Waste not, want not means that if you do not use too much of something now you will have some left later when you need it. This proverb get at the idea of how we can always have just what we need.
The "want not" means that you will have some of that thing leftover because you didn't waste it, so you won't want any because you already have what you want.
This old saw has its origins from 1576 in, The Paradise of Dainty Devices by Richard Edwardes, a distinguished lyricist and playwright who was rumored to be an illegitimate son of Henry VIII. On page 88 the proverb was written as: “For want is nexte to waste, and shame doeth synne ensue.”
In 1721 the saying was recorded in an easier to understand version: “Willful waste makes woeful want.” Then, on August 10, 1772 in a letter to Alexander Clark, John Wesley wrote the saying in the more familiar: “He will waste nothing; but he must want nothing.”
