Savings

“ Do not mistake us in thinking that we are preaching the old sermon of the savings bank, which is, save your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves, for our friend Grizzly Pete of Frozen Dog, Idaho, says: "Save your pennies, the dollars will be blown in by your heirs."
No man gets rich through mere saving, but it is the training the man gets in saving the pennies that gives him a good idea of values of things and shows him the importance of having a reserve.
If the boss is extravagant in little things, the employe multiplies the extravagance. ”

“ The means available to savings institutions for the accomplishment of these ends are the urging of the importance of saving upon the attention of people who do not adequately appreciate it, the placing at their easy disposal of facilities for making savings when they have the ability and inclination to save, and the application of pressure of various kinds to compel or induce saving. ”

“ In our complex modern life, saving and investing take place in many ways. For example, money saved and deposited in a savings-bank finds its way out in a loan on mortgage to help build a house, a factory, or a store; or it pays for bonds, and the proceeds are put into a railroad or some public work, as a school-house, dock, street, etc. In any and all these cases the money deposited in the savings-bank goes ultimately to employ labor and pay wages. So money deposited in any other bank or trust company is loaned out to merchants, manufacturers, and others, and similarly goes to pay wages. ”

“ The question may be asked,—Is it possible for a man working for small wages to save anything, and lay it by in a savings bank, when he requires every penny for the maintenance of his family? But the fact remains, that it is done by many industrious and sober men; that they do deny themselves, and put their spare earnings into savings banks, and the other receptacles provided for poor men's savings. ”

“ The decisive argument in this connection is the fact, upon which we have just touched, that savings are supplied largely by people who are relatively rich, and who become richer when the rate of interest rises. ”

“ I wish I could in some way show the pleasant side of the matter of savings. There is much comfort and gladness in the possession of a small reserve fund. The mere sight of the big, ugly Savings Bank which contains it can give new courage. We look up at the building in passing and know we have there the chance to start again if we are not succeeding; a holiday if we very much need one; weeks to recover in if we are ill; protection from dependence upon other people; the power to keep some one we love from suffering ”

“ On the other hand, if he take care of the pennies—putting some weekly into a benefit society or an insurance fund, others into a savings bank, and confides the rest to his wife to be carefully laid out, with a view to the comfortable maintenance and culture of his family,—he will soon find that his attention to small matters will abundantly repay him, in increasing means, in comfort at home, and in a mind comparatively free from fears as to the future.
All savings are made up of little things. "Many a little makes a mickle." Many a penny makes a pound. ”

“ To make the meaning clearer let us illustrate financially: Prudent people lay aside a few dollars from time to time, in a savings bank, for instance. All goes well and the savings grow. At last there are one thousand dollars. ”

“ Economy iz a savings bank, into which men drop pennys, and git dollars in return. ”

“ In the course of my task I shall describe such parts of the general financial structure as will place my readers, especially those unfamiliar with its more complicated conditions, in a mental state to comprehend the methods by which the savings they think are safely guarded in the banks, trust and insurance companies, are so manipulated by the votaries of frenzied finance as to be in constant jeopardy. ”

“ These most useful and excellent establishments are to be found in every district, and offer, to provident and well-disposed servants, a means of depositing small sums, in perfect safety, for the purpose of accumulating with interest, to be resorted to in case of illness,—any unforeseen occurrence,—or for the purpose of establishing themselves in some way of business that may make them comfortable to the end of their days. Indeed, the advantages of savings-banks are become so well known, that almost every one can appreciate the result of small savings and prudent foresight. ”

“ I've got money of my own, I have! If it suits me to waste it, what of it?— If it's my pleasure?— I've got two hundred and fifty francs in the savings bank.— What are they for, I'd like to know, these two hundred and fifty francs? ”

“ And to the honor of the workingmen of America be it said, not a few of them have risen in the scale of society to fortune and distinction by strenuous and successful effort, and a great many of them have, even during the trying times through which we have passed, not only made the two ends meet, but have laid up savings which in the aggregate amount to hundreds of millions. Those savings are the fruit of hard, honest toil and wise economy. ”

“ It is true that I have lent money to some of the farmers round here, but the greater part of what they have put down for the purchase of their holdings is savings,—money they had saved and earned by working early and late, by careful farming and husbandry, by putting money in the bank every quarter. You've had the same opportunity. You have preferred to waste your time and waste your money. ”

“ The amount which is saved is, therefore, partly dependent at any particular time upon the material prosperity of the country. If activity of trade or any other such circumstance should increase the incomes of any particular class, there would be a larger fund from which savings might be made, and more would be saved. ”

“ Next, my Remedy will benefit that great middle class whose savings go to make up the billions in the savings-banks, national banks, trust and insurance companies, which are used by the "System" to secure for themselves a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand per cent. interest on their capital, while the owners of these billions must be content with two and a half to four per cent. per annum ”

“ Moreover, those who consider mainly the future annual income which their savings will yield them, are usually more concerned with its absolute amount than with the ratio it bears to the amount they must save in order to acquire it. For this reason, as has been often recognized, they may save less when the rate of interest rises, since a smaller quantity of savings will insure to them the future annual income they desire to obtain. There is no need to be dogmatic upon any of these points. The psychology of saving is both complex and obscure. ”

“ On the whole, therefore, we may assume that in such a country as England, if the present annual amount of savings were to continue, without any of the counteracting circumstances which now keep in check the natural influence of those savings in reducing profit, the rate of profit would speedily attain the minimum, and all further accumulation of capital would for the present cease. ”

“ Furthermore, a part of the savings must go to pay for the extra cost of maintaining the standard conditions that make such output possible. The necessary planners and teachers usually are sufficient as object-lessons to convince the workers of the necessity of not giving all the extra savings to the workers. ”

“ You see, I've been a bit of a fool again, and put my name to a bill, and now it comes to paying; and your mother has got to part with her savings, that's the worst of it, and even they won't quite make things even. We wanted a hundred and ten pounds: your mother has ninety-two, and I have none to spare in the bank; and she thinks that you have some savings. ”

“ For why should a man be saving, whose success depends, not on frugality, but on a ‘successful hit’? and who, in a single speculation, may lose the savings of years?”
“That is a fact,” observed my friend. “How many of the gentlemen that dined with us to-day do you think are possessed of real property? Not one-third of them. And yet they are all ‘young, respectable merchants,’ as a certain New York paper calls them, doing ‘a handsome business’ on a borrowed capital. ”

“ But the disposition to save does not wholly depend on the external inducement to it; on the amount of profit to be made from savings. With the same pecuniary inducement, the inclination is very different, in different persons, and in different communities. The effective desire of accumulation is of unequal strength, not only according to the varieties of individual character, but to the general state of society and civilization. ”

“ From the savings which it is possible for the combinations to make, it would seem possible for them to pay higher rates of wages to those remaining in their employment and Wages. than it was possible for the constituent companies to do. ”

“ Increase of income has led only to increase of improvidence. The savings bank and the building society are equally neglected, although at the same mill there are some with no higher wages, whose homes have every comfort, and who have quite a little competency laid by. ”

“ It is said that if every penny which finds its way into the pockets of rich and poor were well spent, every man would face the rainy day with an umbrella over his head, and the slack time with something in the savings bank. ”

“ The fact is, that the owners of savings not finding, in adequate quantities, their usual kind of investments, rush into anything that promises speciously, and when they find that these specious investments can be disposed of at a high profit, they rush into them more and more. ”

“ Labor's deposits in the savings banks are only a sort of reserve fund that is consumed as fast as it accumulates. These deposits are saved for old age, for sickness and accident, and for funeral expenses. ”

“ Take this money and add to your savings. Some time you will find it useful in enlarging your business, or entering upon a new one."
"I will put it in the savings-bank, as you recommend, mother; but you must remember that the fund there is yours as much as mine."
"I will promise to call for money, Paul, whenever I want it. I like to think that we have so large a fund to draw upon in case of need."
CHAPTER XXVI. FROM THE SIDEWALK TO THE SHOP.
One morning, some months later, Paul was looking over the advertising columns of the Herald. ”

“ The extra rations we are expected to sell, and turn the money into the company savings account. I suppose if we should all stop eating we would soon be rich, that is, if the company savings ever do come back to the men, as they are supposed to do. ”

“ The funds of all the working men’s societies had also been placed there, and they were gone—all the hard-earned savings of a life, all the wise provision of the small tradesman or the thrifty operative against a rainy day. ”

“ In making a work schedule, a savings fund is as necessary as in making a plan of expenditure. If every one in the house is doing as much as is possible, there is no allowance for accident, or illness, or unexpected demands. A little strength which is not [113] nerves should be left in you and in your handmaidens at the end of the day. Housework extends over an exceedingly long day. ”

“ At this point an old woman of the congregation stood up.
"Sir, I have no teeth."
"Madam," returned the preacher sternly, "teeth will be provided."
SAVING
SON—"Dad, what is a savings account?"
FATHER—"A savings account is that part of a man's income which the government takes after permitting him to pay for the necessities of life."
See also Economy; Thrift.
SCANDAL
"Yes, it cost me ten thousand dollars to have my family-tree looked up, and five thousand dollars more to have it hushed up."—Life. ”

“ This rate partly depends on the amount of accumulation going on in the hands of persons who cannot themselves attend to the employment of their savings, and partly on the comparative taste existing in the community for the active pursuits of industry, or for the leisure, ease, and independence of an annuitant. ”

“ The less the distance to which he travels, and the longer his stay; the more he becomes acquainted with the mode of dealing, and learns what are just prices;—the greater proportionably will be the savings of the economizing resident. A saving of five per cent is at least not a loss. Wise men should not entertain extravagant expectations, and prudent men should know what they are about to undertake. ”

“ It is in the hands of individuals, who have a few hundreds or a few thousands of dollars put safely away in some bank or banks. You will find that the savings banks of New England, and of all countries that are prosperous, are filled with the dollars of poor people, dollars aggregating millions in all.
We cannot get upon our feet, as a people, until we learn the saving habit; until we learn to save every nickel, every dime and every dollar that we can spare. ”

“ It should insist that our finance and currency concern not alone the large traders, merchants and bankers of our land, but that they are intimately and every day related to the well-being of our people in all conditions of life, and that, therefore, if any adjustments are necessary they should be made in such manner as shall certainly [32] maintain the soundness of our people’s earnings and the security of their savings. ”

“ I have little doubt that you will find the venture a profitable one. Next, you may place your savings-bank book in my hands as security. Thirty-five dollars will pay a year's interest on the five hundred dollars I lend you ”

“ The opportunity, the place, is the savings-bank, to be found in the smallest town or village, and in multiplied form in every city of any rank. Such banks generally pay from 31⁄2 to 41⁄2 per cent. interest per annum, and while this seems small, it is surprising how it will foot up in a short season, as any young person may ascertain, and as innumerable young persons have already ascertained. ”