F. Scott Fitzgerald on Being (Briefly) Poor

—From “How to Live on $36,000 a Year” ** by F. Scott Fitzgerald, from the April 5, 1924, issue of The Saturday Evening Post

I remember the mixed feelings with which I issued from the bank on hearing the news.

“What’s the matter?” demanded my wife anxiously, as I joined her on the sidewalk. “You look depressed.”

“I’m not depressed,” I answered cheerfully; “I’m just surprised. We haven’t got any money.”

“Haven’t got any money,” she repeated calmly, and we began to walk up the Avenue in a sort of trance. “Well, let’s go to the movies,” she suggested jovially.

I knew that there was nothing to worry about. I was now a successful author, and when successful authors ran out of money all they had to do was to sign checks. I wasn’t poor — they couldn’t fool me. Poverty meant being depressed and living in a small remote room, while I — why, it was impossible that I should be poor. I was living at the best hotel in New York!

This particular crisis passed next morning when the discovery that publishers sometimes advance royalties sent me hurriedly to mine. So the only lesson I learned from it was that my money usually turns up somewhere in time of need, and that at the worst you can always borrow — a lesson that would make Benjamin Franklin turn over in his grave.

**$36,000 in 1924 would equal $638,000 in today’s dollars.

This article is featured in the March/April 2024 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.