The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1920-03-26
THE MONEY THAT GETS AWAY
BY r. A. Wilson, Director Of Publicity
War Loan Oroanixation


$12 week? Spent it all of course
Then you were raised to SIS, spen
that too and perhaps didn't enjo,
life any more than when at $12 {
week you bought the phonograph a
81 a week. Sure, the phonograph was
a good investment because it made
life more pleasant, but have all the
81 week you spent without noticing
it, been SO wise an investment?
And speaking Of investments, spent
a few moments of your time reading
the following editorial recently print
ed in the Duluth Evening Herald. II
may pay you unexpected dividinds:
Here is common mystery that is
not mystery, though it puzzles many
of those who do not save.
"You are earning fifteen dollars a
week, say and lived On it. You think /;
IF / only had twenty-five dollars a
week, we could live better and save
something" Very we'll; your employer
comes through and raises you to twen-
ty-five. Presently you find that nothing
is changed You got fifteen and lived
on it; now you get twenty-five and
you live on that. What has become of
the increase? That. is the mystery
which is no mystery.
1T is the same as your earnings in
creased. You have meant to save.
Looking ahead to each upward step,
you did not save. Nor was living made
much easier, if any. Indeed, it may
even have been made harder; for the
capacity to absorb increased income
grows more rapidly than the rate of
increase in earnings. Hence this is
not an uncommon Phenomenon: Peos
pie who lived comfortably on two
thousand year but 1nd themselves
miserable on five thousand.
This is the mystery. But it is no
mystery Here is what does it:
The insidious automatic expansion
of desires to the new limit of income
and beyond.
when you earned fifteen dollars
your desires strained at the leash.
When you advanced to twenty-five
they Immediately took the full length
of the extension; and SO on up the
line.
And the reasin is that you had no
system of capturing a part of the In
crease. Unrestrained by any fixed sys-
tenn of saving, with each increase your
desire Immediately absorbed all your
gain.
again, suppose you have been
spending fifty cents day for tobacco
and you stop smoking, or sixty cents
week for being shaved and you start
shaving yourself:
Manifestly, you are that much ahead.
But unless you take that saving and
salt it down, you will realize no benefit
Some desire will reach out and snatch
it away, and you will never realize
how it happened.
rNow the rule that goes with this
and is its antidote as follows: Nobody,
not born miser, saves much except
by some set system of self-compulsion.
THAT system may be to bank a
fixed proportion of each weeks or
pay. II, when you want from
fifteen to twenty-five, you had deter
mined to save half the increase, the
expansion Of your desires
would have been checked half way.
Instead OF learning to live on twenty
five week, you would have learned
to live on twenty. You would have
formed habit as valuable as an in
heritance- more valuable because it
would build character besides building
a bank account
THE installment plan, often VIC
Ious source OF extravaganza, can be |
put at work for you If you apply 1t |
with little wisdom. That set OF books !
you bought dollar down I'D dollar |
a monitor the phoaogrcph or the |
furniture ard perhaps even
the automobile ti,s '5G I tired the I
same way-has tits taught you no |
lesson? Suppose you had applied |
this system to the purchase Of some
hing that would represent tangible,
asset for yourself at
sixty-fve.
"But you have propably. Those
Liberty Bonds that you bought thro- |
Ugh your employer or the bank on the |
,asy payment plan-the same plan |
hat bought the books or phonograph |
y furniture or hivves that was m |
Of what you coald 10. Here
8 the essence of that.