ECONOMY
A FOOL squanders away, without credit or advantage to
himself, more than a man of sense spends with both. The latter employs his
money as he does his time, and never spends a shilling of the one, nor a minute
of the other, but in something that is either useful or rationally pleasing to
himself or others. The former buys whatever he does not want, and does not pay
for what he does want. He cannot withstand the charms of a toy-shop:
snuff-boxes, watches, heads of canes, etc., are his destruction. His servants
and tradesmen conspire with his own indolence to cheat him; and, in a very
little time, he is astonished, in the midst of all these ridiculous
superfluities, to find himself in want of all the real comforts and necessaries
of life.
Without care and method, the largest fortune
will not, and with them almost the smallest will, supply all necessary
expenses. As far as you can possibly, pay ready money for everything you buy,
and avoid bills. Pay that money too yourself, and not through the hands of any
servant; who always either stipulates poundage, or requires a present for his “good
word,” as they call it. Where you must have bills (as for meat and drink, clothes,
etc.), pay them regularly every month, and with your own hand. Never, from a
mistaken economy, buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap; or, from a
silly pride, because it is dear. Keep an account, in a book, of all that you
receive, and of all that you pay; for no man who knows what he receives, and
what he pays, ever runs out. I do not mean that you should keep an account of
the shillings and half-crowns that you may spend in chair-hire, operas, etc.;
they are unworthy of the time, and the ink they that would consume; leave such minutia
to dull penny-wise fellows; but remember, in economy, as in every other part of
life, to have the proper attention to proper objects, and the proper contempt
for little ones.
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