The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1920-03-25
THAT GETS
AWAY FROM YOU
What Do You Do With That Increase
In Wages

Sl2 a week? Spent 1t all OF course,
Then you were raised to SIS, spent
that too-and perhaps didn't enjoy life
any more than when at $12 a week
you bought the photograph at 81 a
week. Sure, the photograph was a
good investment because IL made life
cor pleasant, but have all the 50 a
week you spent without noticing IL"
been so wise an investment?
And speaking of investments, spend
q few moments of your time reading
the following editorial recently print
ed in The Duluth Evening Heral. 1t
may pay you unexpected dividends:
Here is a common mystery that is
rot a mystery, though it puzzles many
of those who do not save.
You are earning fifteen dollars a
week, say, and living on it You think
"if l only had twenty-five dollars a
week, we could live better and save
something Very well: your employ
err comes through and raises you to
twenty-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.
at is the same as your earnings
increase. You have meant to save
Looking ahead to each upward step,
you did not save. Nor was living
made much easier. II any. Indeed, 1t
may even have been made harder; for
the capacity to absorb increased in
come grows more rapidly than the
rate Of increase In earnings. Hence
this is not an uncommon phenomenon.
People who lived comfortably on two
thousand a year but find themselves
miserable on five thousand.
"This is the mystery. But 1t is no
mystery. Here is what does It:
Inc lnSldlOuS autOma
expansion of desires to the
NEW limit of income--and. 49,.
beyond.
when you earned fifteen dollars
your desires strained. at the leash.
When you advanced to twenty-five
they Immediately took the full length
extension; and SO on up the line.
"And the reason is that you had no
system of capturing a part of the in
crease Unrestrained by any fixed
system of saving, with each increase
your desire Immediately absorbed all
your gain.
again, suppose you have been spend
ing fifty cents a day for tobacco n
g stop smoking, or sixty cents a
week for being shaved and you start
shaving yourself.
Manifestiy you are that much ahead.
Rut unless you take that saving and
salt it down, you will realize no bene-
ct. Some desire will reach out and
snatch it away, ana o will never
realize how it happened.
"Now the rule that goes with this
and is its antidote as follows: No
body, not a born miser, saves much
except by some set system OF self
compulsion.
THAT system may be to bank a lx-
ed proportion OF each weeks or
months "a IL, when you went from
fifteen to twenty-five, you had deter
mined to save half the increase, the
distinctive expansion OF your desires
would have been checked half way.
Instead of learning 70 live on twenty
FIVE a week, you would have learned
to live on twenty. You would have
formed a habit as valuable as an in
heritance-more valuable because II
would build character besides builds
ing a bank account.
"The installment plan, often a vici-
Gus source of extravaganza, can be
put at work for you II you apply it
with a little wisdom That set OF
hooks you bought a dollar down and
a dollar a monitor the photograph
er the expensive furniture and perhaps
even the automobile that you acquired
the same way-has this taught you
no lesson? Suppose you had applied
this system to the purchase OF some
thing that would represent a tangible.
income-yielding asset for yourself at
sixty-ive.
But you have probably. Those
Liberty Bonds that you bought
through your employer or the bank on
the easy payment plan-the same plan
that bought the books or p~honograph
or furniture or iivver-that was an
example of what you could do. Here
is the ssence Of that:
THAT the average person is likely
to save ONLY IL he will tie himself
up to something that will obligate hin
10 save u certain part OF what he gcts