Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money онлайн

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“III. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one’s own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone and die not worth a groat at last. ‘A fat kitchen makes a lean will; and many estates are spent in the getting. Some women for tea forsook spinning and knitting. And men for punch, forsook hewing and splitting. If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes.’ Away then with your expensive follies, and you will not have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes and chargeable families; for, ‘Women and wine, game and deceit, make the wealth small and the wants great.’ And further, ‘What maintains one vice would bring up two children.’ You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be of no great matter; but, remember, ‘Many a little makes a mickle.’ Beware of little expenses. ‘A small leak will sink a great ship,’ as Poor Richard says; and again, ‘who dainties love, shall beggars prove;’ and moreover, ‘Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.’ Here you are all got together at this sale of finery and nicks-nacks. You call them goods; but if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps it may be less than they cost; but if you have no occasions for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says: ‘Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.’ And again, ‘At a great pennyworth, pause awhile.’ He means, that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straightening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another place he says, ‘Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths.’ Again, ‘it is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentence,’ and yet this folly is practiced every day at auctions for want of minding the Almanac. Many a one for the sake of finery on the back, has gone with a hungry belly and half starved his family. ‘Silks and satins and scarlets and velvets put out the kitchen fire,’ as Poor Richard says.