For the old ones, the gain is really in saving

According to the Contemporary Portuguese Language Dictionary, the word “save” derives from the Latin palpare, “to touch gently”, and can take on many meanings. In this case, let’s focus on a single definition: “To spend or use moderately and sparingly, to make it last longer”. We are, therefore, facing the act of “not spending all the money you receive, saving the difference”. Or, even simpler, the act of saving.So someone who is thrifty is someone thrifty, the opposite of wasteful, of spenders. It will be thanks to this characteristic of spending moderately that, eventually, a person manages to generate a “savings”, a term that the same volume of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa defines as follows: “Income that results from spending sparingly; accumulated money and reserve position”. At the outset, we might think that being spared corresponds to a positive human trait. However, the same entry tells us that this amassed savings can also be a sign that we are dealing with a miserly or stingy person: someone who simply has an aversion to spending money.

The famous grain by grain…

To put the two concepts together in a single sentence, there is nothing like popular wisdom: “Economy, as such, occupies the middle ground between avarice and prodigality”. That is, neither cheap nor spendthrift. But, without realizing it, we skipped an important step. Is thatbefore you spend your savings, you have to have them. How, then, can this nest egg be achieved? Currently, perhaps the most heard maxim is “grain by grain, fills the hen’s crop”. Every penny can count, but maybe it takes more than a few pennies to arrive at another version of this proverb: “Grain by grain, you also reach a million”. Too ambitious? We found a more restrained hypothesis: “From small grains, a great heap is gathered”.

“Forging money” is something that has centuries

Let’s leave the metaphors involving barnyards and granaries to see examples that are more direct to the subject. As a result, the previous proverb means that “small savings make big fortunes”, although perhaps we are again trying to reach for the stars instead of concentrating on the clouds. Perestrello da Camara, in 1848, already reminded us in his Collecçao de Proverbios, Adagios, Rifões, Anexins, Sentenças Morais e Idiotismos da Lingoa Portugueza that «to save money» was to save it. “In saving is where gain lies” It is still used a lot, but the proverb that used the old currency of the monarchy has fallen into disuse: “A real saved is a real earned”.

The secret to saving? Well, well, it’s saving!

If saving is a challenge, earn some change too. Everything requires ingenuity and sweat. “Earn what you know and save what you can”, recalls Major Hespanha, in his Dictionary of Maxims, Adagios and Proverbs, 1936 edition. before generating money. The effort focuses on the art of saving. Here are four examples of gusts, taken from several dictionaries: “There are no profits safer than the profits of the economy”“The best way to earn is to save”“Who does not save, does not have”“From saving comes having”Read more : Money and happiness: Separated or hand in hand?

Three ways to raise capital

Even if it’s good advice, maybe we need concrete guidelines to get what to save, no? Here are some possible guidelines in this field of savings. First: “Pay what you owe and save what remains”. Second: “Where one takes and does not put in, there is a lack”. Third: “Whoever is frugal in spending soon increases capital.” What the people say… interest rates can go against, as we know. Ah, if only everything were as crystal clear as in a saying!… “To be rich, it is less necessary to learn how to earn than how to save”, one reads in the Collection of Thoughts, Maxims and Proverbs (1847), a work by counselor José Joaquim Rodrigues de Bastos.

When beasts and slaves were spared

In times, saving was associated with more warlike and sensitive subjects. “Whoever spares the enemy, in his hands dies”, he defended himself, which is another way of saying, as compiled by António Delicado in 1651, “despise your enemy, you will soon be defeated”. And in terms of digging into the past, well, let’s take into account the adage that leaves no room for doubt: “The slave and the mule beast must be spared”. A mule and a man seen in the same light; both work animals, which had to be used with restraint. It makes you want to end the text like this, but perhaps it would be better to go back to the beginning, as if the secret of saving, in popular wisdom, was summarized in a general thought: “Save your twenty, you will one day be someone”. From evil, the least; to save what was honestly obtained, even if it was penny for penny.Also read: Financial proverbs: what popular sayings say about money Paulo M. Morais grew up playing street football and listening to proverbs told by his grandmothers. He graduated in Social Communication and specialized in the areas of cinema, videogames and gastronomy. He is the author of novels and non-fiction books. He collects board games and continues to watch many movies. He likes to cook, look at the sea, read. The information contained in the article is not binding and does not invalidate the full reading of documents that support the matter in question.