Spend not where you may save; spare not where you must spend.
Meaning: Strategic spending distinguishes between unnecessary expenses to eliminate and essential costs that deserve investment.
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
- 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…
- Keep me from still water; from that which is rough I can keep myself. — Stagnation breeds invisible danger while active struggle naturally sharpens survival inst…
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- Hinna — To manage something inside the time available — not speed, but fitting the act in before…