Keep the Saving Habit

by Mrs. A.J. Wilder

"We may have all the sugar we want now," said an acquaintance the other day as he picked up the sugar bowl and emptied the last of its contents of about 4 or 5 spoons of sugar into the coffee cup.

"We may have all the sugar we wish now if we have the money to pay for it," remarked a friend to me as we sat at the table together, a few days later. And he helped himself to 1 spoon of sugar for his coffee.

It is interesting to notice the difference in the way people are reacting from the strain and struggle of the war. Some evidently feel that since the war is over all restraints are removed and are going back to their old, reckless ways of spending and waste. Others have thoroly learned the lesson of carefulness and economy. "When I make over an old hat or dress and save buying new, I save something when prices are as high as they are now," I overheard one woman say to another and I thought she was entirely right.

It is surely worth one's time to be careful of clothing now and to take the time to repair and make over. If we will think of how much we accomplished by being careful with food, we cannot help but realize that it pays to eliminate waste in that direction. There has been so much loss and suffering and cost in the war that we should carefully salvage from its wreck all the good that is in any way possible to bring out of it.

What we have learned of economy and frugality: of substituting for too rich dishes those which are plainer, really more palatable and much healthier: of a more simple tho equally as beautiful way of dressing, should be great value to us personally and emotionally unless we foolishly make haste to forget these lessons of the hard years just passed.

From a careful reading of the news from all over the world, it appears to me that the economy and thrift of the people of the nations will be of as much importance during the next few years as it has been during the actual warfare and may well determine in the end who are the actual victors in the conflict.

I notice that there is a systematic effort being made to buy up the bonds of small denominations from the small bond holders and I am very sorry to learn that some are selling. I wish all might be like one farm woman of my acquaintance, who with her egg money has invested $350 in Liberty Bonds and who says she has formed the habit of buying bonds and will begin buying farm loan bonds as soon as there are no more Liberty Bonds for sale.

Never before have government bonds of small denominations been placed within easy reach of the people of the United States. It has given us all a chance to own a financial interest in our government and to pay interest to ourselves instead of to the other fellow, a way of evening things by making one hand wash the other, so to speak.

Some of us have been rather inclined, at times, to envy the government pensioners and to wish that we might be assured of a pension for our old age. Now here at last is our chance to earn our old age pension from the government by practicing economy now and remembering that government bonds, either Liberty Bonds at 4-1/24per cent or farm loan bond at 4-1/2 per cent, are good, safe investments and worth making an effort to buy and to keep.

I am not urging that we become penurious or deny ourselves or family the things we should have for our comfort and pleasure but simply that we never again fall into the way of thinking that we must buy anything because our neighbor has it or enter into the old strife for show. The reputation of a careless spender is nothing to be desired. For myself, I would prefer a government bond in a safety deposit.

Mrs. A.J. Wilder. "Keep the Saving Habit." Missouri Ruralist (March 20, 1919): 25.

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