Today I disagree with a great man. Benjamin Franklin. Who coined the phrase (no pun intended) “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Maybe during Mr. Franklin’s life there was a much more equal balance to the concept of saving and earning. But lets look at saving money versus earning more of it. Ready?

In order to keep things simple, lets use George as an example. For every hour George works, he earns $10.00. Since the economic crunch, he doesn’t ever see over time, so this is it, per hour. But what did it cost him to make that money? Well…… lets pick a few things to get the point driven home. George had to get to work, transportation is rarely free in any measurable aspect, plus he had various taxes and medical insurance taken of his gross wages, plus during his 8 hour shift, he had to eat, and bought a coffee. So lets look at a real basic breakdown.

8 hours worked X $10.00 = $80.00 Right? Not exactly.
Take away the taxes etc – 20.00
Gas and travel – 10.00
Food and drink – 10.00
So George actually gets $40.00 of the money he earned to use at his discretion. Now I realize that you could counter that with getting a raise, staying longer at work, getting overtime. Yes, there are many ways to increase your income that will not directly increase the cost to generate it. I agree. But for this post, we are keeping it simple. Now the saving part…

We choose how our money is spent, our choice, either directly or indirectly, still our choice. So, as you are walking through the supermarket, and are browsing the egg section, the prices vary greatly. Now, you spy a dozen of free range, farm fresh, organic brown eggs, that are on sale for $1.99. The eggs you normally buy are $2.99. By choosing the cheaper of the two you save $1.00 right? RIGHT!!! All of the expenses of earning that money has already struck so that dollar is the truest dollar you could save!

In an article that I wrote sometime last year, I asked you to consider your family finances as a business. A common reaction of many businesses is that when money seems tight, they frantically scramble around trying to increase the business traffic in order to increase their income, SAME POINT! It costs money to make money but it takes minimal effort to decrease spending and achieve the same results of increased profits.

Every time you choose not to part with your money in an effort to control spending or reduce expenses, you are saving actual dollars, not the fragmented dollars that we earn at such a high expense. Your financial health will improve at an increasing rate if saving money is a priority! e