Edmund Phelps Quotes

I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue.

My parents survived the Great Depression and brought me up to live within my means, save some for tomorrow, share and don't be greedy, work hard for the necessities in life knowing that money does not make you better or more important than anyone else. So, extravagance has been bred out of my DNA.

We are going to put "thrift" back in the dictionary.

I started out from a pretty modest background, so I always had a pretty good sense of money. I always had to work for my money, save my own money, I always bought my own stuff with my money... trying not to waste money unnecessarily.

I'm a good businessman. I pay my bills. Growing up in a situation where everything counted helps.

There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means.

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

I have not thrown my money away on unnecessary things in my life, so I'm okay.

I am pro live below your means.

Let frugality and industry be our virtues.

I commend to you the virtues of thrift and industry. In doing so, I do not wish you to be a "tightwad," if you will pardon that expression, or to be a freeloader, or anything of the kind.

I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the practice of accumulation.

Whatever you have, spend less.

The best money advice ever given me was from my father. When I was a little girl, he told me, 'Don't spend anything unless you have to.'

What I learned growing up on the farm was a way of life that was centered on hard work, and on faith and on thrift. Those values have stuck with me my whole life.

My dad was fiscally conservative, and I was influenced by that. He didn't believe in spending more than you had because it gets you into trouble.

Every year of my working life, I have been fortunate enough to earn more money than I have spent.

I've always saved. I believe in keeping money back for a rainy day and living within my means. I don't buy expensive clothes; I have a 10-year-old car I'm hoping to replace when a big job comes in. I suppose when we do go on family holidays, I am quite happy to spend when we are there.

It takes no imagination to live within your means.

I wasn't one to go out and buy a new car and stereo system and expensive clothes. My mom helped keep me grounded.

Frugality is for the vulgar.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

Rather go to bed with out dinner than to rise in debt.

I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.

I still treat every job as if I might never get hired again as far as the way I save money and live really modestly.