Franklin understood something modern budgeting apps often miss: attention itself is the real currency. When you genuinely *notice* where a penny goes—not from shame or deprivation, but from interest—you develop an intuition about money that spreadsheets can't teach. A person who thoughtfully considers whether to spend three dollars on coffee isn't being miserly; they're training their mind to make larger decisions with the same clarity. Someone who later faces a choice between a practical car and an expensive one will have already built the mental muscle to see past marketing straight to actual value.