Sage Advice Still Holds True

“An exchange gives the following ten reasons why people should spend their money at home. They are so forcible and well put that we cannot refraim [sic] from presenting them to our readers, hoping that they will give them the consideration which they deserve:

“1st. It is your home; you cannot improve it much by taking money away to spend or invest.

“2d. There is no way of improving a place so much as by encouraging good merchants, good schools, and good people to settle among you and this cannot be done unless you spend your money at home.

“3d. Spend your money at home, because there is where you generally get it. It is your duty.

“4d. Spend your money at home, because when it is necessary for you to get credit, it is of your town merchants you have generally to get it and they must wait for the money. Therefore when you have the cash in hand spend it at home.

“5th. Spend your money at home. It will make better merchants of your merchants: they can and will keep better assortmenis [sic] and sell at lower rates than if the only business they can do is what is credited out, while the money goes to other places.

“6th. Spend your money at home. You may have sons growing up who will some day be the best merchants in town. Help lay the foundation of them now. It is a duty. It way be your pride in after years to say: ‘By my trading at the store I got my son a position as clerk, and now he is a proprietor.’ Then you will think it hard if your neighbors spend their money out of town. Set the example now.

“7th. Spend your money at home. Set the example now. Buy your dry goods, groceries, meats and everything at home, and you will see a wonderful change in a short time in the business outlook of the place; therefore deal with your home merchants.

“8th. Spend your money at home. What do you gain by going off! Count the cost; see what you could have done at home by letting your merchant have the cash. Strike a balance and see if you would not have been just as well off, besides helping your merchant.

“9th. Spend your money at home. Your merchants are your neighbors, your friends; they stand by you in sickness – are your associates; without your trade they cannot keep your business. No stores, then no banks, no one wanting to buy property to settle on and build up your place.

“10th. Merchants should do their advertising at home. They should get their bill-heads, circulars, cards letter-heads, envelopes, and all their printing at home, of their own newspaper, who aid them in many ways and advertise them hundreds of times without any pay whatever.

Merchants should set an example to their customers by patronizing liberally their home newspapers. Men and woman [sic] are imitative animals and are prone to follow examples set them. How can merchants expect their neighbors to trade with them if they set the example of going away from home for their printing and advertising! Let merchants and people all patronize home enterprise, and home industry and home trade. So shall they all be prosperous and happy.”

Source: The Bossier Banner, 30 May 1984
Bossier Chamber of Commerce ad illustration
 

The above admonishment appeared in the Bossier Banner on Oct. 14, 1875. While many things have changed in the past 145-years, the message conveyed then still holds true today. Supporting the local economy provides more money for schools, roads, emergency response services, waterworks, libraries, public health facilities, and so much more.

By: Amy Robertson