171 



Of course, the majority of the people to whom I am talking this after- 

 noon are not limited to the bare necessities and the minimum of living. That 

 is perfectly certain. You must have had the privilege of deciding whether 

 or not you would spend your money to come up to the farmers' institute. 

 If you did not have the money, I dare say you would not be here. You 

 people to whom I am talking this afternoon are beyond that lower level of 

 having just the mere necessities of life and you are all exercising some choice 

 with regard to the way you spend your income. Some people after providing 

 for the necessary food, shelter and clothing will put a little surplus, if they 

 have it, into more food, they want more food. Then there are other people 

 to whom food is not so important and if they have any surplus it goes for 

 clothing. There are other people who would rather have amusement, so 

 they will spend the extra money for amusement. 



Now, what do we want? Once the bare necessities as we outlined them 

 are filled, what do we want? More food, more clothing, more shelter? Do 

 we want a lot of amusement? Do we want education? Do we want travel? 

 Do we want books? What do we want? We must have some of these things. 

 We cannot have all of them unless our income is large. We cannot have a 

 great deal of all of them unless our income is very large. What do we want? 

 This is where I think we have made a very great mistake. We have not stop- 

 ped to think what the possibilities were and what we really wanted. We have 

 just bought this thing and that thing, without mapping out any sort of pro- 

 gram. 



That is not really a very intelligent way to proceed. We don't feel very 

 comfortable about it if we just stop to think. It is what I call a lack of 

 respectful attention to our income. We really haven't given it the thought 

 that we should. 



OUB ATTITUDE TOWARD INCOME. 



There are a great many attitudes toward the income, and it is important 

 that we have a good attitude. There are a good many people who have what 

 I call a more or less slipshod attitude; people who say: "Oh, well, I pay 

 my bills." I will admit it is very good to pay one's bills; one is much more 

 comfortable if the bills are paid, but that is not enough. One may make very 

 unwise expenditures of money, and one may do very foolish things, and yet 

 be able to pay the bills. 



Then there is another group of people that are both hopeless and help- 

 less. I am going to ask you to pfcrdon me if I give you a personal experience. 

 It was during the war time, when the war savings organization was very 

 active. I happened to be at a meeting in one of our large cities, and the 

 speaker of the day, knowing what they had asked me to talk about, said: 

 "Miss Wardall is here. She is going to talk to you about planning the use 

 of your income and about the budget. Now, it can't be done. I tried it, and 

 it can't be done, and you probably know it." The rest of them shook their 

 heads in assent, but I said: "Well, the only comfort to be gotten out of this 

 situation is that saying a thing is so does not make it so." Perhaps he could 

 not keep track of his finances, but I knew people who could, and I thought 

 I had just as good reason to believe the people who could as the people who 

 say they cannot. 



There are those people who know ahead' of time that they cannot do it. 

 Perhaps they are the sort of people who make New Year's resolutions, know- 

 ing they will break them. It is difficult to do much with people like that. 



There is another type of person who says: "I am just as economical as 

 I can be." Well, you know that person is not, but he is a very self-righteous 

 person "just as economical as he can be." He is not at all, or she is not 

 at all. 



Sometimes people have the feeling that because they don't have all the 

 money they want and don't get everything they want, and because they deny 

 themselves, that they are very economical. They may be the most extrav- 

 agant people on earth, and that sort of complacant, self-righteous attitude 

 is a very poor one. If any of us belong in that category, let's get out of it. 



