MASTERING ART OF SAVING IS NOT EASY

Southland Times, Issue 23734, 4 February 1939, Page 15

MASTERING ART OF SAVING IS NOT EASY

I have just mastered the most difficult lesson of my life—and the most exciting. I have learned how to save money, says a writer in an exchange. For years I lived up to my income, spending gaily on the principle of eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” But last year I nearly did die—from pneumonia—and suddenly remembered another saying, about a fool and his money. When I recovered I was faced with an appalling pile of bills—and nothing to pay them with. I managed to dispose of them all only after months of worry. Then I decided my next job must be to learn saving as a fine art. I soon found that the only way of making money stay in my pocket,, or even in the house, was to be methodical about its distribution. The trouble is that I was not born with an orderly mind. I had always paid bills as they came in, gaily assuming there was enough money in the bank to meet them. Now I realized that I must put aside a small sum every week to meet every kind of expenditure. So, as I am a perfect fool at mental arithmetic, I got a notebook and collected a number of cigarette boxes. These, I decided in my new fit of economy, should be my money-boxes until I had a nice little sum in real savings. . I made fevered calculations, with the result that every week a fixed sum went into each box out of my income. Rent, telephone, gas, electric light, clothes, holidays, season ticket, amusements and doctor, said the labels on the boxes. , . My biggest worry was clothes. I had long ago discovered that cheap clothes are often expensive in the long run. Whereas good material comes back like new from the cleaner’s, the life of a good silk lining is a long one; and a suit which is well made keeps its air of elegance to the bitter end. A small wardrobe and a good one was my motto. But I found that I could economize by making many of my clothes interchangeable, so that one jacket could be worn with two or even three skirts or frocks, and by sticking to a carefully-thought-out but limited colour scheme, I could make outfits do double duty. Well, my economy system worked. As the bills came in, so they were paid out of cash in hand, and as I got used to handling my money sensibly, my bank balance began to go up as well. I had my bad moments, of course. I had a shock one day when I realized that I was getting to enjoy my saving so much that I had not only become careful, but also a trifle mean. That had to be dealt with. And now I have learned my lesson. It was not easy, though it may sound like it. But, on the whole, it has been fun.