A new system of practical domestic economy.

Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new system of practical domestic economy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    400/508 (page 384)
    permit the certain expenditure of to-day, to be in- fluenced by the possible contingency of to-morrow. Jointures and life-annuities do not always fall in as soon as expected: as for legacies, the prospect of which too often leads to present extravagance, their chance ought always to be considered as worse than that of the 30,0001. prize. It is time enough to spend them, when they really come into our pos- session. But ail these visionary hopes, and their ill-conse- quences, may be guarded against by due caution in expenditure, by regularity in accounts, and by deal- ing in all things for ready money. Here, indeed, it may be objected, that every man has not ready money to deal with, though by his regular income he may appear to possess the means of Anal pay- ment ; but in such cases a man ought to reflect that if he begins with debt, especially if he spends to the extent of his means, in debt he must live and in debt he must die; with this certainty to boot, that he who lives on credit and anticipates his income never receives for it half its value. The caution in expenditure, then, that we should recommend to such a man (if he has not ready money for current expenses) is, to place his wants and wishes under what may be at first a severe control, but which will cease to be irksome when he finds that six or twelve months perseverance in strict economy will enable him to commence a ready money system with the surplus saved. This surplus he will find to go nearly twice as far in the shape of ready money, as if it ’ had been paid to his tradesmen in discharge of a debt. But, even in ready money expenditure, little will be gained without regularity in accounts; for which purpose an expense-book, whatever the an-