Part 49 Foods and Household Management

Part 49

TYPICAL BUDGETS[25]

====================================================================== | AVERAGE | AVERAGE | AVERAGE |INCOME $650|INCOME $748|INCOME $846 ----------------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------- Rent | $154 | $161 | $168 Carfare | 11 | 10 | 16 Fuel and light | 38 | 37 | 41 Furniture | 6 | 8 | 7 Insurance | 13 | 18 | 18 Food | 279 | 314 | 341 Meals eaten away from home | 11 | 22 | 17 Clothing | 83 | 99 | 114 Health | 14 | 14 | 22 Taxes, dues and contributions | 8 | 9 | 11 Recreation and amus.e.m.e.nt | 3 | 6 | 7 Education | 5 | 5 | 7 Miscellaneous | 25 | 32 | 41 ----------------------------------+-----------+-----------+----------- Total | $650 | $735 | $811 ======================================================================

EXERCISES

1. What definite aims should the wise homemaker have in mind in dividing the income?

2. What ideals should affect the amount spent for food?

3. What should determine selection of the house whether owned or rented?

4. What is meant by the operating expenses of a house?

5. What ideals should determine the amount spent for clothing?

6. In what ways should the "higher life" of the family or individual be considered in the division of the income?

7. Plan to keep account of every penny of spending money for one year.

Look over and criticize at the end of the year.

8. Plan a budget for a family of five in your community having $1000.

Suppose they have $2000, how would you change your budget?

9. Work out with your parents a budget or schedule of probable household expenditures for your home for the next month; the next year.

CHAPTER XX

SYSTEM IN MANAGEMENT

The housekeeper should learn to use the labor-saving devices for her records that are now employed so largely in the world of business. This equipment should include a desk with fittings for systematized and rapid work. A roll-top desk, with pigeonholes and drawers is convenient, but a flat-topped desk with drawers below gives a larger s.p.a.ce for writing, although it has to be supplemented by boxes to take the place of pigeonholes. Such desks may be purchased for twenty dollars and upward, in woods to match other furniture. It is a pleasure to have artistic desk furnishings, but a large amount may be spent on these, and the desk still be unequipped for practical purposes.

=Files and loose-leaf books.=--A card file is as advantageous to the housekeeper as to the business man. Some desks contain a place for the card file in the upper right-hand drawer.

Guide cards are furnished in several colors to indicate divisions of the file, and these are plain, or with printed numbers and letters. The record cards also are made of several colors, to indicate different uses. The suggestions here cover only a few of the possibilities. Visit some office furnishing department or shop to see what an array of conveniences has been devised for the dispatch of business. If you once form the habit, you will find new uses for the card file almost daily, and will keep on the cards, addresses, engagements, cash accounts, shopping lists, inventories of clothing and furnishings, menus and recipes. A loose-leaf book is preferred by some people for inventories and accounts.

A letter file shaped like a pocketbook can be purchased for only twenty-five cents, and will serve the purpose for a small correspondence.

Large files with guide cards are made for a larger correspondence.

The small file will answer for filing bills and is useful also for clippings. Some desks have bill files in the pigeonholes, and a letter file in one of the large drawers.

Have regular hours daily for attending to work at the desk, stated times for planning menus, making shopping lists, looking over the inventories, recording expenditures, and balancing accounts.

Order in time and place are studied further in the chapter on Housewifery.

=Keeping of accounts.=--This has been called by many, drudgery and tedious routine. Many business men go through much such drudgery to attain their goals, why should not the housewife be willing to make a similar sacrifice in her home for the sake of the service she is rendering the members of her household? The aim in keeping the accounts is to register the amounts spent for various purposes so that all phases of life will be considered and so that the manager will be able to profit the second year because of the experience of the first year. This makes housekeeping interesting and businesslike. The expenditure is made to produce the maximum of value received and is accompanied by the greatest possible pleasure.

In keeping accounts there should be some method of showing the receipts and expenses, the income and the outgo, so that a balance can be made at any time. The items should be so listed, too, that it is possible to tell what expenditure has been made for any one item, as rent, or food, or other necessities. It is only in this way that the accounts become of value for future use.

There are many ways of keeping such accounts. The simplest one for the housewife is the best if it shows the points mentioned above. The envelope system is used by some when the income is small, and a certain amount of money according to budget plan is put in labeled envelopes for various purposes, as rent, food, operating expenses, etc. As sums are drawn from the various envelopes, a slip of paper put in the particular envelope registers the amount drawn. It is easy at the end of the month to balance the accounts. This system necessitates the presence of a good deal of money on hand, and sometimes of confusion of accounts, if money is borrowed from one envelope for use in another.

Various systems of card catalogues, journals, and ledgers are in use, and all have more or less value. The simplest form for the average young woman or housewife can be kept in an ordinary blank book and the s.p.a.ces ruled according to one's need. The account book can be started in somewhat the following manner, with the dates of expenditures in the first column and the respective amounts opposite under their proper heads. In this way it is possible by using double pages of the blank book to keep all the items for each month in horizontal series. The columns for items of expenses should be ruled as needed, but it is desirable to keep them under as few heads as will suffice to give the information which may be desired. The use of the double page is advisable, for then the outer edge of the left-hand page can be used for the dates of purchase and plenty of room for columns of expense left across the two pages. The total in the various columns can be easily calculated at the end of the first month and a new set of pages ruled for the second. The expenditures should be entered daily so as not to be forgotten. A slip of paper kept in one's purse is of help if amounts are jotted down while one is shopping. The totals for each month should be entered in another part of the blank book. Rule s.p.a.ces for the year with columns for the months across the page and items of expense corresponding to those in the daily entry at the left-hand side. In this way at the end of twelve months the totals for each item of expense can be easily found. If one desires to know from day to day of a month how the balance stands, it is possible to add to Form I two columns for this purpose. One column should show the income or amounts received with dates, and the second the total sum expended each day. This sum is found by adding the expense of each item across the page for the day and entering in the expense column.

Form II

+------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ | JULY | AUG. | SEP. | OCT. | NOV. | DEC. | TOTALS | +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+ | | | | | | | | +------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+

Somewhere in the book there should be kept an account of the receipts from all sources. The balance of the yearly expense account with the sheet of receipt can be easily made.

Some plan must be made for showing which purchases are paid for in cash, and which are charged. A simple method is to record the articles charged, with the place, date, and price on a card in the card file in a division kept for this purpose, and labeled "Purchases charged." When the bill is rendered, it can be checked up from these cards, and the purchases entered in the permanent account book. The record in the account book gives thus the date of payment, but not the date of purchase, unless this is added too. The date of purchase can be recorded in the inventory of household goods (see Chapter XXII).

This simple method of keeping accounts enables one to look over the monthly and yearly expenses and to see if the expenditure is apportioned to the different divisions as it should be. If some of the needs of the physical or intellectual life are being neglected, it should be possible to cut down or readjust the next year to the satisfaction both of the housewife and of her family.

It is wise for all girls before they have homes of their own to keep account of their own small incomes. In many families daughters are given money for clothing and daily expenses. Some such system of keeping accounts as the above can be used. It is astonishing in examining accounts for clothing, to see how few maintain a correct balance. One girl found, by keeping accounts, that she spent entirely too much for hats and gloves and did not have the proper underwear to protect her body and maintain the correct temperature for health. Accounts help us to determine whether our methods of living measure up to the ideals or standards of life which we have established in order to live rightly.

=Methods of payment.=--Payment is either immediate, known as "spot cash,"

or deferred. If deferred, the articles purchased are charged by the dealer, and a bill rendered the first of each month. When a charge account is opened, a good business reference must be given. According to another system, articles may be paid for in installments,--that is, so much each month, according to some agreement. Of this method it may be said that it is unsafe, or at least unwise, always. Remember that more is always paid in the end.

In either case the payment may be made in bills, specie, or by checks; although in ordinary shopping immediate payment is usually made in bills and specie.

The advantage of immediate payment is that the buyer spends only what she has, and does not count on future money. This method of payment enables one to keep the balance well in hand. It necessitates, however, keeping bills and specie in the house, and in one's pocketbook, with the possibility of theft or loss; and cash payment takes more time in the shop, with the long wait for change. Sending "collect on delivery"

(C.O.D.) is a way of making cash payment and saving time at the shop. Be sure that in this case there is the exact change at home, and some one ready to receive the goods.

Charging goods makes for economy of time. If you can remember that an article charged means money spent, this is a safe plan. One careful buyer says that she is too optimistic to have a charge account; too sure that while she has not cash enough to-day for something that she wants, she will surely have it by the first of next month.

There is another method of payment introduced by a few large department stores. The firm requires a monthly deposit at the first of each month and charges up purchases against this. This is good in so far that the customer is spending money that he really has, but it restricts purchases to that one shop, and this is inadvisable in the case of a small income.

=The bank account and check book.=--Whether payment is immediate or deferred, payment by check is a great convenience. It saves time and is also a record of money paid.

Select a bank, conveniently located, and recommended by a conservative business man. Take to the bank a letter of introduction, with the sum for deposit. The bank will record your signature, and give you a bank book in which is recorded the amount deposited. A check book will be given you that contains blank checks, and provides for keeping account of deposits and checks drawn. Each check has to be filled in, and signed with your name exactly as recorded at the bank, when you make a payment. This must be recorded in the proper place when the check is made out, stating date, amount, and payee. The sums paid out are added, usually for every three checks, and this sum deducted from the deposit, and the balance carried forward. In this way you may always know your balance in the bank, provided you are accurate. Great care must be taken to fill in the blank s.p.a.ces correctly so that the check cannot be easily altered by any one.

If a check is made out to you, and you wish to cash it, or deposit it, you "indorse" it by writing your name on the back across the left-hand end of the check. The name must be written exactly as it appears on the face of the check. If by chance the name is misspelled, write it in with the correct spelling below.

The checks that you make out are indorsed by the payee in the same way, and cannot be cashed until so indorsed. Therefore, if a check is lost in the mail, you do not lose the money. The bank should be notified to "stop payment" on the lost check, and you can then send another check in place of the first one.

When you wish bills or specie, you go to the bank and present to the paying teller a check made out to "Cash" and signed by yourself. It is wise not to make out or sign such a check until you reach the bank, because if such a check is lost on the way, there is danger of its being cashed by the finder.

Once a month you should leave the book with the teller to be balanced. In a few days you may call for it, and will receive with it the checks that you have drawn, and that have been returned to the bank by the date to which the book is balanced. These checks are called vouchers. With these there is also a list of the amounts showing the total paid out on them by the bank. Check up the vouchers with the list, then check up the vouchers with your check book to see if all in your check book had been returned to the bank by the date of balancing. If there are some still out, add that sum to your check book balance, and then compare the bank book balance with your check book.

Deposits may be sent by mail, either with or without the check book. If the book is sent, it should go by registered mail. If you do not send the book, the bank will send a receipt, which you return with the book the next time the balance is made. In either case, write "For deposit" above your signature on the back.

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