Big spender needs change of habit

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/09/2019 (2512 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From Dorothy Dix’s Letter Box, published in the Manitoba Free Press on Sept. 17, 1929

Dear Miss Dix: I am a very extravagant wife. My husband makes a good salary, but we cannot save. I spend it all. I have tried several times to keep the bills down, but have failed. Please advise me what to do.

— A Very Young Extravagant Wife

Answer: There is hope for you, my dear, if you recognize your fault and admit that you are extravagant. Most women who are wasters take refuge behind an alibi and refuse to admit they are to blame when they run their husbands in debt.

And you are wise to set about conquering your weakness before it ruins your whole life and wrecks your marriage. For there is no other one thing that a wife can do that will kill her husband’s love for her quicker than for her to be one of those reckless women who just let money slip through their hands without getting anything for it, or even knowing where it goes.

It simply takes the heart of a man to work and work and at the end of a year to have nothing to show for his labour except a pile of receipted bills. It kills the ambition never to get a step further along the road, never to have anything saved up. You can’t blame such a man for turning slacker and thinking there is no use in his making any special effort, for no matter what he makes, his wife will throw it away.

I used to know a very wise and successful old man who was fond of saying that at the end of the first year of their marriage, he could tell you with absolute certainty what the future of any couple would be. If they had saved up even as much as a hundred dollars, by the time they were middle-aged they would be sitting pretty on the sunny side of Easy Street, but if they had saved nothing and had unpaid bills, they would be poor as long as they lived.

So now is the time to correct your fault before you drive your husband from you and ruin his prospects. And the way to correct a fault is to correct it. The way to cure extravagance is to stop spending.

Read the rest of this letter and other letters from our archives at wfp.to/ageoldadvice.