If you would be healthy, says he in another Almanac, think of Saving, as well as of Getting! The Indies have not made Spain rich; because her Outgoes are greater than her Incomes.
Away, then, with your expensive follies! and you will not have so much cause to complain of hard Times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families. For, as Poor DICK says,
Women and Wine, Game and Deceit, Make the Wealth small, and the Wants great.
And farther, What maintains one vice, would bring up two children.
You may think perhaps, that, a little tea, or a little punch, 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 what Poor RICHARD says, Many a Little makes a Mickle; and farther, Beware of little expenses! a small leak will sink a great ship; and again, Who dainties love; shall beggars prove! and moreover, Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.
Here are you all got together at this Vendue of Fineries and knicknacks! 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! Remember what Poor RICHARD says! Buy what thou hast no need of, and, ere long, thou shalt sell thy necessaries! And again, At a great pennyworth, pause a while! He means, that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only, and not real; or the bargain by straitening 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.
Again, Poor RICHARD says, 'Tis foolish, to lay out money in a purchase of Repentance: and yet this folly is practised every day at Vendues, for want of minding the Almanac.
Wise men, as Poor DICK says, learn by others' harms; Fools, scarcely by their own: but Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum. Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, has gone with a hungry belly, and half starved their families. Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, as Poor RICHARD says, put out the kitchen fire! These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the conveniences: and yet only because they look pretty, how many want to have them! The artificial wants of mankind thus become more numerous than the natural; and as Poor DICK says, For one poor person, there are a hundred indigent.
By these, and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised; but who, through Industry and Frugality, have maintained their standing. In which case, it appears plainly that A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees, as Poor RICHARD says. Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they knew not the getting of. They think 'tis day! and will never be night!; that a little to be spent out of so much I is not worth minding (A Child and a Fool, as Poor RICHARD says, imagine Twenty Shillings and Twenty Years can never be spent): but always taking out of the meal tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom. Then, as Poor DICK says, When the well's dry, they know the worth of water! but this they might have known before, if they had taken his advice. If you would know the value of money; go, and try to borrow some! For, he that goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing! and indeed, so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to get it in again!
Poor DICK further advises, and says