Complete. 1738.

THE USE of money is all the advantage there is in having money.

1

  For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known prudence and honesty.

2

  He that spends a groat a day idly spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one hundred pounds.

3

  He that wastes idly a groat’s worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day.

4

  He that idly loses five shillings worth of time loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shilling into the sea.

5

  He that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but all the advantages that might be made by turning it in dealing; which, by the time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money.

6

  Again, he that sells upon credit asks a price for what he sells equivalent to the principal and interest of his money for the time he is to be kept out of it; therefore, he that buys upon credit pays interest for what he buys; and he that pays ready money might let that money out to use; so that he that possesses anything he has bought pays interest for the use of it.

7

  Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay ready money, because he that sells upon credit expects to lose five per cent. by bad debts; therefore he charges, on all he sells upon credit, an advance that shall make up that deficiency.

8

  Those who pay for what they buy upon credit pay their share of this advance.

9

  He that pays ready money escapes, or may escape, that charge.

  “A penny saved is two pence clear;
A pin a day ’s a groat a year.”

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