I think that much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself–in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself.

The remark contrasts conventional thrift—banking small sums—with a different kind of “saving”: building one’s earning power through education, skill, and professional readiness. Ford frames early adulthood as a period when the highest-return investment may be human capital rather than cash reserves, especially for people whose income is limited and whose future prospects depend on competence. The line also reflects a self-made industrialist’s retrospective narrative: he presents his own rise as rooted in technical mastery and preparation, implying that disciplined self-improvement can outperform mere penny-pinching. At the same time, the claim is not a blanket rejection of saving; it argues that for some, strategic spending on learning and tools can be the more rational path to long-term security.