FoodNet

Foods and household management

1914

Page 165

Presented as published in 1914. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
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. iFrom Chapin's "Standards of Living." By permission Russell Sage Foundation. CHAPTER XX SYSTEM IN MANAGEMENT The housekeeper should learn to use the labor-saving de- vices 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 space 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 furni- ture. It is a pleasure to have artistic desk furnishings, but a large amoimt may be spent on these, and the desk still be un- equipped 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 possibiUties. Visit some oflSce fiu*nishing department or shop to see what an array of con- veniences 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, an i will keep on the cards, addresses, en- gagements, cash a<.eounts, shopping lists, inventories of 332 SYSTEM IN MANAGEMENT ^ 333 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 expe- rience of the first year. This makes housekeeping interesting and businessUke. The expenditure is made to produce the maximum of value received and is accompanied by the greatest possible pleasure.