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“A penny saved is a penny earned” is an old adage that refers to the difficulty of being thrifty and saving money. It can also mean that saving is a form of income, as it takes effort not to spend money. The quote is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but versions of it existed before him. In modern times, the devaluation of cents may have added a new twist to old savings, where “a penny saved is a penny rejected.”
A penny saved typically refers to the full quote “a penny saved is a penny earned”. This old adage is a little hard to understand, since people can’t make the same penny twice. It refers to the idea of the difficulty of being thrifty and saving money. Spending a cent, or any other amount, means the person no longer has it in her possession, while saving it means she can still count it as something earned and something owned.
Another way of interpreting this maxim is to say that saving is also work. Saving is another form of income, because it may take effort not to spend a cent. In a sense, the person who saves works twice for the penny, once to earn it and then again to not spend it. Alternatively, a penny in a savings account can earn money, granted at a very slow pace. This meaning may not have been intended with the initial use of the phrase.
Most credit the dime quote to Benjamin Franklin, and a version of it appears in Franklin’s 1737 version of Poor Richard’s Almanac, but the exact quote is not Franklin’s. Instead he says that the penny that is saved is “two clear pennies”. Versions of this saying occur nearly 100 years before Franklin’s publication, though he may have popularized the sentiment.
George Herbert, a British clergyman, used it in his 1640 book Proverbs, and it was used by another British minister in 1661. In 1695 a further version of the proverb is found in Edward Ravenscroft’s play The Canterbury Guests. It’s clear that Franklin didn’t invent the saying, and was just one in a long line of people using it. Also, each saying is a little different. Herbert calls the penny saved twice earned, Fuller calls it the penny earned, and Ravenscroft calls it the penny earned.
The modern dictum, that the penny saved becomes a penny earned, may not have evolved until the early 20th century. PG Wodehouse uses the more familiar form of the adage in his book Inimitable Jeeves. The idea of earning the dime was not necessarily implied in the original phrasing. Most come close to saying that if a person saves a penny, he still has it, or “a penny saved is a penny gained” to quote Charles Dickens’ early 19th century novel Bleak House.
Given the devaluation of cents in modern times, it may have added a new twist to old savings. Instead of the penny earned, “a penny saved is a penny rejected.” It is true that people need not look far to find pennies scattered on the ground, as individual coins of this value have little purchasing power. Conversely, pick them all up and put them through a coin slot and they can really represent a savings. Many people keep change and cans at home to deposit all their loose change, and after a while these saved pennies and other currency can add up.
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