Financial nest egg and real estate

"You cannot accumulate a fortune by taking the road that leads to poverty. It needs no prophet to tell us that those who live fully up to their means, without any thought of a reverse in this life, can never attain a financial independence. Men and women accustomed to gratify every whim and impulse, will find it hard, at first, to cut down their various unnecessary expenses..., and will feel it a great self-denial to live in a smaller house than they have been accustomed to, with less expensive furniture, less company, less costly clothing..."

"...but, after all, if they will try the plan of laying by a 'nest egg' or, in other words, a small sum of money, at interest or judiciously invested in land, they will be surprised at the pleasure to be derived from constantly adding to their little 'pile' as well as from all the economical habits which are engendered by this course."

What the author is trying to say is: If you choose financial independence over irrational expending, you will feel more satisfied at the end of the road. The financial is nest egg is a source of great comfort and peace of mind for the contemporary family.

"The old suit of clothes, and the old bonnet and dress, will answer for another season; the Croton or spring water taste better than champagne; a cold bath and a brisk walk will prove more exhilarating than a ride in the finest coach; a social chat, an evening's reading in the family circle, or an hour's play of 'hunt the slipper' and 'blind man's buff' will be far more pleasant than a fifty or five hundred dollar party when the reflection on the difference in cost is indulged in by those who begin to know the pleasures of saving."

With today's gas prices, taking the family for a ride is gradually becoming a luxury.

"Thousands of men are kept poor, and tens of thousands are made so after they have acquired quite sufficient to support them well through life, in consequence of laying their plans of living on too broad a platform. Some families expend twenty thousand dollars per annum, and some much more, and would scarcely know how to live on less, while others secure more solid enjoyment frequently on a twentieth part of that amount. Prosperity is a more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sudden prosperity. 'Easy come, easy go,' is an old and true proverb..."

Well... If you are used to a certain level expenditure, is difficult to cutback immediately.

"A spirit of pride and vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying canker worm which gnaws the very vitals of a man's worldly possessions, let them be small or great, hundreds, or millions. Many persons, as they begin to prosper, immediately expand their ideas and commence expending for luxuries, until in a short time their expenses swallow up their income, and they become ruined in their ridiculous attempts to keep up appearances, and make a sensation."

All those credit offers in the mail are very tempting, they bring instant gratification.

"I know a gentleman of fortune who says, that when he first began to prosper, his wife would have a new and elegant sofa. When the sofa reached the house, it was found necessary to get chairs to match; then side-boards, carpets and tables with them, and so on through the entire stock of furniture; when at last it was found that the house itself was quite too small and old-fashioned for the furniture, and a new one was built to correspond with the new purchases..."

Home renovation shows on TV influence the purchasing habits of home owners. A pretty looking home helps increase the real estate value.

"... ten years ago, we lived with much more real comfort, because with much less care, on as many hundreds. The truth is, he continued, that sofa would have brought me to inevitable bankruptcy, had not a most unexampled title to prosperity kept me above it, and had I not checked the natural desire to cut a dash."