CHAPTER 22MAKING MONEY AND SPENDING MONEY HERE is a man who asks "Is it possible for one person to gain wealth (money) without impoverishing another, at least indirectly?"
Most certainly. It is not the quantity of money on hand which makes a man wealthy, but the quantity of money which he circulates intelligently. The only way to gain wealth is to spend money wisely. If I pay out $1.00 for a worthless thing I have impoverished myself. If I pay out $1.00 for that which to me is worth the full dollar and more, I have enriched myself.
There is a difference between spending money and investing money. To spend money is to pay it out unintelligently, for things which bring diminishing returns and leave a bad taste in the mouth. To invest money is to pay it out for something which brings lasting satisfaction. And this lasting satisfaction one grinds up every day into more money.
For lasting satisfaction is the joy of living, and joy in living fertilizes one's originality and multiplies his power for doing.
I may invest five dollars in a fourteen course dinner, and the result is indigestion and loss of power.
I may invest five dollars in a book and gain from it suggestions and inspirations which enable me to make a thousand dollars. In the first case I have spent my money, gaining nothing in return. In the second case I invested it wisely and in the paying out of the money I gain wealth, mental, spiritual, and material.
And the man who sold me the book, along with the rest of the world, comes in for the blessings radiated from the center of satisfaction. My neighbor might pay five dollars for the same book and from it gain a mental indigestion with consequent dissatisfaction. That dissatisfaction would rain curses on the head of the salesman.
All of which reminds me of what Emerson said — "Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But the day comes that he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor, then all goes well."
If you are ever a success it will be because you take hold of yourself and develop yourself and direct yourself in ways useful to the world about you.
The world pays nobody except for work which it wants done.
If you do better work than your neighbor, you can command better pay — if you demand it.
The world isn't going to give you better pay unless you (1) work for it, and (2) believe it your right, and (3) insist upon having it.
But if you never do good work till the world pays you high wages you will never get high pay. You have to do such good work that the world will wake up and take notice that you are the one who does that good work — you have to do this whether you receive pay for it or not.
In other words, when you are beginning in any line you have to do good work for small pay, or for nothing, as a matter of advertisement of your work. Then when those around you begin to demand your work you can fix your pay according to right principles.
But if you are full of spite and contempt and ill- feeling for those around you who have not paid you high prices for your work, you will cut off the connection between yourself and the good pay you want.
All kinds of envy and criticism and fault-finding and ugly feeling DE-MAGNETIZE you so that you cannot attract the things you desire.
Good Will to all. Good Will to the unjust as well as to the just, is the magnetic power which enables you to attract the things you desire.
If you fill yourself with Good Will, it is as if you turned the current of electricity on to the wires that do the work.
If you fill yourself with envy and resentment and criticism and fault-finding of the world and the people around you, it is as if you turned off the Good Will power which does the work you want done.
This is the whole thing in a nutshell: Go in to win and stick to it. Do good work and do it in good will to the world. And as a demand for your work increases, raise the price.
Then there is another side of life that must be systematized — no matter how small your income it must be so managed that there will always be a little laid by toward your savings account for the DAY OF OPPORTUNITY. Think it all over and allot your money for all things that it is necessary to buy, taking pains that your saving account is not left to the last, but is reckoned in with the very important things, like paying the grocer. See that your savings account grows every week and every month if only by a twenty-five cent piece.
And see that all your bills are paid before there are any luxuries.
If you cast about you, you will find that even men in very poor circumstances indulge in a great many luxuries. Wastefulness is the greatest luxury in which they indulge. The poor girl in the kitchen is more wasteful than her mistress would be if she were in the same place, just because she is more careless and is less determined to manage well the things at her command.
Men who are not rich are apt to be more wasteful than men who have larger incomes. And it all comes out of a mismanagement of funds — the failure to plan expenditure so that funds will cover the ground in the best way and leave a good margin for savings and the unexpected.
Wastefulness is a relative term, as you can readily see. Whatever money goes for things that you do not really want, and which do not tend to advance you in the direction in which you wish to go, is money wasted.
Organize your spending so that every penny will be "spent for power," as Frank Andrews Fall, bursar of New York University, says.
TO A MAN WHO HAS PRESSING DEBTS >
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