Dickens and Finance Revisited
No don’t worry, I won’t be doing a Canadian Personal Finance version of a Christmas Carol or Scrooge, but I will look back on a very short post I did when I first started writing this tome, and I am still astounded by the clarity of the statement by Dickens:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849
An astoundingly clear observation even in Victorian times, spend less than you make and you are doing fine, why is that message so hard to understand?
Oh, you’d like a quote from a Christmas Carol?
“Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.”
There is your money quote, and then you can have a more festive quote:
” . . . every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” to the man who “knew how to keep Christmas well”
A festive thought for this season too.
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December 15th, 2011 at 8:27 PM
Always loved that Dickens quote.
BTW – just updated my post (Weekend Reading) to reflect I’m annoyed with lack of TFSA hikes. Did I really say “you” in my reference to your site? That was dumb of me
I really wish they (gov’t) would increase that limit by $500, or more, soon. Maybe you have some clout in that area? You’re a famous blogger!
OK, back to wrapping Christmas presents and watching the football game.
Cheers,
Mark
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December 19th, 2011 at 8:04 AM
[...] Cajun Man from THE Canadian Personal Finance Site presents Dickensian Economics, and says, “Funny Dickens’ advice in David Copperfield still rings true [...]
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