---
title: Beware the Squander Bug
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-beware-the-squander-bug-1939/
description: A four-panel strip shows a green insect-devil covered in swastikas urging a worker to spend his extra pay, then gloating 'Sold again, and got the money'.
section: Collection
---

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3. Beware the Squander Bug

[![Beware the Squander Bug, 1939 UK poster: A four-panel strip shows a green insect-devil covered in swastikas urging a worker](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-beware-the-squander-bug-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-beware-the-squander-bug-1939.jpg)

# Beware the Squander Bug

A four-panel strip shows a green insect-devil covered in swastikas urging a worker to spend his extra pay, then gloating 'Sold again, and got the money'. The tell for name-calling is the dehumanised bug carrying the enemy emblem as the face of spending; the tell for fear-appeal is the frame that thrift is a defence against the enemy.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
HERE HE
COMES, WITH
SOME EXTRA
PAY THIS WEEK

LET'S BLUE
SOME MONEY
ON A BIT
OF TRASH

COURSE
IT'S NOT
WORTH IT!
BUT ISN'T
IT FUN TO
SPEND

SOLD
AGAIN,
AND GOT
THE
MONEY

BEWARE THE
SQUANDER BUG

W.F.P. 300  Issued by the National Savings Committee, London
J. H. & S.  51-3682
```

[← Beware: Never give away the movements of H.M. Ships](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-beware-hitler-ear-hm-ships-1939/) [Blood donors are needed urgently to save lives (Emergency Blood Transfusion Service) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-blood-donors-needed-urgently-abram-games-1939/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)