“The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means.” –Taylor.

TAYLOR lived several hundred years ago when the accumulation of wealth was a slow and laborious process. Were he here today, he would probably say:

“Pitch your scale of living many degrees below your means if you wish to live long enough to ac­quire wealth and to live easily and be comfortably independent in the later years of your life.”

It is altogether probable that each one of us could get along and be reasonably happy and contented without many of the things which we now have and think necessary. By careful elimination it might be possible to cut down living expenses by 10% or 20% or even 30% and still have every­thing we need to make our enjoyment of life com­plete.

Almost every one has bought something which he never used. Many people own or are paying rent for more house than they can occupy and in this way are making more work, and therefore more expense, for themselves.

Few people pay attention to the buying of things during the season in which they are least expensive. There is a day or a week or a time in every year when each certain thing we use reaches its lowest price. Almost all things are seasonable and the season of most liberal supply and least corresponding demand is the time to stock up on that particular thing. The time to buy furs and coal is not when the first blizzard strikes us and the time to buy apples is not in January.

A merchant in a middle western town recently stated that he was selling fully one-half of the furniture in his store at less than it cost to make; at the same time he admitted that he was getting pretty large profits on some certain wicker furni­ture which was just then in great demand for sun parlors, porches and summer homes. Most people bought their wicker furniture during a period of about two weeks in the spring. They knew they wanted it and could have selected it at any time just as they could now select what they want for next spring and make 25% interest or more on the investment in a few months’ time.

Human beings are creatures of habit, and habits once acquired are hard to break, but the person who indulges a desire for some luxury occasionally gets more enjoyment out of it than the one who has that luxury at his elbow every day in the year.

While we are lopping off the things we must get along without, it would be quite easy to lop off a few more things and what a pleasure it would be to discover after a few weeks that we were sav­ing more money than we had ever before thought possible. At least it is worth a try.

It is our belief that after three months’ experience in pitching your scale of living below your means, you will wonder why you did not do this before. At least that is one habit, the habit of saving money, which is in no danger of being over­worked because, when a dollar is saved, it goes into the bank and immediately back into circula­tion and everybody gets the use of it just as though it was spent but that dollar still belongs to the one who first saved it.

“It is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well.”

“It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave than to expend it like a gentleman.”–Colton.

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”–Epicurus.

“To acquire wealth is difficult, to preserve it more difficult, but to spend it wisely most difficult of all.” –E. P. Day.

Tags: The Secret of Wealth