Thrift, or the good management of the business of living, is shown (1) in earning, (2) in spending, (3) in saving, and (4) in investing.

THRIFT IN EARNING

(1) Since the earning of a living was the subject of Chapter xi, we need not dwell upon it now except to note that a thrifty person is an industrious person—­he makes wise use of his time; and also to note that many of those who are now in want, or who, in advanced years, are receiving small wages, owe their condition to a failure at some time or other to make use of the opportunity for thrift.  Many people do not recognize the opportunity when it is presented, or lack the wisdom or the courage to seize it.  Thrift involves making A choice, and in many cases a wise choice requires courage as well as wisdom.  It is a choice between the satisfaction of present wants and the sacrifice of present enjoyment for the sake of greater satisfaction and service in the future.

When a boy in school has a chance to take a job that will pay him wages, he has to make a choice between it and remaining in school.  It may seem to be the thrifty thing to go to work; but real thrift is shown by careful choice of vocation, and by thorough preparation for it, even though it requires sacrifices that seem difficult (see pp. 137, 139).

We may note here, also, that physical fitness is essential if earning power, which means power to perform service, is to be fully developed.  The “conservation” of health and life is so important that a chapter is devoted to it later (Chapter xx).

THRIFT IN SPENDING

(2) After money has been earned, thrift shows itself first of all in the way the money is spent; and many of us have the spending of the money that some one else has earned.  Every time we spend a nickel or a dollar we make a choice—­we choose to spend or not to spend, how much we shall spend, for what we shall spend.

A lawyer in a small town reports that in one month he made out the necessary papers to enable 75 men to mortgage their homes to buy automobiles.

Butchers say that during the war they more often sold expensive cuts of meat to wage earners who were by no means well-to-do, but who happened for the time to be getting good wages, than to people of larger means.  One reason, perhaps, for extravagance in food and clothing on the part of unintelligent people who find themselves unusually prosperous, is that they see no better way to spend their money.  Those who find pleasure in books, in education for their children, in travel, in investing money in serviceable enterprises, and in the higher things of life, have to make A choice in regard to what they shall enjoy, and as a rule prefer to sacrifice the grosser pleasures.

CHOOSING WHAT TO SPEND