Penny well spent is penny worth saved.

 It goes both ways!

Time tested saying is that "A penny saved is a penny earned."

To give you a context, there is another old story.

Once upon a time there was a Halwai(confectioner) in a land far far away. He was very famous for his kachoris. People from distant places would come and visit to taste his tasty, spicy kachoris. All his life as far as he could remember he was working in his shop. Making a brand of his own. He had sent his son to study MBA in a top college in big city.

With degree in his hand the son returned.

One day the Halwai saw his son thinking about something very deeply with his head buried in his hands.

The Halwai asks his son, "Kid,What is the matter?"

The son replies, "Dad, When I was doing my MBA. I got connected to the bigger picture of the market."

Halwai was happy, "That is great. But why the long face."

Son, "Dad, but the world's market is going to go downwards any time now. We need to start saving before the market starts hitting us back. You know that a penny saved is a penny earned."

Halwai said, "Well I never heard this one in my years of experience. But maybe you are right. So what do you suggest that we do?"

Son, "I see that you always use fresh oil to fry Kachoris. Maybe we can reuse some of this oil and save a little in the process."

Halwai although reluctant agreed to his Son's plans.

Next day, they started reusing some oil.

At the ed of the day, the son showed to his father the extra profit they earned by reusing some oil.

The son approached his father a week later, "Father, the market crash is sooner than expected. We need to save more. Lets reuse some oil one more time before discarding it."

Halwai was impressed by the extra profit his son was making. So they started using the oil one more time.

By the evening some customers came to him and said, "Is everything good? Your Kachoris do not taste as they used to."

Halwai was tensed. He just shrugged that "No no, everything is good".

The customers left without satisfaction.

Just then his son came happy.

Father told him about the dissatisfaction of customers he just encountered.

"No worries dad", the son consoled him.

Son, "See even if some customers leave us, we are still making larger profits. And even by selling less we are making bigger profits."

The Halwai reluctantly agreed with him.

A week later.

Son, "The market crash can happen any time now. Maybe a week at best. We need to use all the oil we have as much as we can!!!"

Halwai was worried deeply. He couldn't picture a market crash. He was not an MBA. All he knew was making Kachoris. Blindly scared he did as his MBA son told him to do.

Number of customers keep on decreasing day after day.

Almost a week later. There were only a handful of customers in his shop which once used to be filled with happy customers.

The son came to Halwai, "See dad! I told you market would crash in a week. I am so glad that we could save at best as we could before this happened."

Halwai with tears in his eyes said, "Yes son. You were right. The market did crash. The customers are less now than ever. But what we did not realize is that we are the ones who crashed this market. What did you say to me that day? A penny saved is a penny earned. But now I know that a penny well spent is a penny saved and thus a penny earned."

He threw away all the bad oil and started preparing fresh Kachoris.

The customers were still less.

Son, "See dad, the market crashed. No one is coming."

Halwai, "Son, I created this brand in my entire life. We ruined it in few months. We need to give time to customers to again switch to us."

As Halwai had said customers resumed coming to his shop. The sale was again back to normal.

And the main thing was customers were again happy, Halwai was enjoying his work once again, and mostly his Kachoris tasted best once again.

So, a penny well spent is a penny worth saved.