Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-07-18
YOU MUST LEARN
TO SAVE MONEY
Lack of knowledge by Wo-
men Powerful Enemy of
Happiness
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX

BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX
"a lack of knowledge of the value
of money upon the part of woman
is the most powerful enemy to do
mestic happiness that exists" declared
Judge Lacy, of the domestic relations
court in Detroit.
Just now, it is not only domestic
happiness which is being threatened
by a lack of knowledge of the value
of money, but the integrity of our ma
tion itself. Thrift is a part OF pa
triotism."
Thrift is a sane, sensible use of
materials and is at once a foe to
waste and to hysterical economy of
the sort which threatens to block the
wheels of trade. Thrift means learn
ing how to make rye bread or corn
bread or graham bread, since the
world needs our wheat. 1t does not
mean starving to death because you
feel you owe your wheat to the world!
The people who spend sanely and
sensibly and who keep trade active
and money circulated are far more
patriotic now than are those who
lock away their money in banks or
cracked teapots and interfere with
the steady circulation which is as
necessary to national welfare as is
the unimpeded circulation of blood to
every individual.
A Practical Test
Stoppage of any sort is unhealthy.
Think it over and apply it practically
You know Just exactly what you sur
fer if your own mechanism isn't
working perfectly. Things have to
keep going in the steady flow, which
is the principle of life itself ana of
the great solar system, which makes
our climate habitable.
When you have imperfect circula-
tion you are sick. When commerce
has it's circulation blocked or i'm
peded, 1t suffers, too. There are basic
principles which run through every
thing.
Suppose you make over last years
serge suit and put the s25 or $50 you
have saved away. If you take the
money out of circulation for the mere
satisfaction of swelling your savings,
are you much better than miser?
If'you save to buy a Liberty Bond and
so to stand back of your country, your
own shabbiness was heroic. But far
Better than to hoard your money like
a miser would it be to order new
suit and so to help insure employment
to all those who work to make that
suit.
The sort of thrift we owe to our
selves to practice is that which elm
mates waste. Using cheap cuts of
meat has a definite patriotic value
Just now. If the eight to sixteen
cent cuts are not sold, the butcher
must make his profit on the expensive
cuts and you yourself are helping
force up prices.
Throwing out food which you
cooked carelessly and in too large
quantities is wildly eXtravagant too
If you pay too much for Thursdays
dinner, and, in order to make up Tor
it. have a cheap and unnourishing
dinner Friday, you are damaging your
health and are not benehtlng your
tradesmen either!
The proper attitude toward thrift
and saving to-day is one which makes
a sane tabulation of income and eX-
penses.
Try to BE Logical
If you want now to be really
thrifty, go about it logically. Sit
down and figure out your income, de-
eide on the proportion you feel you
can save, subtract that, and in fig
uring your expenses take account of 1t.
1t does not belong to you; it belongs
to your future. Then tabulate your
expenses.
suppose you can afford to spend
ten dollars a week on your table.
That means that food each day may
cost you about dollar forty. II you
spend two dollars ana halI on Iues-
days table, you will have thirty cents
left for Wednesday.
Dollars are not elastic. They con-
tain one hundred cents. Each penny
has a definite purchasing power; 1t
won't buy five cents worth, but 1t
will buy one full penny's worth, and
to throw away the value of that penny
in these days of stress is little short
of criminal.
1 think pencil and paper are one
of the great gifts of humanity. No
one who sits down to figure things
out, and who gives common sense
to the facts that are figures, need
be extravagant. Hoarding money may
be a factor in panic; spending money
foolishly is waste. But eXpendinE
money wisely and making it bring
in full value is that thrift which Is
part of patriotism to-day.