The Young Man's Guide

by William A. Alcott

'Owe no man any thing,' is an apostolic injunction; and happy is he who has it in his power to obey. In my own opinion, most young men possess this power, did they perceive the importance of using it by commencing right. It is not so difficult a thing always to purchase with ready money, as many people imagine. The great difficulty is to moderate our desires and diminish our wants within bounds proportioned to our income. We can expend much, or live on little; and this, too, without descending to absolute penury. It is truly surprising to observe how people in similar rank, condition, and circumstances, contrive to expend so very differently. I have known instances of young men who would thrive on an income which would not more than half support their neighbors in circumstances evidently similar.

Study therefore to live within your income. To this end you must calculate. But here you will be obliged to learn much from personal experience, dear as her school is, unless you are willing to learn from that of others. If, for example, your income is $600 a year, and you sit down at the commencement of the year and calculate on expending $400, and saving the remainder, you will be very liable to fail in your calculation. But if you call in the experience of wiser heads who have travelled the road of life before you, they will tell you that after you have made every reasonable allowance for necessary expenses during the year, and believe yourself able to lay up $200, you will not, once in ten times, be able to save more than two thirds of that sum—and this, too, without any sickness or casualty.

It is an important point never to buy what you do not want. Many people buy an article merely because it is cheap, and they can have credit. It is true they imagine they shall want it at some future time, or can sell it again to advantage. But they would not buy at present, if it cost them cash, from their pockets. The mischief is that when the day of payment is distant, the cost seems more trifling than it really is. Franklin's advice is in point; 'Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries;'—and such persons would do well to remember it.

The difference between credit and ready money is very great. Innumerable things are not bought at all with ready money, which would be bought in case of trust; so much easier, is it, to order a thing than to pay for it. A future day, a day of payment must come, to be sure; but that is little thought of at the time. But if the money were to be drawn out the moment the thing was received or offered, these questions would arise; Can I not do without it? Is it indispensable? And if I do not buy it, shall I suffer a loss or injury greater in amount than the cost of the thing? If these questions were put, every time we make a purchase, we should seldom hear of those suicides which disgrace this country, and the old world still more.

I am aware that it will be said, and very truly, that the concerns of merchants, the purchasing of great estates, and various other large transactions, cannot be carried on in this manner; but these are rare exceptions to the rule. And even in these cases, there might be much less of bills and bonds, and all the sources of litigation, than there now is. But in the every day business of life, in transactions with the butcher, the baker, the tailor, the shoemaker, what excuse can there be for pleading the example of the merchant, who carries on his work by ships and exchanges?

A certain young man, on being requested to keep an account of all he received and expended, answered that his business was not to keep account books: that he was sure not to make a mistake as to his income; and that as to his expenditure, the purse that held his money, would be an infallible guide, for he never bought any thing that he did not immediately pay for. I do not mean to recommend to young men not to keep written accounts, for as the world is, I deem it indispensable.

Few, it is believed, will deny that they generally pay, for the same article, a fourth part more, in the case of trust, than in that of ready money. Suppose now, the baker, butcher, tailor, and shoemaker, receive from you $400 a year. Now, if you multiply the $100 you lose, by not paying ready money, by 20, you will find that at the end of twenty years, you have a loss of $2,000, besides the accumulated interest.

The fathers of the English church, forbade selling on trust at a higher price than for ready money, which was the same thing in effect as to forbid trust; and this was doubtless one of the great objects those wise and pious men had in view; for they were fathers in legislation and morals, as well as in religion. But we of the present age, seem to have grown wiser than they, and not only make a difference in the price, regulated by the difference in the mode of payment, but no one is expected to do otherwise. We are not only allowed to charge something for the use of the money, but something additional for the risk of the loss which may frequently arise,—and most frequently does arise—from the misfortunes of those to whom we thus assign our goods on trust.

The man, therefore, who purchases on trust, not only pays for being credited, but he also pays his share of what the tradesman loses by his general practice of selling upon trust; and after all, he is not so good a customer as the man who purchases cheaply with ready money. His name, indeed, is in the tradesman's book, but with that name the tradesman cannot buy a fresh supply of goods.

Infinite, almost, are the ways in which people lose by this sort of dealing. Domestics sometimes go and order things not wanted at all; at other times more than is wanted. All this would be obviated by purchasing with ready money; for whether through the hands of the party himself, or those of some other person, there would always be an actual counting out of the money. Somebody would see the thing bought, and the money paid. And as the master would give the steward or housekeeper a purse of money at the time, he would see the money too, would set a proper value upon it, and would just desire to know upon what it had been expended.