It is hard for many people to grasp the fact _that money is a wage earner, like themselves_. Money saved is like having a helper to decrease your working burden. It can be planned _so that it finally can take over your “job” and earn as much as you do_. Then you will not have to work at all to live, unless you wish to do so.
Money is not something to hide in a hole in the ground or put in a miser’s secret bag to gloat over. It is something to dress in overalls and send out to do its normal day’s work for you.
Despite the time and attention the potential saver may give to accumulating money, if he does not know how to invest it wisely and safely his time has gone for naught. Money depreciates far faster than it accumulates, and it is of the utmost importance that the saver devote as much care to finding a way to invest his money as he does to accumulating it.
_Adult investment-saving should commence at twenty years of age if possible._ If the investor has missed his chance of commencing he should begin “as soon as possible.” It is never too late to begin, as the handicap of tardiness may be overcome by the sure, swift work of compound interest.
The important accumulations of capital by some of our most prominent rich men have not been the result of chance, accident, speculation nor even hard work solely on the part of the individual. The hard work has been at the instance of their initial accumulation, which has been made to move early and efficiently. When money works systematically it knows neither the dinner-gong nor bedtime. This is not a rosy dream--money cannot, of course, make everyone affluent--but the earning power of invested savings is a sound business principle. If it were not for invested capital, modern business could not exist.