Saving on Age.
Thrift is an admirable trait. The way to acquire it is to cultivate it. The way to cultivate it is to deny yourself, and faithfully lay by the money you were tempted to spend. Of course you do not lay the money by for the sake of having it to spend later on. People save money for the money, it is true. This is right because it is provident. One might fall ill, and if he had no money saved up he might become a burden upon those illy able to support him.
But the best thing about the habit of saving is the habit itself. Having the habit well fixed in one's character renders one self-controllable—in other words, thrifty. Thrift applies to more things than money-saving, for the man who saves money begins to save other things. Waste is wrong—a sin.
Did you ever know one to save on his age—that is, to lay by as many dimes or dollars each year as he is years old? Suppose you are fourteen. During that year you save $14, and with it buy a certificate of deposit, a share of stock, or something that is complete in itself—a bond that represents your age that year. Next year you are fifteen, and you buy a $15 bond. Or, if you cannot save as many dollars as you are years old, try saving as many half-dollars or dimes. Keep your money in your own name, not in the name of somebody else who happens to have a bank-book when you do not, and draw it out only when you are very sure you need it. Get your age bond first, and your luxury afterward.
If you begin at fourteen, a dollar for each year, you will have at twenty-one seven bonds, representing $119. You will also have some interest money. But you will have much more, namely, the habit of saving—systematic economy, which is an education of itself, and one which, if necessary to gain, you could well afford to throw away the $119 that you saved.