Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-07-01
NO. 156.a
THE SECRET OF THRIFT.

.4sN
The first and main step towards obtain
ing competency of ten, twenty or thirty
| thousand dollars, is the securing OF the
thousand; the chief difficulty in getting
the one thousand is in obtaining the first
hundred, and keeping it. Hackneyed as
this may appear, it is a fact that is ever
new, and one that ever needs to be
drummed into the ears of the struggling
millions who work hard and look with
straining vision, but in vain, for the COM
ing of plentiful days. And especially
does this homely philosophy of wealth
need to be emphasized at the present time,
and impressed upon the young men of this
generation, since the prevalent tendency,
now more than ever before, is for begin
ners in married OF business life to adopt
such scale of personal and family expen-
diture as must render gain or thrift impos-
sible. The youth of our time seem likely
to forgetthat easy circumstances in middle
OF mature age are as a rule, only to be pur-
chased at the cost of rigid self-denial in
ambitious to begin life where their parents
leave off-in other words they wish to reap
where they have not sown, or before they
have sown. and the result is, lives of
make-shift, anxiety and failure. Most of
those who are really industrious, and yet
find themselves at the noon of life with
only their daily efforts between their fami-
lies and want, could have been in more
comfortable circumstances, had they early
learned the lesson that the KEY to compe-
tency lies in the practice of rigid economy
at the outset of life. He who does not
begin to save when he commences life for
himself will rarely begin at all, for where
not even the nucleus of modest fortune
has been acquired, family expenses will,
after time, grow as fast as the income,
and the two keep abreast ever afterward.
Some of the ways in which even a very
small sum, actually saved and put aside
in early life, serves as a stepping stone to
future competence are these: l4
The saving gives the Young man the
reputation among his neighbors and busi-
ness associates OF being careful, frugal and
prosperous 1t gives him what is called a
good business credit, it is accepted as an
index of his business character, and in
stead of his being forced to seek employ
ment, opportunities seek him. Besides,
his little ready capital enables him to take
advantage of business openings which, if
wholly empty-handed, he could not aspire
to. 1t enables him soon to become his own
employer-a most important considera-
ton. Money begets money. Capital has
natural tendency to increase itself, and
very little capital in the hands of ju-
dicious person, and combined with the la
Dor of strong and skillful hands, is a vast
help. The day laborer or the mechanic
who has few hundred dollars in bank, or
invested in a good Understanding securi-
ty. is a capitalist as well as working
man, and is prepared to reap the advan-
tages of his double capacity.
But, mainly, the saving and keeping of
the first hundred or the first thousand dol
lars is the key to future success, from the
fact that it baildS up business character; it
compels the formation of habits of econo-
my, and fixes them for life; it puts the
young worker on the right road; accus-
toms him to keeping out of debt, drills
him to the homely science of keeping his
financial matters snug, and builds up
granite determination to force expenses
below income. i i@