Look after the pennies etc.

[CovKid]

"Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves". Does anybody know the origin of this silly saying? I traced it back to the mother of Andrew Carnegie (of Carnegie .Hall fame in US) in Scotland mid 1800's. I'm interested because I want to know what it meant when first used (surely not what people use it mean now). Mid 1850's average wages were a few shillings per week, about 20 pence. That was 48 old pennies. A pound was 240 pennies. So a �1 was 5 weeks wages. Roughly equivalent to �2000+ now. I think "look after themselves" meant "I don't care, I'll never see one" . Any ideas please?

[dr john]

It's usually taken to mean that if you take care not to waste small amounts of money (look after the pennies), eventually the little bits you save will add up to large amounts (you won't have to look after the pounds because they'll turn up automatically).
In other words, many a mickle mak's a muckle.

[CovKid]

Thanks for reply. I agree that is how people use the saying, but that is what I think is silly. "Look after the pounds and who cares about the pennies" would make more sense to me. Back in 1850's a penny was worth a lot; perhaps as much as 5% of a week's wages. That would be about �20+ today. It seems the saying must have had a different meaning, Andrew Carnegie's Mum was hard up and may never have seen a pound.

[Tim123]

It's nonsense. 'Look after the pennies and all you will save is pennies' is far closer to the truth.

[CovKid]

Yes, that is about right.

[Clanad]

Like most adages and Proverbs, it's not meant to be applied literally. It's simply advising to carefully "watch" the samll details and to do so will assure that the broader picture will go according to plan.
I poured some concrete footings tohelp a neighbor out over the weekend. I gave instructions to his 15 year old son on the appropriate mix of sand, gravel, cement and water to put in the mixer. All went well until a wheelbarrow full was delivered that obviously had to little gravel. Had I not corrected that smaller issue, the whole run of footings for a small building would have failed and the building would have collapsed or shifted...

[CovKid]

That is an interesting idea. Most people use the saying fairly literally and I'd always assumed it was meant that way. Your idea makes a lot more sense.

[DLR2010]

In my opinion, the ‘social class’ of a person and family, could be ascertained, in how they perceive this phrase.
Growing up in our house, ‘Take care of your pennies~ because your pounds are already blooming spoken for!’ was always quoted. I’m 47 years old, and I actually thought that was the original phrase. It was only very recently, after chatting to a lady from a different part of the country, who’d ‘corrected’ me when I used it, that I realised it wasn’t, and figured that maybe it’s a families financial state that determines how it’s said.
We never had any spare cash when I was younger, so pennies were really important, whenever we did manage to save some, you could guarantee there’d be an unexpected bill/repair, or one of us would be needing new school shoes or having a school trip, something would always pop up that would claim the pennies back.