A few thoughts on Frugality

"Away with your expensive follies, and you will not then have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families."

"What maintains one vice would bring up two children."

"You may think, perhaps, that a little tea (which used to be an expensive thing), or superfluities now and then, diet (food) a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember, many a little makes a mickle (a large amount)."

"Beware of little expenses: A small leak will sink a great ship. Who dainties love, shall beggars prove. Fools make feasts and wise men eat them."

"Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell they necessaries."

"At a great pennyworth (bargain), pause awhile. Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths."

"Silks and satins, scarlets and velvets, these are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the conveniencies; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to have them! When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece. It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it."

All excerpts taken from

Enquire Within Upon Everything: A Victorian Almanac

1856

London, England

Notes in ( ) are my own additions to help the modern reader understand the archaic language.