Household expenses

“ We recommend that every husband from the first should make his wife an allowance for ordinary household expenses—which he should pay weekly or monthly—and for the expenditure of which he should not, unless for some urgent reason, call her to account. ”

“ Take care that you know definitely what sum you can afford to spend on your household expenses, and make it a point of conscience never to exceed it. Market with ready money, if possible; but, if it is more convenient to pay by the month, or quarter, never make that an excuse for letting your bills mount up to double what you can afford to pay. With accounts, carefully kept, it is quite possible to regulate the expenditure to the income. ”

“ APPORTIONMENT OF INCOME.--When the housewife thoroughly understands the qualities of foods as well as their comparative food values and is familiar with the factors that govern food prices, she is well equipped to do economical buying for her family. Then it remains for her to purchase the right kind of food and at the same time keep within her means. A good plan is to apportion the household expenses according to a budget ”

“ 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. ”

“ We shall state less than the truth if we estimate that fully one-fifth of the money expended for food is absolutely wasted, while the excessive [Pg 136] expenditure often fails to provide adequate nutrition.” [48] The remedy for such a waste as this clearly lies in the teaching of domestic science in our public schools to the daughters and future wives of the workingmen. As the ordinary household expenses, as shown above, absorb from 80 to 90 per cent of the ordinary income, the training of the housewife, under whose control they fall, is almost as imperative as that of the wage-earner. ”

“ They're turning out about a million boxes of health-food every week." — Judge.
Reduce Expenses
Those troublesome family expenditures can be materially reduced if you keep our Family Expense Book. Tou will be sur- prised if you will only get one and try it a month. Every woman should have one. Gives itemized account of daily and monthly expenditures for one year of all household expenses. Price 40 cents, post- paid.
KILHRM STTTriONCRY CO.
267 Morrison St. - - Portland, Oregon.
Paper Tour House
Before doing so call or send for samples of our complete line Wall Paper. ”

“ Each family has to decide for itself what proportion should be allowed for these different expenses, but, with your income of $2200 a year, it is safe to allow fifty cents a day per person for all food. The house rent, so business men say, should not be more than a quarter of one’s income, if possible a little less than that. ”

“ It is usually possible for such families to determine upon a definite minimum amount which may be counted upon for ordinary living expenses. The margin above this may vary widely, but if the scale of living be habitually adjusted to come within the minimum income, there will be no terror of debt. The expenditure of the surplus, when it comes, becomes a unique and unexpected pleasure. Whatever the plan adopted for distributing the family income, the wife should have at her command and should be expected to live within, a definite share of the income. ”

“ The analysis took the form of a comparison of the death-rate in those families as related to the number of children in each, the household allowance of each, and the amount paid in rent by each. Household allowance was chosen rather than wage, as being necessarily in closer touch with household expenditure than is the actual wage, from which a varying amount of pocket-money for the man is generally taken. ”

“ Some husbands and wives make the financial plans of the family together. In other cases, the husband decides what amount of the income should be spent on the table, and the wife plans only the expenditure of that. The households in which the wife buys and the husband pays without consultation [73] or agreement, exist, but let us hope they are few. Then, there is the household in which the woman is financier, and the man lives on an allowance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of Economy in Expenditure.—Economy should be the first point in all families, whatever be their circumstances. A prudent housekeeper will regulate the ordinary expenses of a family, according to the annual sum allowed for housekeeping. ”

“ It is now possible to begin calculations as to the expenditure of families of various sizes on a given wage or household allowance. For a family with six children the rent is likely to be 8s., 8s. 6d., or even 9s., for three or four rooms. A woman [77] with one or two children sometimes manages, by becoming landlady, to make advantageous arrangements with lodgers, and so reduce her payments, though not her risk, to considerably less than the usual market price of one or two fairly good rooms. But women with large families are not able to do this. ”

“ Tomorrow more money will be needed for house-keeping. In this our poverty I received this morning One Thousand Pounds. The money being left to me for disposal as it might be most needed, I took of it 600l. for the Building Fund, 300l. for missionary purposes and the circulation of bibles and tracts, and 100l. for present use of the Orphans. I have thus the means which are yet needed for this week's house-keeping expenses, besides being able to meet other heavy expenses which are before me next week. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A maid-of-all-work will serve as laundress, cook, and house-maid for from $12 to $15 a month, and the other expenses can be regulated according to one's means; but when two or three share the expenses, and the pennies are looked after closely, this is not an expensive mode of life. ”

“ This would make but the moderate sum of $50 a month for each workman, which, under the most thrifty system of household economy, can not be considered more than enough for the support of an American family. ”

“ It is not so much the amount of income, as the regular and correct apportionment of expenses, that makes a family truly comfortable. A man, with ten thousand a year, is often more harassed, for want of money, than the systematic economist, who supports a family on only six hundred a year. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only will they name a far smaller sum as housekeeping money than their husbands can well afford to give them, but they will actually save out of that sum enough for their own clothes and petty cash expenses. ”

“ Some investigations carried out by a group of my students last year led to the conclusion that the ordinary cook, housemaid, or general servant in middle-class households costs her employer in wages, food, house-room, heating, 185 lighting, and insurance about £50 a year. [78] I have been informed by a lady accustomed to deal with servants in a wealthy household, that board wages are usually 14s. 6d. for men servants, and 12s. 6d. and 10s. 6d. for women servants. When we remember that in the ranks from which servants are drawn, [79] a workman is comparatively well off if he is earning 35s. ”

“ Thus, while the final estimate of the money cost of maintaining a definite standard of living is not based on actual family expenditures, but rather is a hypothetical budget designed to maintain a hypothetical family at a specified standard, it should closely approximate the true conditions. ”

“ You may, however, take it that a large number of families, consisting of man, wife, and as many as three children, have to be content with one room for their home. The reasons are not far to seek. In the first place, mind, the rents are high. We will take the case of a man earning say 253. per week as carman. He marries, and very likely he and his wife take two rooms for something like 73. 6d. per week. They can do that all right until two or three children come along, when the expenses they entail render them unable to afford the two rooms. The whole family then lives in the one room. ”

“ Any couple who depend on the wife's earnings for such essentials as food, clothing, and shelter should be prepared to adopt a lower scale of expenditure for any of or all these purposes, for as a general rule her contribution to the family income is likely to be less certain than that of her husband. ”

“ Where sons and daughters of the same family go out to work and live under one roof, it is customary for the girls to put practically the entire amount of their wage into the common domestic fund, while their brothers, from quite early years, pay a fixed sum to cover the expenses of their board and lodging, retaining, as a matter of course, the rest of their earnings for their own individual use. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to the housewife, I am not prepared to concede that my picture is in essentials very fanciful. She may be a creature of habits and instincts like the rest of us, but most habits and instincts affecting household expenditure are based ultimately on some calculation, if not one's own, and reason has a way of paying, as it were, periodic visits of inspection, and pulling our habits and instincts into line, if they have gone far astray. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It appears then that the income of each member of an ordinary peasant family will be less than Rs. 16 per annum, from which he or she must defray the whole cost of food, shelter, clothing, and firewood. ”

“ Naturally in this study the cost of living is approached through a consideration of ability or inability to save. Savings should of course be included as a necessary part of living expenses, and where pay is insufficient to make saving possible, the wage received is certainly not a living wage. The general responsibility for the support of the family, whether the girl is living at home or boarding, the tendency to give all earnings to the mother, the effort to save and its success or failure—all these conditions are portrayed in this study. ”

“ The most ardent country advocate, however, cannot deny that in some respects such a life has certain expenses not entered in the budget of families living in town. First and foremost, if father has his city job there is the monthly commutation book as well as the occasional railroad fares when other members of the family go to the city. ”

“ 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. ”