SAVING MONEY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4783, 21 July 1876, Page 3

SAVING MONEY.

(From the Liberal Review.) It is to be feared that there are more people who better know how to spend money than to save it. If this were not so, the Bankruptcy court would he less employed and creditors would seldom be called upon to permit their debtors to submit to that unpleasant process known, as liquidation by arrangement. Yet there are few persons who do not resolve, at some time or other, that they will establish a reserve fund,' and regularly add to it week by week and year by year. There are many causes which prevent them from carrying out their resolutions. A love of self-indulgence is one, weakness of will is another, and a fear of public opinion is a third. It will invariably be found that the man who has resolved to retrench breaks down at the very outset from the fact that he will not deny himself some pleasure to which he has long been accustomed. Assuming that he is in the habit of smoking the best cigars and drinking the choicest wines, which he would be just as well without, he cannot believe that .they are not almost necessary to his existence, so he continues to consume them, even though, by so doing, he is compelled to run up formidable bills. Again, if he lives in a large house, which is much in excess of his.requirements, he feels unable to betake himself to a smaller one, and seldom does so unless compelled by circumstances over which he has no control. He may tell you, in all sincerity, that he has resolved to retrench, but it would puzzle him to say in what way he intends to do so. There is a peculiar haziness about his ideas on this subject. Now, it should not be necessary to remark that the man who is determined to save money should have a number of settled purposes, that there should be a directness about his general aim ; that he must be indifferent to what is thought of him by his neighbors, and must rise superior to what seems to be a natural instinct, viz., to gratify his senses when he has the means in his pocket whereby he may do so. Now, this latter is precisely what those who are unable to save money cannot do, and hence their invariable breakdown. Provided that they have in their possession a little more cash than usual they are ready to fall victims to the first costly temptations which come in their way. Feeling that they are, so to speak, in luck they will buy some superfluous article of adornment or hold “ high jinks” in celebration of the fact. On the other hand, the being of strongly acquisitive tendencies makes no alteration in his mode of life when he is specially favored by fortune. Whatever windfall he receives he puts carefully on one side. Thus he gradually strengthens his position, while the person who regularly anticipates his income weakens his. At the end of ten years there will be a great difference between an aequisitor and an anticipator, even though they commenced upon equal terms and are the possessors of similar talents. The probability is that the aequisitor will be a man of power and the anticipator one of weakness who is full of complaints against fortune and prone to indulge in envious dissertations upon the acquisitor’s luok. Yet there has been no luck in one case more than the other, both men being simply affected by a natural law, which provides that the man who denies himself to-day shall be enabled to enjoy himself for two a year hence, and that he who recklessly indulges himself for one day now shall be compelled to go on short commons for two at the end of a certain time. The moral which may be drawn from this is so obvious that it is «nnecessary for us to make any attempt to point it out. There is a great tendency to*speak slightingly of those who save money, and to extol those who do not. It is not easy to indicate the precise grounds upon which this is done, but there appears to prevail an impression to the effect that one class are mean-souled, sordid, and greedy, while the other are full of generous impulses. This impression, however, does not seem to be justified by the facts of the case. In many cases, those who spend recklessly are by no means philanthropic. They throw about their money, it is true, but they do so more in a spirit of bravado than from charitable impulses. Their benevolence is, to say the best that can be said of it, decidedly erratic, and unfortunate indeed is the being who is dependent upon them. Because they scatter their gold with an apparently lavish hand wherever they go, and when the eyes of the world are upon them, it does not follow that they are doing anything mere _ than giving way to a particular form of self-indul-gence. They may treat their friends to costly entertainments, but there is little charity involved in the proceeding when the entertainments are given at the expense of creditors who are being defrauded of their rights. Of course, it may bo hold that it is a rather clever thing to diddle one’s creditors in order that one may be generous to one’s acquaintances, but the man who does this invariably fails to stand tho wear and, tear of time. The probability is that, sooner or later, he attempts to

•&difte~you" witlrthe ■ same skill that he lias diddled his creditors ; and the chances are that you'discover ere long that his promises are not to be relied upon,’and that it is hopeless to expect him to keep his engagements. • Nor is this all. It will be found [that, inotwithstanding all his grand show, he is indifferent who : suffers so long as heiis not forced to deny himself. On the other hand, the man who saves money will generally be proved to be a man of his word. IJnlike the spendthrift, who readily promises to do everything but actually perforins next to nothing, the money-saver is slow to promise, but what he does engage to do he is: quick to accomplish. This arises from the fact that when he makes an engagement he carefully calculates how far he will be able to fulfil it. He does not say that he will pay you a certain amount in a certain time on the strength of a vague hope that something will “turn up” betwixt now and then, but upon that of carefully-thought out and reliable calculations. He realises his obligations ;so keenly that he is occasionally led, perhaps,!to he unduly cautious. At the same time, if you want a man to do a real serviceable act of charity you must go to him rather than to a magnificent being who holds £ 6. d. in contempt. It is not surprising that he comes to the front in social life, and that he is placed in positions of power and responsibility. Selfdenial and integrity can never go unrewarded, their influence is so powerful and enduring. People may sneer at what they term miserliness. But providence is not miserliness, and the man who saves money is not necessarily a miser. ■ ■ ■ '