitude. When a man ceases to fight he is a dead one. The same virtues that cause a man to succeed in war when applied to business will make him a success there.”

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Tags: The Secret of Wealth