Household economy

“ We will suppose that it is necessary to use strict economy. It is as well to proceed on that supposition, because people can always be lavish in their expenditure, whereas it is not so easy to provide for the household at once well and economically. ”

“ This spread largely in the country 157 districts, and profoundly influenced home life and the position of women. At the same time both home and foreign trade greatly increased, and “natural economy” was almost entirely replaced by “money economy,” the necessities of life being no longer produced by the family for their own use; men worked instead for payment, and then with the money so earned bought in the market the goods they required. ”

“ We do not hesitate to lay out money in improvements on our farms. Why, then, need we fear to arrange our dwellings in accordance with principles of true economy, so that the ladies of our families may be able to co-operate with us in advancing the benefit of all? Every family might be its own Economical Housekeeping Company (Limited) , comprising in itself its shareholders and board of directors, realizing cent. ”

“ By this Scheme, we believe we shall be able to teach habits of economy, household management, thrift, and the like. There are numbers of men who, although suffering the direst pangs of poverty, know little or nothing about the value of money, or the prudent use of it; and there are hundreds of poor women who do not know what a decently-managed home is, and who could not make one if they had the most ample means and tried ever so hard to accomplish it, having never seen anything but dirt, disorder, and misery in their domestic history. ”

“ They proceed logically by the double method of labor and thrift. Every household exhibits an exact economy, and nothing of that uncalculated headlong expenditure which families use in America. If they cannot pay, they do not buy ”

“ Of the seventy-five families, fifty had fathers working in the mill and only two of these fifty fathers, both overseers, earned enough to support a wife and three young children according to the fair standard, and four according to the minimum. A decent home life for the families of these men would be impossible were it not for the wages of the children or the income from boarders. The great variations in incomes from week to week would increase the difficulty of planning household expenditures even when the average indicates a living wage. ”

“ But not only is the exchange directly and indirectly of value to producers, it is of equal importance to consumers. It simplifies many housekeeping problems in families where there is more work than can be performed by one domestic employee and not enough for two, by making it possible to purchase for the table and other [193] household purposes many articles made out of the house of the consumer. ”

“ In many cases this position is well taken economically, for, although the opportunity for saving may be better for the employees in the household than in the factory, her family saves more when she works in a factory and lives with them. The rent is no more when she is at home. The two dollars and a half a week which she pays into the family fund more than covers the cost of her actual food, and at night she can often contribute toward the family labor by helping her mother wash and sew. ”

“ Domestic Economics covers the whole care and government of the household; the maintenance of peace, health, order, and morality; the care and nourishment of children as far as done at home; the entire management of the home, as well as the spending and saving of money; are included in it. Saving is the least and poorest part of it; especially as in mere abstinence from needed things; most especially when this abstinence is mainly "Mother's." How best to spend; time, strength, love, care, labor, knowledge, and money—this should be the main study in Domestic Economics. ”

“ With family incomes rising, the lowest unemployment in nearly 30 years, the highest homeownership rate in history, most Americans today are enjoying the dividends of the strongest American economy in a generation. ”

“ A glance at our periodical literature does indeed show unusual interest in all questions affecting domestic life. Economists are asking why the wages paid for domestic service are higher than those paid the average woman in other occupations, and why, in spite of this, the demand for household workers is greater than the supply. ”

“ The higher life.—There are other needs of family life for which money must be spent besides the material ones of food, shelter, and clothing. In the division of some family incomes little thought is given to this phase of living. After the income reaches a certain amount, it is possible so to plan that education, recreation, philanthropy, and savings all figure in the division of expenditures. Some writers say that 25 per cent of the income of $1000 to $5000 should be spent in this way. ”

“ The American worker enjoys his present high standard of living because modern business methods have been introduced into the manufacture of his food, his clothes, his household goods, his education, his recreation, even of his luxuries, and there is every reason why the same efficiency should apply in housing, which, next to food, is the largest item in the wage-earner's budget. ”

“ Well, just because you have somebody, if you bring in 1,000 people--and we know that we are going to have to educate the children especially and the youth, we will have to provide health care and housing and nutrition, the food, clothing, and shelter--as I said, 1,000 people could come in, and if one of them does a day's work, that contributes to the GDP, the gross domestic product.
So if the day's work of one in 1,000 contributes to the GDP, they, by their definition, say the economy is growing. ”

“ We must be nourished and protected from the elements by shelter and clothing, and an income must at least provide for these necessities to be a living wage. Yet we justly claim something more from our income than mere existence.
In most families there is a fairly definite income. When the amount is not known it is wise to estimate upon the minimum income and have a surplus, rather than to expend too much. Seventy-five years ago things cost less and incomes were less, to-day the incomes have increased and cost of living is growing higher. ”

“ If the condition of the working classes has immensely improved, the cost of living has not stood still. A householder informed me that prices of provisions, servants' wages, house rent and other items of domestic economy have tripled within the last twenty years. ”

“ If a man be uncertain as to his means for hiring service, or if he have a feeble wife, and be where properly-qualified domestics are scarce, it is very [Pg 259] poor economy to build a large house, or to live in a style which demands much labor. Every room in a house adds to the expense involved in finishing and furnishing it, and to the amount of labor spent in sweeping, dusting, cleaning floors, paint, and windows, and taking care of, and repairing, its furniture. Double the size of a house, and you double the labor of taking care of it, and so, vice versa. ”

“ Unless the housewife be really poor, or unless the money be doled out to her irregularly, it will invariably pay to buy in quantity things which are not perishable, and which the household wears out and, therefore, habitually needs. ”

“ The entire family will be delighted with the frequent changes that can be made in the bill of fare, and no one more so than the housewife who often finds it a difficult matter to plan for a variety of food when the family income does not warrant a liberal outlay.
No owner of a bit of ground that can be made into a garden can afford to let it remain unused. If he does so he does it in disregard of the economy which most of us are obliged to consider and practise in these days of high prices and the increasing cost of daily living. ”

“ In a word, whatever arguments can be advanced in favor of profit sharing in productive industries can be used with equal force in its favor in domestic service.
The application of the principle to the household is simple. It is possible to allow a fixed sum, as $50, $100, or $500 per month for living expenses, which shall include the purchase of all food for the table, fuel, lights, ice, breakages, and the replacement of worn-out kitchen utensils, and to allow a pro rata amount for guests during the month. ”

“ When the home is first started the husband and wife should discuss frankly the problems322 of division and should agree on the methods of expenditure. This common understanding between members of a family forms a bond of union, and each feels a greater pleasure and pride in doing his part. The fact that there is a budget and a system brings orderliness in methods of work and freedom from worry and anxiety as well as a saving of money. And this saving of money and strength is the same as an increase in income. ”

“ Few women when they assume the care of a household know the exact value of the household plant; the amount to be deducted each year for wear and tear; the relative proportions expended annually for rent, fuel, food, clothing, and service; the number of meals served and the approximate cost of each; the amount of profit, waste, or unproductiveness that results from all expenditures made. Every manufacturer, every business man knows the value of his plant, its increasing or diminishing value, the cost of materials used and of service employed. ”

“ Hence, the diminished expenditure of labour in the house is accompanied by an increased expenditure of money. The cost of keeping the family increases, and balances the greater income. In addition to this, economy and judgment in the consumption and preparation of the means of subsistence becomes impossible. Abundant material relating to these facts, which are concealed by official political economy, is to be found in the Reports of the Inspectors of Factories, of the Children’s Employment Commission, and more especially in the Reports on Public Health. ”

“ Webb, which constitutes the second ground for the common neglect of this branch of economics. A factory or a shop is run for profit; a household 130 simply to provide comfort and convenience for its members. To put it in technical language, in the world of industry we are concerned with exchange values, but in the home with use values alone. ”

“ At this time, though a greater allowance was made on account of the provisions given away by this affluent family, yet such was the economy in the kitchen, and the honest, self-satisfactory privation exercised by the whole house, that not the least waste was made, and the accustomed expenditure was very little increased. ”

“ I now come to the subjects grouped together under the classification of 'domestic economy.' These differ only in detail in their application to town and country. To these subjects the Department attaches great importance. In the industrial life of manufacturing towns I am persuaded that far too little thought has been given to this element of industrial efficiency. From a purely economic point of view a saving in the worker's income due to superior housewifery is equivalent to an increase in his earnings; but, morally, the superior thrift is, of course, immensely more important. ”

“ When from the progress of population, land of the same quality as before should be taken into cultivation, to produce the food required, and the same number of men should471 be employed in producing it, the landlord would have not only the same proportion of the produce as before, but that proportion would also be of the same value as before. Rent then would be the same as before; profits, however, would be much higher, because the price of food, and consequently of wages, would be much lower. ”

“ Everything has to be bought—clothes, firewood, petroleum, improved agricultural implements, and many other articles which are now regarded as necessaries of life, whilst comparatively little is earned by working in the towns, because the big families have been broken up, and a household now consists usually of husband and wife, who must both remain at home, and children who are not yet bread-winners. ”

“ Or to put the same thing in another way, the industrial world is run to make a profit; the household, on the contrary, is kept up by the contributions of its members, and exists to provide for them the necessaries and comforts of life. None the less is the work of cooking, cleaning, and serving of real economic value 177 when carried on within the household, as people discover when they have to pay for the organisation of the same services in hotels or boarding-houses. ”

“ And in the household budget rent is a less important item than food and cleansing. Now, the raw materials of the stuff necessary to keep a household healthily alive cost more in France than in England. ”

“ That in large cities $900 to $1000 a year is necessary to bring up a family to live decently and enjoy human happiness. Much depends upon how this income is divided as to whether results will tend to develop efficiency in the members of such a family. As the income increases from $1000 to $5000 it is possible to apportion the income and indicate certain percentages which represent wise family expenditures so as to include the higher intellectual and emotional life as well as the physical welfare of the family. ”

“ In these days when both sexes work, there are often more than one wage-earner in the family. Also, a family may enjoy additional income from savings, from investment in securities or real estate, from inheritance, or from the custom of taking boarders into the home. Clearly, the discrepancy between family income and the wages may be great, and may vary greatly as between families in the same wage group. For this reason it is family budget, not the wage, which is the true index in housing finance. ”

“ Whatever money was extorted for rent meant so much less food for the mother and children, for it has been shown that the family income was insufficient for food alone, and left no margin for rent or clothes. ”

“ Hence we see all around us those who have lived in [Pg 360] wealthy families marrying, with no knowledge of providing for a family, or of using the little they have with economy. So they sink down, year after year, into deeper poverty and wretchedness; ending, perhaps, in the poorhouse; when if the lessons learned in their employer’s house had been those of true economy, they might now be living in neat and comfortable homes. ”