Beware of thinking all your own, that you possess; and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people, who have credit, fall into.
To prevent this, keep an exact account, for some time, both of your expenses and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect:--you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums; and will soon discern, what might have been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience.
Again: he, who sells upon credit, asks a price, for what he sells, equivalent to the principal and interest of his money, for the time he is to be kept out of it. Therefore, he who buys upon credit, pays interest for what he buys; and, he who pays ready money, might let that money out to use. So, that he who possesses any thing he has bought, pays interest for the use of it.
Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money; because, he who sells upon credit, expects to lose five per cent, by bad debts. Therefore, he charges, on all he sells upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency.
Those who pay for what they buy upon credit, pay their share of this advance.
He who pays ready money, escapes, or may escape that charge.
A penny sav'd is two-pence clear, A pin a day's a groat a year.
In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words: _Industry_ and _Frugality_. Waste neither _time_ nor _money_; but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; but with them every thing. He who gets all he can, honestly, and saves all he gets, necessary expenses excepted, will certainly become _rich_; if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine.
Every reader will be diverted with the following.
On his first trip, by land, to see his father in Boston, he was worried almost to death by the abominable inquisitiveness of the New England tavern-keepers.
Neither man nor beast could travel among them in comfort. No matter how wet or weary, how hungry or thirsty, the poor traveller might be, he was not to expect an atom of refreshment from these silly publicans until their most pestiferous curiosity was first gratified. And then Job himself could not stand such questions as they would goad him with; such as, _where he came from--and where he might be a-going--and what religion he might be of--and if he was a married man_--and so on. After having been prodigiously teazed in this way for several days, until at last the bare sight of a public house almost threw him into an ague, he determined to try the following remedy at the very next tavern. Soon as he alighted from his horse he desired the tavern keeper to collect his whole family, wife, children, and servants, every soul of them; for that he had something _vastly important_ to communicate. All being assembled and wondering what he had to say, he thus addressed them. "My name is Benjamin Franklin. I am a printer by trade. I live, when at home, in Philadelphia. In Boston I have a father, a good old man who taught me, when I was a little boy, to read my book and say my prayers. I have, ever since, thought it my duty to visit and pay my respects to such a father; and I am on that errand to Boston now. This is all that I can at present recollect of myself that I think worth telling you. But if you can think of any thing else that you wish to know about me, I beg you to out with it at once, that I may answer, and so give you opportunity to get me something to eat; for I long to be on my journey that I may return as soon as possible to my family and business, where I most of all delight to be."