Financial Carelessness 5 



learned institute lecturer who cannot keep his 

 traveling expense account correctly for three 

 days at a time. 



I think there are two chief causes tending 

 to produce financial carelessness in the United 

 States: Children are rarely taught to render an 

 account of expenditures at the end of the month. 

 Although a little bookkeeping is taught in some 

 schools, it is sometimes about as workable on a 

 farm as an ox-cart would be on a railway. Again, 

 in the last half century, life has been so much 

 easier in America than in Europe — both necessi- 

 ties and comforts have been secured with so 

 little effort — that it has not seemed worth while 

 to note critically the outgo and the income. But 

 these conditions are not likely to remain the 

 same for another half century. The effort to 

 curtail expenses is always difficult and unpleas- 

 ant, but far more so if there are no itemized 

 data which may help to indicate just where to 

 begin or where curtailment would least affect 

 comfort and pleasure. Most sane people are 

 extremely unhappy when their outgo is equal to 

 or exceeds the income. Some are really unhappy 

 only when the bills come in; while others live in 

 dread of petty debts scattered they know not 

 where, and in amounts which have been forgot- 

 ten, not knowing whence the next dun will come 

 or how or when disgrace may fall upon them. 



