How To Stop Worrying And Start Living

The business failed, and she is destitute now. She tells of another widow who was persuaded by a slick real-estate salesman to put most of her life-insurance money in vacant lots that were "sure to double in value within a year". Three years later, she sold the lots for one-tenth of what she paid for them. She tells of another widow who had to apply to the Child Welfare Association for the support of her children-within twelve months after she had been left fifteenth thousand dollars in life insurance. A hundred thousand similar tragedies could be told.

"The average lifetime of twenty-five thousand dollars left in the hands of a woman is less than seven years." That statement was made by Sylvia S. Porter, financial editor of the New York Post, in the Ladies' Home Journal.

Years ago, The Saturday Evening Post said in an editorial: "The ease with which the average widow without business training, and with no banker to advise her, can be wheedled into putting her husband's life-insurance money into wildcat stocks by the first slick salesman who approaches her- is proverbial. Any lawyer or banker can cite a dozen cases in which the entire savings of a thrifty man's lifetime, amassed by years of sacrifice and self-denial, were swept away simply because a widow or an orphan trusted one of the slick crooks who rob women for a livelihood."

If you want to protect your widow and your children, why not take a tip from J. P.

Morgan-one of the wisest financiers who ever lived. He left money in his will to sixteen

?How To Stop Worrying And Start Living? By Dale Carnegie 143

principal legatees. Twelve were women. Did he leave these women cash? No. He left trust funds that ensured these women a monthly income for life.

Rule No. 8: Teach your children a responsible attitude toward money.

I shall never forget an idea I once read in Your Life magazine. The author, Stella Weston Turtle, described how she was teaching her little girl a sense of responsibility about money. She got an extra cheque-book from the bank and gave it to her nine-year-old daughter. When the daughter was given her weekly allowance, she "deposited" the money with her mother, who served as a bank for the child's funds. Then, throughout the week, whenever she wanted a cent or two, she "drew a cheque" for that amount and kept track of her balance. The little girl not only found that fun, but began to learn real responsibility in handling her money.

This is an excellent method and if you have a son or daughter of school age, and you want this child to learn how to handle money, I recommend it for your consideration.

Rule No. 9: II necessary, make a little extra money off your kitchen stove.

If after you budget your expenses wisely you still find that you don't have enough to make ends meet, you can then do one of two things: you can either scold, fret, worry, and complain, or you can plan to make a little additional money on the side. How? Well, all you have to do to make money is to fill an urgent need that isn't being adequately filled now. That is what Mrs. Nellie Speer, 37-09 83rd Street, Jackson Heights, New York, did. In 1932, she found herself living alone in a three-room apartment. Her husband had died, and both of her children were married. One day, while having some ice-cream at a drug-store soda fountain, she noticed that the fountain was also selling bakery pies that looked sad and dreary. She asked the proprietor if he would buy some real home-made pies from her. He ordered two. "Although I was a good cook," Mrs.

Speer said, as she told me the story, "I had always had servants when we lived in Georgia, and I had never baked more than a dozen pies in my life. After getting that order for two pies, I asked a neighbour woman how to cook an apple-pie. The soda-fountain customers were delighted with my first two home-baked pies, one apple, one lemon. The drugstore ordered five the next day. Then orders gradually came in from other fountains and luncheonettes. Within two years, I was baking five thousand pies a year-I was doing all the work myself in my own tiny kitchen, and I was making a thousand dollars a year clear, without a penny's expense except the ingredients that went into the pies."