The Secret Of Wealth

"What we do not recognize as an education is often more useful than years of college training." 

CHAPTER XXXII

"Every man needs more money. An hour comet into the life of each of us when a sum of ready money means a long leap towards independence, or it means health--or even life itself. The resourceful man always backs up his energy by a steadily growing bank account."--Anon.

IT IS a fact that everybody would like to have a steadily growing bank account, and the reason that many fail is because of the two great American scourges--Waste and Show.

The average American family throws out enough food to keep a second family, if the same economies were known and practiced in this Country that our foremothers knew and practiced in thrifty spots of the Old World. A clever woman can dress herself in the latest fashion by using the materials which the average American woman of moderate circumstances gives away or discards.

And as for show--show never fools anybody, for the very persons whom the show is intended to impress detect the pretentiousness and laugh at it. A display of what one cannot afford never alters one's position for the better. Living up to the neighbors has caused many a home to be ruined, and many men and women to die in the poorhouse.

Extravagance is seldom the gratification of a desire for comfortthe extravagant things we do are nearly always done either through waste or show.

Think of the money you might have--but have not, either through show or waste.

A wealthy man was overheard telling a young friend how he had become an affluent and independent citizen--here is the story as he told it:

"When I was a young married man, I was driven almost crazy trying to make my salary go around. It worried me so that I could not put my mind on my work the way I should have done; and when I reached home in the evening, instead of resting, I fretted and planned how to meet this bill and that bill, until I got nervous and grouchy.

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