In the common struggle to get on, many of us devote our attention too
exclusively to the matter of earning money. We assume that the question
of wealth is wholly one of income and that having is altogether a matter
of getting. Such is not the case. Efficient spending is quite as important
a consideration as is efficient earning. The question as to whether one
can succeed depends not only on whether he can get and keep money. It also
depends on whether he can accomplish the most with it after he gets it.
The usefulness of money is a matter of getting a hundred cents of value
from each dollar. Between the hoarding of money, on the one hand, and the
reckless habits of the spendthrift, on the other, lies this golden mean.
Three general principles relate to efficient spending.
The first is the importance of buying only what one really needs. A great
many people are kept poor because they buy what they do not need enough to
warrant its purchase. Non-essential industries are permitted to sap the
labor and support which rightfully belong to more important things because
of this popular willingness to spend good money for that which can bring
no real equivalent in value.
Many needs are imagined, or assumed. They have their origin, not in any
fact of necessity, but in the fever of a mind wrought up by envy or
desire, until its possessor has joined in the general chase after that
which is not bread. The chronic invalid of yesterday got a new disease
each time she read over the list of symptoms in a patent medicine
pamphlet. The spendthrift of today thinks of some new luxury to covet
with each glance at a tastefully-decorated window, or an artfully
drawn picture.
We must learn to let reason and not desire rule in these matters. Reason
is sometimes a little forbidding, it is true, but we frequently need the
touch of a restraining hand in the matter of spending. Unchecked desire
would soon make paupers of us all.
The standard of living rises or falls according as desire is, or is not,
stimulated. If it were gauged to necessity, there would be little
variation. Necessity is a well-established thing and, therefore,
practically constant. The scale of expenditure varies with the human
desire for luxury and the human ability to obtain it.
The measure of real necessity is surprisingly small. When one finds the
medium ground between profligacy and stinginess, he will realize that he
can live there, even though his income may be moderate. Greater
moderation in many things would leave us a healthier and happier race,
to say nothing of what it would do for our bank accounts. Certainly,
before buying a thing, one should honestly ask himself whether he needs
it. He should, likewise, give himself an honest answer.
The second principle of efficient spending is that when one has honestly
decided that he needs a thing, he should buy the best he can get. If one
buys at all, it pays to search the market for an article of high quality.
Moreover, he is very apt not to find an article of high grade unless he
does search the market rather carefully.
The purchase of a cheap grade of goods, for any serious use, is very poor
economy. Such goods soon give way, and the service they render, while they
do last, is not satisfactory. To obtain a given amount of service, one
will spend more money on articles of cheap grade than upon those that are
better. The obtaining of the same amount of pleasure and satisfaction from
the use of a cheap thing and a good one is an impossibility.
It is a fallacy to suppose that the market must be supplied with
quantities of shoddy goods for the sake of people who have less money to
spend. The very fact that one does have less money to spend is one of the
chief reasons why he cannot afford to waste it on inferior things. If all
except a really worthy and dependable grade of goods were removed from the
market today, purchasers, both rich and poor, would be the gainers.
The selection of a high grade of products calls for some ability and skill
in making a choice. It calls for no more, however, than every person
should possess. The average citizen should train himself to be something
of a judge of materials. Such ability will be of real service almost
constantly in the task of living. One of the first things he is apt to
learn is the fact that the showiest articles are seldom the best. A
certain camouflage of outward appearance is often put on a thing to hide
its real defects. Quality does not have to be painted up to show it off.
It proclaims itself. The purchaser must learn to see through the outward
appearance and judge a thing on its merits.
The third principle of efficient spending follows in logical order. It is
that, having decided to buy a thing and having bought the best, one should
use it until he has gotten from it the utmost service of which it
is capable.
A certain antiquated notion of economy was that when things were purchased
they should be put away and saved. The more valuable an article was, the
more scrupulously it was kept. Good clothes were bought and hung away to
be eaten by the moths instead of rendering their owners the service for
which they were intended. Valuable articles were always rusting out and
rotting out in the name of economy.
The fact is that disuse is bad for anything. Unused, a piece of machinery
will soon become incapable of use. The worst thing that can be done with
a piece of cloth is to fold it away and leave it alone. Service is the
mission and the means to health of anything from a table fork to the
biceps muscle. This is the thing an article is built for. Nothing save
its possibilities for usefulness justifies the spending of money for it.
If it were not to be used, good judgment would never sanction the purchase
of it. It must be made to pay interest on the investment. Use alone proves
its right to exist.
A thing should be used as long as there is any usefulness left in it. One
of the points at which we are forever losing out in our attempts at
economy is in our habit of not waiting until we have exhausted the
usefulness of a thing before we put it aside and buy another.
This is the theory of the continual change taking place in styles. From
the tip of a lady’s shoe to the shape of an automobile, things are kept
continually changing in order to induce the public to buy new articles
every so often, whether it needs them or not. This keeps trade going, but
it keeps many people poor.
A thing for which one has spent good money should not only be used as long
as possible, but it should also be kept capable of use as long as
possible. Good care and proper attention in the way of repair will extend
its life very considerably. This is a matter of conservation as well as
one of economy.
Of course, there is no plan by which the ends of economy and thrift can be
accomplished automatically. The human factor will always be the
determining one. These principles will not practice themselves. Only human
mind and will can do that. They are not a machine for the conservation of
money. They are only a plan by which money may be made to accomplish
the most.
The poor we always have with us, but many of them are with us
unnecessarily. We shall always have a poverty problem, but it would be
reduced to a small minimum by the right use of money. Money is made to
spend, but the financially independent are those who have learned
to spend it wisely.