Excess in anything is dangerous, but especially delusive in money matters. People try to save too fast and too much at a time. They put more into the bank than can be kept there comfortably. Then comes some sudden unexpected expense and the savings fund must be drawn upon. If three-quarters of the sum had been put aside for emergencies and only one-quarter put into permanent savings it might not have been necessary to draw it down.

Discouragement at the whole idea of saving results. We all act more or less upon the basis of reaction, one excess being followed by its opposite. So the excessive saver having made a failure of it breaks into worse extravagance than before. Spasmodic saving is just like impulsive spending. You don't get any worth out of it. Extravagance in saving works out as badly as in spending. Another mistake of the same kind is that the first instinct of those who find they are not saving is to reduce their larger and necessary expenses, usually an impractical course and one that only results in going back to the old extravagant ways. Save the dimes and nickels, cut a few little corners, and you won't relapse from grace nearly so soon.

The whole point is to save a sum small enough in proportion to the total income to be maintained under practically all circumstances without a lapse. Of course, if it is large enough to amount to something, so much the better. Anything over a dollar a week will grow pretty fast.

And there is only one sure way of keeping even a dollar. Do it now. Do it first. Don't wait for a rich relative to die and leave you a fortune. Don't say you will save after you have "caught up" in expenses, for saving week by week is the best way in the world to catch up. You will never earn enough money to spend all you want to, before you begin to save anything.

He who postpones the beginning of saving until after vacation time or after one more week of theater going is pretty sure never to begin. We often hear a fellow say what he would do if only he were rich. His inclination to spend money is the very thing that is holding him back from being rich. Never set out to save what is left after you have bought everything you want, but save before you spend. To a young man on a salary a banker gave this pointed advice:

"Do not delude yourself with the belief that if your salary were raised you could save money, if you can not save now. Your wants will always increase faster than your salary. Increase your salary yourself by curbing your wants and saving as much of your income as you can, putting it to work for you on a savings-account. Make an acid test of your manhood.

Prove to yourself whether you have stamina to resist the urge to spend all the change in your pocket, or whether you are a slave of money and will always have to labor for it."

You have to regard the small sum deposited each week as a responsibility, a necessity. It should be just as much an obligation on your part as paying your bills. It is the only way you will ever get out of the treadmill. It is the only way to make any progress.

Of course I know enough to realize that in many, many cases it is no disgrace to have failed to get heads above water. Thousands of mortals have been so circumstanced that they could not set by one dollar for future requirements; their whole energy was taxed to make ends meet week by week. A rich man naturally is able to save a large proportion of his income, if he really wants to. A family man with an income of a few hundred dollars a year obviously can put aside only a tiny percentage of his meager wages, unless he wants his wife and children to live in dreadful poverty. But I know, and you know, that in ten times as many instances dollars have been squandered that could have been saved, even by the very poor.

A banker once gave a lecture on Thrift and some one rose in the audience and said: "I know a man who earns ten dollars and fifty cents a week and has a wife and five children. How can he save money?" The lecturer admitted that in such a case there did not seem to be very much margin for saving, but he had hardly finished speaking when a workman arose and said he knew a man who earned only ten dollars and fifty cents a week, had brought up five children and had spent one dollar and fifty cents a week for liquor. Now there are plenty of people who don't believe it is possible to support seven people on ten dollars and fifty cents a week, even without the rum. There are probably millions of workers living so close to the dead line of existence that the idea of saving is a bitter sarcasm. But there are millions of other wage earners who are just as extravagant in proportion to their incomes as the most extravagant rich.

There are millions of wage earners in this country who would get along if their wages were cut one dollar a month, and probably millions who could get along if the cut amounted to a dollar a week. Why can't they save that money, instead of their employer? And if the dollar is foolishly spent it is likely to be saved by the merchant or manufacturer who receives it. How much better for the workman to save it!