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that of a penny when they are out of it, and yet they never attempt to make provision for the time of need. At the opposite extreme there are misers, in some of whom the passion for saving borders on insanity.


The causes which control the accumulation of wealth differ widely in different countries and different ages. They are not quite the same among any two races, and perhaps not even among any two social classes in the same race. They depend much on social and religious sanctions; and it is remarkable how, when the binding force of custom has been in any degree loosened, differences of personal character will cause neighbours brought up under like conditions to differ from one another more widely and more frequently in their habits of extravagance or thrift than in almost any other respect.19 Miserliness, thrift and the action of saving, accumulation of wealth and precautionary savings against future needs are colourfully mixed together here and in most other teaching books on economic theory, simultaneously being inseparably mixed with notions of a thrifty or spendthrift pattern of living and budget management on the expenditure side which is ascetic or expansive to a greater or lesser degree. The fact that the boundaries of these different patterns of behaviour are, admittedly, generally not immediately apparent and fundamentally can only be established through careful studies of motives was already acknowledged by Knigge in the 1800s, using the example of the miserly ‘scrooge’. He describes miserliness as ‘one of the most ignoble, most scandalous passions’: One cannot imagine any baseness of which a miser would not be capable, where his desire for wealth comes into play; and any feeling of a higher kind, friendship, sympathy, and well-wishing, find no place in his heart if they do not bring in money. Indeed, he does not treat himself to the most innocent pleasures, insofar as they cannot be enjoyed without spending money. He sees a thief in every stranger, and in himself a freeloader sponging at the expense of his better self, eating into his money. where the rich man has such a considerable predominance over the poor man; and lastly, where on the one side deception and falsity and on the other side mistrust and a lack of fellow-mindedness are spreading amongst all ranks and thus trust in the assistance of one’s fellows is becoming an uncertain capital; in these times, I believe, one is unjust if one immediately declares a thrifty, cautious man a scrooge, without a closer examination of his circumstances and of the motivations which guide his actions.20 Accordingly, empirical analysis of saving has always sought to create operational concepts and delimitations (i.e. which are accessible to precise scrutiny) for the various dimensions of behaviour; it differentiates between ‘thrift’ and ‘rationality in domestic budgeting’ or ‘use of calculation’ by private households, and between the various forms of active savings behaviour with their different motives, in order to come closer to the reality of life in this area than has previously been possible using theoretical models. To determine thriftiness, the answers to four test questions in our 1959 survey were used.21 Based on the level of agreement with these four statements, households were divided into three groups – households with developed, moderate, and generously constituted principles of thrift. It was found that just over half of all households in the Federal Republic of Germany have a more developed sense of thrift; a quarter rank as being moderately thrifty, and a further quarter are relatively free in their spending. Using this scale, if one looks at the extent to which principles of thrift are present, and in which social classes, then it is revealed more clearly than in the individual test questions that principles of thrift are really developed only as a reaction to a quite particular economic and social position. Where income conditions are low, as a rule an economic mindset and habits of economy are formed which make it possible to manage money objectively under the given circumstances, and at least subjectively to feel more secure in oneself. It is similarly characteristic of the economic circumstances under which people react by developing minor virtues of thrift that large Managing a budget thriftily quite clearly represents a considerable psychological burden for many people, with the result that this behavioural model is very soon done away with among the upper income groups. Possibly even more crucial for this tendency is the fact that the effort to forgo things which thrift requires necessarily relates to larger items among these classes; although their standard justification ceases to be framed in terms of principles of thrift. In all this, one should of course not forget that our four test questions are based only on a few of the principles of thrift, which in no way encompass the whole range of economical behaviour. Indeed, it is questionable whether ‘thriftiness’ can be squeezed into a one-dimensional system at all. In many instances, one will come up against a system of principles of thrift (or patterns of thrifty behaviour) where spending money in certain areas is habitually prevented through the development of psychological barriers, while at the same time the threshold for thrift over other types of goods or in other financial orders of scale is perhaps lower. This would mean that principles of thrift are connected with value systems. If one wishes to observe the effects of thrift and of principles of thrift on how the household budget is managed, then it is necessary to at least neutralize the key circumstances on which the degree of thrift over small purchases is dependent, i.e. particularly level of income and size of household budget. To that end, for this study so-called functional or sliding indices were developed to eliminate these intervening factors. These indices can be constructed such that they vary either one-dimensionally or polydimensionally with various other variables. The factors with which one can vary the index are thus eliminated from the statistical consideration of causes. The researcher will therefore always vary an index with those factors which he wishes to eliminate. In the present instance, it is sensible to construct a two-dimensional sliding index for principles of thrift. Our assumption is that the development of principles of thrift such as we have observed is a function of income and size of household. For each combination of income level and size of household, the group-specific average of positive responses to the four test questions is determined; next, the households are categorized into the two groups with below-average (free-spending) more or less strictly. Small households with a large income, which are normally not inclined to exercise a large degree of thrift, can accordingly perhaps be classified as ‘thrifty’ if the man and woman in the household have answered one or two test questions positively, while large households with a low income (where their circumstances in any case constrain them to exercise principles of thrift) are only confirmed in this if they have answered three or four test questions for thrift positively. The result of this operation is to establish two roughly equally sized groups of households which resemble one another fully, with symmetrical groupspecific distribution of income and household size, referenced to these two variables, but which differ in the strictness with which they have developed principles of thrift (respectively referenced to the individual income and household situation). In psychological terms, the principles of thrift are internalized; if someone has breached his own principles of thrift, then his conscience troubles him. Thus, for example, when asked whether they later regret spending too much money on a momentary whim, positive responses from male heads of household with more strict principles of thrift (52 per cent) are significantly more common than from those with a more generous attitude to spending (36 per cent). Consequently, as income increases this should go hand in hand with psychological changes, e.g. the tightly constrained form of thrift recedes as income increases. On the other hand, it can be demonstrated that the virtue of thrift partly goes hand in hand with certain personality structures, which cannot then be set aside so easily when there is an improvement in one’s economic circumstances; with many people, then, even when economic circumstances are good, there are still motivations for a kind of thrift which really only satisfies an important function where circumstances with regard to income are straightened. Here again one finds confirmation that handling money is also determined by individual factors of personality.22 This study, however, offers very little material regarding the psychological genesis of the principles of thrift. It reveals that slightly greater numbers of male heads of household or housewives in households with free-spending person. It may be that he is retrospectively including his parents in his general ideology of thrift. By contrast, the ‘thrift-minded’ are clearly distinguished from the ‘spendthrifts’ in their economic habits. When they are considering more sizeable purchases, on their own admission they calculate the purchase through in advance more often than appears to be usual for households with a more relaxed approach to spending; conversely, the response ‘I don’t cost it out in advance, but say that if I see a bargain, I’ll buy it’ was given in only a quarter (26 per cent) of households with strong principles of thrift, compared to two-fifths (42 per cent) of households with weak principles of thrift. On a different question, again geared at determining the ‘use of calculation’, the ‘thrifty’ households responded positively more frequently than ‘non-thrifty’ households to the statement: ‘At the start of the month, I allocate the budget accurately under different headings, such as rent, food, electricity, washing etc., so that I discount this money.’ The reverse was true for the statement: ‘I don’t divide up the household budget into separate items, but pay everything which needs to be paid as and when, and for as long as the money is there.’ The following question was intended to record the degree of ease with which interviewees were prepared to take out credit if they needed to – in other words, ‘to take on debt’: ‘What would you do in the following situation: assume that you were having some financial difficulties. But you knew that an acquaintance of yours would probably lend you some money. Would you go to them and borrow money, or would you rather limit your spending considerably before borrowing money?’ The answers to this question similarly correlate with the answers to each one of the four test questions which together make up the classification for principles of thrift. People who would rather severely rein in their own spending before borrowing money are more often ‘thrifty’, whereas those who would borrow money from an acquaintance are more often ‘free-spending’ in outlook. So how is this ‘thriftiness’, which was initially simply recorded verbally, expressed in practice? Which are the expenditures on which the households which claim to think thrice before handing over any money make their savings? In fact, it can be shown that the thrift-minded pass up small temptations and treats somewhat more frequently than the cially at the lower income levels. Clearly, when it comes to our principles of thrift, in actual fact we are looking at a degree of forbearance when it comes to life’s ‘small luxuries’. If we now ask about the purpose of this forbearance, i.e. for what things these ‘small luxuries’ are being sacrificed, then the answer could be looked for in two areas: in other household expenditures, and in the ability to save in the more narrow sense, i.e. successful saving, by which we mean building up financial assets. Both areas are equally important in evaluating our question: it would be entirely possible for the principles of thrift (where present) not to find expression in an increased accumulation of financial assets at all, but simply to be a synonym for a certain kind of displacement of expenditure; this kind of thrift would find expression above all in a shift in values on the scale of possible expenditures. Only as a secondary phenomenon would one observe ‘not spending’, and the accumulation of financial assets. Our results confirm this first hypothesis only to a limited degree. Households with strong principles of thrift do not make economies either on their children or on their spending on clothing. However, on average they spend a little more on rent and heating, i.e. they live a little better and commit slightly more money to food. These are two observations which are not attributable to lower income or a greater number of people in the household, since these two factors have been eliminated, as mentioned earlier. By contrast, there are a number of points which seem to lie in favour of the second hypothesis, about the influence of principles of thrift on successful saving. If one deducts all regular expenditures (recurring needs) from the household budget, then the resulting financial room for manoeuvre which can be dedicated to financing individual needs (purchases, trips, holidays, etc.) and to the accumulation of financial assets is on average higher in ‘thrifty’ households (15.1 per cent of the household budget) than in ‘more free-spending’ households (12.6 per cent). Thrifty households also make savings when it comes to holidays: in the two years prior to the survey, they had been on holiday less frequently than other households. It was not possible to establish whether they also spend less money on their purchases as well. But it can clearly be shown that on average they accumulate significantly (less than DM 500), their average financial assets were some 163 per cent of income (as opposed to 66 per cent for the ‘very spendthrift’), and among the upper earners (DM 500 and above) the figures were 250 and 136 per cent respectively. 3.1.5 Rationality and the household budget The general expectation of households where the financial means are insufficient to satisfy all desires is that they do not just ‘live for the day’ and ‘fritter away’ their income, but that they ‘cut back’ and ‘cut their coat according to their cloth’, to achieve as much as possible even with a modest amount of money. With each expenditure, they should be aware of their limited options, only making the essential purchases and passing up on all less essential ones; they should allocate and calculate, plan and monitor spending, in order to achieve as much success as possible with the given funds. In short, they are expected to act in an economically rational manner. The first question which this throws up is whether in the actual practice of everyday living it is ever the case that people act ‘rationally’. The answer is doubtless ‘no’ if one equates rational behaviour with ideal maximum requirements, which are practically impossible to achieve. Purely theoretically, you could take as the basis for the assessment a form of rationality in respect of the household budget geared to the ideal of a solution accommodating the subjective concept of utility; the only household considered to be acting rationally is the one which coordinates all its desires for quality, the prices of goods and its income to achieve the point of greatest overall satisfaction, using precise powers of calculation and foresight worthy of the clairvoyant. It is self-evident that such households do not exist. Viewed empirically, that ideal maximum is in fact nothing other than an extreme situation or an extreme behaviour which, while it is not to be found in the real world, is nevertheless of use in describing in conceptual terms the upper end of a scale. Along that scale one can find the actually found patterns of behaviour, of a lower order of rationality. With the simple artifice of conceiving of rationality not as a cardinal concept but an ordinal one, we thus acquire one possibility of empirically measuring the rationality of patterns of behaviour. oural extreme. One thus defines which patterns of behaviour should be considered as more rational and which as less rational, thereby acquiring a practicable tool which, while it does not measure rationality per se (since this is not encountered anyway in reality), nevertheless measures precisely that part range of rational behaviour which particularly interests us. There are four statements from our 1959 survey which we can adduce in analysing rationality and the household budget, looking at the area of budget planning and allocation, calculating and monitoring. In different parts of the interview, we asked whether: • interviewees accurately calculate the cost of major purchases in advance; • those managing the household budget allocate the money to their various needs at the start of the budget period; • they draw up a shopping list before shopping for food; and • they keep an account book for the household budget. These are four forms of organized or habitual behaviour which enable an outsider to identify the intention of having planned and calculated budget management, where that intent is present. How many households, and which ones, employ such devices to organize their budget management more rationally? The intention of acting in accordance with the laws of economic management – even if only in the smallest measure – can definitely be ascribed to those households which draw up a list of what they need before going shopping, or even to those which regularly record their household expenditures and incomes in an account book. Even the habit of allocating the budget at the start of the budget period to the individual items of expenditure or to think through more major expenditures in advance surely form part of the techniques of good budget management, contributing to managing better with the available means. A household which answers positively to one of these four questions may therefore be described as ‘more rational’ or ‘making more use of calculation’ than another which does none of these things. The responses to our four questions reveal considerable differences, at first sight. It appears to be most common to cost out expenditures ‘bigger purchases’. One might ask – how frequently? How big? And how precise is the cost estimate? Doubtless much points to the fact that the interviewee wishes to confirm that he sits down with pen and paper to plan his purchases. But if by ‘bigger purchases’ his understanding encompasses only those things which he could not afford from his freely disposable income in the current income period (week, month) but which require him to save over several such periods, then the statement is practically a tautology. Everyone calculates purchases in advance where they are of a bigger order of scale in one’s particular circumstances, even if this is only a momentary reflection in the store to calculate whether one can afford the payment instalments. In short, we cannot be entirely certain whether the interviewee’s answer genuinely intends to describe a behaviour which we can categorize as ‘more rational’ than the behaviour of someone who has given the opposite answer. The information sought and obtained is very generalized. Let us consider the other three questions, to see whether a more specific behaviour was identified. In just under half of all households (45 per cent), the responsible family member stated that the household budget is allocated precisely at the start of the month to different items, such as rent, food, electricity, washing etc., and that at least in broad outline a budget is drawn up. Here again, we do not know the degree of accuracy with which this allocation is made, whether it is a purely mental exercise or whether the information is written down, whether the money is even physically divided up and kept in various boxes, envelopes, tins, etc. Nevertheless, the pattern of behaviour being described is already significantly more concrete and specific; it is characteristic that significantly fewer interviewees acknowledged this in themselves than acknowledged the principle of ‘costing in advance’. The question about the shopping list featured an even more concrete, more specific scenario. The question itself precisely defined the shopping list as a list made prior to shopping and containing everything which one wanted to buy; furthermore, the situation about which the interviewee was being asked to provide information was confined to the behaviour prior to shopping for food. Whereas 45 per cent of the responsible family members said that they generally allocated their budget at the start of the income period, only 39 per cent said that they always or mostly simple, sociological or economic context. Thus we find similar levels of households among all income groups where habits of calculation are embedded in one form or another. The habit of allocating the household budget to various items on the first of the month is particularly common among working households, and slightly more so among white-collar workers and civil servants than blue-collar workers. Household books of account are to be found in noteworthy numbers primarily among the better-off and more educated groups; by contrast, shopping lists were used by housewives comparatively independently of the economic and social situation of a household. Our survey also clearly demonstrates how the various forms of calculation are connected to one another. A large number (61 per cent) of housewives who keep household books of account almost always use a shopping list; conversely housewives who are not in the habit of keeping household books of account most often (67 per cent) go shopping without a written list, thereby perhaps exposing themselves more to the attraction of offers than those women who can use the ‘mental prop’ of the shopping list. There is similarly a close connection between the habit in a household of costing out bigger purchases in advance and the technique of allocating the money at the start of the month across various items of expenditure. Where both partners in a household indicate that they cost out bigger purchases in advance, the majority of the housewives also indicate that they allocated the budget at the start of the month; conversely, in households where neither partner costs out purchases in advance, barely a quarter are in the habit of budgeting in this way. By contrast, there is only a weak connection between these two practices for allocating money (a household account book and shopping lists on the one hand, and advance planning for bigger purchases and allocating money to different items in advance on the other). The hypothesis arises that the practices of behaviour involving calculation are multidimensional, or at least not linearly one-dimensional, in psychological terms. Rather, it appears that rationality as applied to the household budget derives from various motives which we cannot pursue further here.