IV
CONCERNING HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS
ONE of the first items of business to be considered by a newly married couple, or a pair who are about to begin housekeeping, is the division of the income between the husband and wife.
This does not imply that their interests are to be opposed or that they are to have absolutely separate purses. It does mean that there must be a clear understanding on both sides of what the expenditure is to be for certain purposes and that the funds for food, domestic service, and other strictly housekeeping outlay should be in the hands of the wife.
This point has been much debated and the pros and cons on both sides exploited. Some men argue that the possession of ready money will lead the wife to extravagance, that it is far better to have all articles charged and the bills paid by the husband, that women do not understand household accounts or bookkeeping. Enough foolish and shallow women exist to lend a trifling force to this position. But the general and growing view is that the housekeeper upon whom is laid the responsibility of purveying for an establishment rises to the emergency, that she does better work and makes wiser purchases when she is trusted with an allowance for such expenses, that an exhaustive knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping is not demanded for simple domestic accounts, that even the immature and untrained wife gains knowledge by experience and competence by errors made and corrected.
Certain disbursements seem naturally to devolve upon the man of the house. That he should pay the rent, defray outside or general repairs, perhaps meet the coal bill, appears a matter of course. But it is unquestionably the province of the wife to buy provisions and pay for them, either in cash or by weekly or monthly accounts. Charges for work done in the house, the replacement of cooking utensils, household linen and the like, the bills for gas and electric light, all should be within her control, to be settled by her as they fall due, after she has examined them and convinced herself that they are correct.
If other arrangement is made than this, it should be after careful consideration and unbiased discussion of the advantages and demerits of the system. As a general thing such a division as that just suggested proves the best.
Exactly what proportion of the income shall be placed in the hands of the wife is a matter which must be decided by individual circumstances. Estimate has already been made as to the allowance to be given to food, and it can readily be seen that this must be determined by the character and size of the family as well as by the conditions surrounding them. The household of a farmer or of one who commands a garden and dairy can be kept on a much smaller pecuniary expenditure for actual food than is possible in the home of a dweller in the city, who must buy and pay for every particle of food which comes into the house. The sum disbursed may amount to the same thing in the long run, since the cost of keeping up the garden plot or caring for the cattle must be met by the man of the house, but he will not need to give as much cash into his wife’s hands as will be required in other circumstances.
However the amount may be apportioned, whatever may be the charges laid upon the wife and those assumed by the husband, the necessity of strict and accurate household accounts should be insisted upon. I am not advocating any special system. I have known excellent outlines of domestic expenses which simply darkened counsel with words for some housekeepers and rendered the business of following their outlay confusion worse confounded. Sometimes a woman with little more than a common-school education and an ordinary working knowledge of arithmetic can keep her accounts with a conciseness and cleanness many a trained bookkeeper might envy. If a housekeeper has a system which proves satisfactory it is a mistake for her to try to change it for one which may be more scientific but is less useful.
Merely as a suggested guide I would advise the beginner to provide herself with two books, one small and cheap, to be slipped into the pocket when going to market, the other larger and of better quality. In the first one, to which is attached a pencil, is to be set down every purchase and its cost, as soon as made. The memory should never be trusted in these matters, but each outlay—no matter how small, if it be nothing more than a car-fare or a three-cent bunch of parsley—entered immediately. Then these items are to be transferred in ink to the larger book as soon as possible after the housekeeper’s return to the home. It is fatal to accuracy and to really helpful bookkeeping to let the accounts accumulate before they are written down and balanced.
Still keeping along the most elementary principles of household accounts, let me counsel that on the left-hand page be written the amount of money in hand, while the sums expended and the items for which they are paid out are set down on the opposite page. The two pages may be balanced each day or as the bottom of each page is reached, as best suits the housekeeper. The one immutable rule is that the sum which the written balance shows ought to be in her purse should absolutely be there. This may sound like the very primer of household expenses, but no woman who has ever gone through the anguish of trying to determine what has become of the stray dime her figures show should be in her possession, or of discovering how she happens to have a quarter more than her ciphering proves to belong to her, will ever make light of the endeavor to square her accounts and her cash balance. Such struggles are avoided by the consistent practice of noting down each payment as soon as made.
Possibly the most important decision the young housekeeper has to make in beginning her domestic bookkeeping is how she shall pay for her purchases. Shall it be cash or credit? And if the latter, how often shall bills be paid?
From the standpoint of wise economy it is safe to state that the strictly cash habit is probably the most economical method to follow. The old saying of “pay as you go, and if you can’t pay don’t go!” is put into practical effect. Foolish as it may be, the fact remains that we all feel a certain reluctance to part with actual cash which lays a detaining grasp upon us when we might be tempted to “plunge” if the charge were not to be presented until the end of the week or month. The housekeeper thinks more than once before she buys the more expensive cut of meat, the higher-priced fruits or vegetables than her purse shows she ought to purchase. And there is undoubtedly a comfort beyond words in the knowledge that no vexing bills are coming in after the food has been consumed and forgotten. When feasible, there are countless advantages in paying cash for everything which is brought into the house and leaving to credit only such items as cannot well be met except periodically—such as fuel, light, wages, and in some cases milk and ice.
On the other hand, the charge system has something to its account. It is much more convenient, in the first place. When one is in a hurry to finish her marketing and get on to something else the nuisance of having to wait for change is vexatious. Sometimes the article desired is not in stock and must be ordered. One hesitates to pay for it before it is certain that it can be obtained. Again, the telephone marketing or commanding of groceries, disadvantageous as it is, must sometimes be followed because of illness or inclement weather, and then the habit of paying cash is a bother. Moreover, there is little doubt that the charge customer usually receives a meed of consideration often refused the cash payer. It is also a genuine inconvenience to pay cash for milk and for ice and for certain other commodities, such as butter and eggs supplied by special dealers.
I have not touched upon the possibility that ready money may be lacking, as is sometimes the case with the man on a salary and still more with the one who does piecework and is not paid on a fixed day. Often the need for paying “real money” amounts to a hardship, not because the purchaser is not solvent, but because his remuneration is slow in arriving. At such periods the charge account partakes of the nature of a sheet-anchor. And yet there are strong arguments against it.
Perhaps it is useless to lay stress on the disadvantages of the charge account, and yet I would feel I was in error if I did not speak a word of warning against the fatal facility attending on credit arrangements. It is altogether too easy to have an article charged, forgetting that a day of reckoning can only be postponed at the best. The housekeeper who for good and sufficient reasons decides to pay by check periodically should lay down for herself certain fixed rules.
One of the chief of these is to have short accounts. A grocer’s or a butcher’s bill should be presented weekly and paid punctually. When the bill comes in it should be gone over carefully and the items on it checked up, to be sure, in the first place, that every article charged has been delivered; in the second place, that the charge set against it is that which was stated when the purchase was made. It is a common occurrence to find an increase of from one to five cents on several entries on a bill. The error may be due to the bookkeeper’s mistake or to the dealer’s dishonesty. In either event the blunder should be called to the merchant’s attention and corrected. He will respect the housekeeper none the less because he learns she is on the alert for possible discrepancies.
Another principle to be followed is that the marketer should not be led into making foolish or extravagant purchases because they are to be charged. In the majority of cases it is a mistake for the small housekeeper to buy in quantity, since the cash saved by the transaction is offset by the waste of the material, either by spoiling or because of extravagant use. Yet when the purchase can be charged it is easy to yield to the temptation toward what seems at the first glance like an economy.
Again, the possession of the charge account should not be permitted to lead the housekeeper into the habit of vicarious marketing—either by telephone or by messenger or by ordering through an employee of the concern she patronizes. Other mistakes may also be made, but these are probably the most frequent and those into which the woman who is not on her guard against pitfalls in the domestic path is likely to slip.
I have said that it is not feasible to state here a fixed sum to which the housekeeper must limit her outlay for food. Her best plan for arriving at an approximate estimate is by a process of averages. A single day or even a single week cannot furnish a standard any more than can a single meal. The wisest method is by the aid of strict system to keep track of her expenditures and then study how the economy of one time offsets the liberality of another.
To illustrate: when the holiday season is at hand expenses are bound to increase. The cost of the Thanksgiving or the Christmas turkey and pies cannot be appreciably reduced. But it is possible to make a science of economical purchasing and catering—this, too, without stinting the family or feeding them poorly—so that the burden of high-priced food may not hopelessly swamp the income.
A like principle may be followed on other occasions. If company must be entertained, if a family feast must be observed, prudent marketing and skilful cookery may delude the household into an ignorance of the fact that money is being saved to carry the housekeeper over the time of increased bills. Constant thought and consideration are required for this, but to the lover of housekeeping the occupation after a while becomes almost like a game in which she pits her wits against the cost of living and glories when she comes out ahead.
Here is an enterprise in which the habit of going to market for oneself and the custom of keeping strict account of disbursements both help the worker. She can pick up at a bargain a cut of meat, a selection of fish, a choice of vegetables or of fruit, or an occasion in canned goods which will at once bring down her average and permit her to lay aside a little toward the next heavy pull upon her purse. This is especially likely to be the case in the period of preserving, pickling, and similar pursuits, when often a happy “find” in fruit will help to lighten the unavoidable weight of conserving of any sort.
The wise student of housekeeping need not let her family recognize the alternation of a feast and a fast at the table. When they eat a larded lamb’s liver, they will not suspect an economy; when they rejoice in filleted sole they will have no idea that the cheapness of flounders is responsible for their treat, any more than they guess that a delectable trifle which redeems a rather simple dinner is made from the remains of stale cake, the left-overs of a couple of jars of jam, and a simple custard.
Some of the so-called economies do not economize. A bread-pudding which requires eggs, milk, sugar, butter, and raisins to the value of fifteen or twenty cents to use up three cents’ worth of stale bread can by no stretch of the imagination be regarded as a saving. Better make toast of the bread, save it for stuffing, or dry it and keep it for crumbs to serve in frying. But there are genuine economies galore, and the woman who makes a science of them will lay up for herself a series of agreeable sensations when she balances her housekeeping accounts at the end of the month.