1. "What maintains one vice would bring up two children."
  1. You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or superfluities now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, "Many a little makes a mickle."
  1. Beware of little expenses: "A small leak will sink a great ship," as Poor Richard says; and again, "Who dainties love, shall beggars prove;" and moreover, "Fools make feasts and wise men eat them."
  1. Here you are all got together to this sale of fineries and nick-nacks. You call them goods; but if you do not take care they will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and perhaps they may, for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion for them they must be dear to you.
  1. Remember what Poor Richard says, "Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries."
  1. "At a great pennyworth, pause awhile." He means, perhaps, that the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain, by straightening thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good; for in another place he says, "Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths."
  1. "It is foolish to lay out money in the purchase of repentance;" and yet this folly is practised every day at auctions for want of minding the Almanack.

2612. Cash and Credit

If you would get rich, don't deal in bill books. Credit is the "Tempter in a new shape." Buy goods on trust, and you will purchase a thousand articles that cash would never have dreamed of. A shilling in the hand looks larger than ten shillings seen through the perspective of a three months' bill. Cash is practical, while credit takes horribly to taste and romance. Let cash buy a dinner, and you will have a beef-steak flanked with onions. Send credit to market, and he will return with eight pairs of woodcocks and a peck of mushrooms. Credit believes in diamond pins and champagne suppers. Cash is more easily satisfied. Give him three meals a day, and he doesn't care much if two of them are made up of roasted potatoes and a little salt. Cash is a good adviser, while credit is a good fellow to be on visiting terms with. If you want double chins and contentment, do business with cash.