By all means we must save something for the "rainy day" as we go along—and our savings can be made up of other things than actual cash in bank. One item of our savings is the habit of keeping up our appearances. Living beyond our means does not incorporate the thought that, in order to save every possible cent, we should become slipshod and shabby. Carelessness in dress takes away from our rating as nothing else will for it has to do with first impressions of those with whom we come in contact. Gentility pays dividends of the highest order, being, as it is, a badge of character. Neatness bespeaks character, and it is just as cheap in dollars and cents to keep ourselves respectably clothed as to indulge in shoddy apparel under the delusion that we have saved money on the purchase price. Good clothing, costing more at the start, lasts long and looks well as long as it lasts. Shoddy apparel never is anything else but shoddy, and well might it proclaim the shoddy man.
When we throw away our opportunity to present a genteel appearance, just for the sake of the bank roll, we doom ourselves to defeat in the pursuit of knowledge. We cannot get all we want to know by the mere reading of books. We must mingle with people; we must interchange thought that we may crystallize what we know into practical knowledge so it can be made into tools to work with. While a man of brains is welcome everywhere the matter of his appearance has a lot to do with how he is received and with whom he may fraternize.
"Isn't it a pity," we hear people say, "that, with all his brains, he hasn't sense enough to make himself presentable?" But the worst phase of the situation is that the unkempt man sooner or later loses faith in himself and either ceases to hoard at the expense of his gentility or he gives up his opportunity to mingle with others and lapses into habits consistent with miserly thoughts.
The phrase "a happy medium" is well known and decidedly applicable to the subject of saving as we go along so that we may avert the sorrows which follow in the wake of living beyond our means. It suggests a desirable middle course which permits us to adopt a sane policy, rather than flying to an extreme.
It cannot be said that we are living beyond our means when by reason of our association with men of affairs we need to spend more money and thereby save less in preparing ourselves for the larger opportunities which will naturally follow. Young men often go through college on their "uppers," so to speak. There is not a cent which they could honestly save as they went along without cheating themselves. The point is that their situations in life force them to spend rather than to save money. But in so doing the real saving was in the spending thereof. They enlarged their knowledge and decreased their bank accounts for the time being. What man parts with in an emergency is no license, however, for him to fall back into profligacy. Never should a man entirely lose the idea of putting something by. The college boy in this case has simply invested his money in an education instead of a bank account.
Once on the highroad of life with a plan of action well defined and a regular income the habit of putting money away should become a fixed procedure. In no other way do we accumulate except by investment, and investment means putting away money at interest or in some project which promises better returns.
If we were to interview a thousand men on the subject of saving and draw upon their experiences we would find that by investing money at interest we pursue the safest course, far safer, in fact, than the seeking of outside investments that promise greater returns. The latter invites the mind away from the regular avocation and educates it in time to take chances that are likely to turn into setbacks. The mind, instead of applying itself to the duty of making the most out of its regular employment, allows its interest to become scattered over too broad a field.
It is not within the province of all men to become wealthy and, after all, wealth is not the only desideratum; the happiest of mortals are found in the middle walks of life and not in the extremes. The struggle should be to escape the life which saps our strength, keeps our nerves on edge and drives us away from the green pastures.