Make a Thousand Post One
Want to make a million dollars? Are you nuts? A million is a thousand times a thousand. Statistically more than half of us don’t even have one thousand.
About ten years ago Harper’s Index noted that half of all households in America—the richest nation in the history of the world—considered it unlikely or impossible that they’d be able to come up with $1,000 for an emergency..
Thinking it couldn’t be that bad, I did some research and found out that, yes, it could. It’s worse now.
Ten years later it’s in fashion to blame all we ain’t got on the Covid pandemic, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Proud Boys, QAnnon, Trump, cancel culture, woke schools, migrants, fake news, identity politics, and the national toilet paper shortage. But the little book that came out of my 2011 study on where Americans’ money goes came out years before any of that. We average people aren’t going to change those things anyhow. What we can do is make a serious effort to save one thousand dollars.
To that end, and to remind myself, I’ll put out the book in sections, with some updates, and some condensations, on the blog here.
Make a Thousand
This book is dedicated to: Using less, enjoying more.
Maxims to save by:
* Don’t pay the rich to exploit you when you can exploit yourself.
*For most material things, if it didn’t exist a hundred years ago you can probably live better without it.
* Buy the best and you buy the cheapest because you only have to buy it once.
*Clothes make the man—poor.
*A penny saved is a penny earned.
*It’s the little things that keep you broke.
*Keep 10% of your earnings.
*Credit is voluntary servitude.
*Slow food makes fast runners.
*Let other people spend the money first.
*If you don’t control yourself, who will?
from Make a Thousand 2012 by Dick Callahan, Harbor Seal Press, Juneau
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN978-0-9788953
