Spare when young and spend when old.
Meaning: Saving diligently during productive years ensures financial security and comfort in retirement when earning capacity diminishes.
Origin: Recorded in A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, an undated collection published in London by Whittaker & Co. around 1880 and credited to Thomas Preston. Its earlier history hasn't been traced.
More proverbs about Perseverance
- Spend not where you may save; spare not where you must spend. — Strategic spending distinguishes between unnecessary expenses to eliminate and essential…
- Carefully spend, and God will send. — Prudent financial management and restraint attract divine provision or good fortune.
- Spend and be free, but make no waste. — Generous spending brings joy and liberation, yet prudent choices prevent squandering reso…
- To a good spender God is the treasurer. — Generous people who give freely find their resources mysteriously replenished by providen…
- You may know by a penny how a shilling spends. — Small habits reveal larger character; minor expenditures expose how someone manages great…
- It is the thrift of a spendthrift which ruins him most effectually. — Excessive caution about isolated expenses blinds wastrels to their broader financial dest…
From our idioms
- hair's breadth — A very narrow amount.
- half a mind to do something — Inclined or disposed to do something; to have almost decided to do something.
- half-baked — Poorly planned or thought out.