You Can Easily Prove That You Are" As Good As He Is; " You Have Only To Behave As Well As He Does

Category: Finance, Personal Finance.

When you find that you have no surplus at the end of the year, and yet have a good income, I advise you to take a few sheets of paper and form them into a book and mark down every item of expenditure.

The real comforts of life cost but a small portion of what most of us can earn. Post it every day or week in two columns, one headed" necessaries" or even" comforts" , and the other headed" luxuries, " and you will find that the latter column will be double, and frequently ten, treble times greater than the former. It is the eyes of others and not our own eyes which ruin us. That we are born" free and equal" is a glorious truth in one sense, yet we are not all born equally rich, and we never shall be. If all the world were blind except myself l should not care for fine clothes or furniture. " In America many persons like to repeat" we are all free and equal, " but it is a great mistake in more senses than one. One may say; "there is a man who has an income of fifty thousand dollars per annum, while I have but one thousand dollars. Now he is rich and thinks he is better than I am.

I knew that fellow when he was poor like myself. I will show him that I am as good as he is. No, I cannot do that, but I will go and hire one and ride this afternoon on the same road that he does, and thus prove to him that I am as good as he is. " My friend, you need not take that trouble. I will go and buy a horse and buggy. You can easily prove that you are" as good as he is; " you have only to behave as well as he does. Besides, if you put on these" airs, " add waste your time and spend your money, your poor wife will be obliged to scrub her fingers off at home, and buy her tea two ounces at a time, and everything else in proportion, in order that you may keep up" appearances, " and, deceive nobody, after all.

But you cannot make anybody believe that you are rich as he is. On the other hand, Mrs. My good woman, you will not get ahead in the world, if your vanity and envy thus take the lead. Smith may say that her next- door neighbor married Johnson for his money, and" everybody says so. " She has a nice one- thousand dollar camel s hair shawl, and she will make Smith get her an imitation one, and she will sit in a pew right next to her neighbor in church, in order to prove that she is her equal. In this country, where we believe the majority ought to rule, we ignore that principle in regard to fashion, and let a handful of people, calling themselves the aristocracy, run up a false standard of perfection, and in endeavoring to rise to that standard, we constantly keep ourselves poor. How much wiser to be a" law unto ourselves" and say, "we will regulate our out- go by our income, and lay up something for a rainy day. " People ought to be as sensible on the subject of money- getting as on any other subject.

All the time digging away for the sake of outside appearances. Like causes produces like effects. It needs no prophet to tell us that those who live fully up to their means, without any thought of a reverse in this life, can never attain a pecuniary independence. You cannot accumulate a fortune by taking the road that leads to poverty.

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