Frugality is the careful and wise use of money, resources and opportunities. A frugal person is one who carefully and wisely uses money and resources. A good leader uses money, other resources and opportunities which God has put at his disposal. A frugal person wastes nothing! Poor countries are usually run by great wasters. Rich countries are usually run by frugal leaders who leave nothing to waste. Therefore, frugality is the way to prosperity!
Discoveries from a poor country
1. I discovered a poor country that was suffering from the lack of water. Most areas in the capital city did not have running water. Amazingly, the capital city of that country had huge lakes on the outskirts of the city which were used to pump fresh water into the city. Can you believe that sixty per cent of the water pumped went to waste through burst pipes and unchecked leakage? Remember, frugality does not waste resources. These burst pipes waste the country’s water, resulting in the people suffering from the lack of water!
2. I discovered a poor country which had embassies all over the world. This poor country could not build its own roads and even toilets. Yet, it maintained embassies that cost thousands and thousands of dollars to run every month. Some of the embassies of this poor country had ten to twenty-five well-educated people who have almost nothing to do as its staff. Instead of building an embassy, they had rented expensive buildings in the capital city for decades. Can you imagine the cost of running fully staffed embassies in The Hague, Tokyo, New York, Geneva, Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, Madrid, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Ottawa and so on. This is characteristic of leaders who are usually great wasters.
3. I discovered a poor country that was suffering from lack of food, lack of employment and a lack of everything. This poor country had to import millions of dollars of rice, meat and sugar. A drive through that country brought many discoveries. Did they have well-cultivated farms? No! They had miles and miles of uncultivated bushes. You would have thought that every square inch of that poor nation would be used for farming so that they would not need to import food.
4. I discovered a poor country with high unemployment rates. Yet, this country sidelined half of the population. All the brains and good leaders who could help the nation were set aside, unused and wasted. Instead of the young people being mobilized to build roads and railways, citizens of other countries were brought in to develop the nation. Also, a few rich men and businessmen were hounded out of the country and prevented from doing their businesses. Human resource is precious and should not be wasted by any good leader!
5. I discovered a poor country that was suffering from chronic power outages. This country could not generate enough electricity to supply its needs. The lights would go on and off at random. Yet, thousands of lights and air conditioners were left on endlessly, day and night in most of the government offices. So much of the electricity in this poor country was wasted. Another sad feature was that this country had a lot of rivers that could be dammed. Yet, all the rivers were left to run freely into the sea, wasting a valuable source of hydro-electric power.
6. I discovered a poor country that was blessed with miles and miles of a beautiful ocean shoreline. These beaches could have attracted thousands of tourists every year. But, alas, the beaches were not developed! Also, the miles and miles of salty sea water could have been used to generate tons of salt. Sadly, very little salt is generated by this country.
7. I discovered a poor country that had so much oil that it was oozing out of the ground in many places. Amazingly, the oil in this country was not used to generate income for this poor country. Once again, outsiders became rich through the oil of that nation and it became a wasted resource of that poor nation. Indeed, experienced rich people do not feel sorry for poor people simply because they waste the resources God has given them.
This poor country, obviously, did not have the wisdom of the serpent. Have you ever wondered what happens when a snake swallows an antelope? Where do the horns, flesh, hoofs, hair and teeth go? The serpent does not waste anything. It digests the head, the eyes, the brains, the hoofs, the horns, the flesh, the intestines and the tongue of the antelope it swallows. Poor countries and poor people often waste many things. Snakes waste nothing and that is why they are the most successful predators on this earth. May you be a frugal leader! Your profiting will appear to all when you practise frugality!
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By Dag Heward-Mills