Foods and home making

How much did you spend yesterday ? At the close of a day did you ever wonder where the money you had when you started from home in the morning had gone ? It is surprising sometimes the way money disappears. In order to keep track of how much we spend it is well to keep an account. You can easily remember how much you spent yesterday. Think over everything you did yesterday for which you spent money. Perhaps you rode on the street car, bought a pencil or tablet, and bought your lunch. It may be that you went down- town and purchased some gloves or other article of clothing. On a piece of paper, put a list of your yesterday’s expenses. Do not sign your name to the account. Have a class discussion of the lists. You will doubtless find that some of the expenses were necessary, while others were unnecessary.1 It is so easy to spend money thoughtlessly. A nickel or a dime seems a very small amount to spend. But these small amounts quickly count up, making surprisingly large sums. A woman who makes a business of advising people how to spend wisely says : “ On moderate incomes, it is the ten-cent and not the ten-dollar ex- penditure which causes the trouble. One thinks twice before parting with ten dollars, but one ‘ flips a dime ’ without even a thought.” 2 1 Note to the Teacher: A suggestion for conducting impersonally such a discussion follows : Let the unsigned accounts be collected face down on a tray. Then picking up the slips at random from the tray, let the class discuss the expense items. Imper- sonal comments upon wise and foolish expenditures should be invited. 2 Harnessing the Dollar by Sarah J. MacLeod, Director of Home Economics, Society for Savings, Cleveland. Budgeting Time and Money 195 How expensive are you ? It costs money to live in a house. Whether your family owns or rents the house, it means expense. It costs money to heat and light the house in which you live* The clothes you wear cost money ; it costs money to launder them. The food you eat at home costs money ; for the lunches you may buy at school, money must be spent. Your books and car fare cost money ; it may be that you go to amusements or entertainments or take music lessons — these cost money. Have you ever thought of counting up the money that is spent on you each month ? If you learned something from the discus- sion of yesterday’s expenditures, you can probably learn more from a month’s expenditures. If there are five in your family, count the share paid for you for rent as one fifth of the month’s rent. For rent, groceries, fuel, light, laundering, and any other work for which help is paid a fraction of the month’s cost should be figured as your share. The fraction will depend, of course, upon the number in your family. The amount actually spent per month for your clothes* lunches, books, car fare, etc., should be computed as your personal expense. If your family does not pay rent, but owns the home in which you live, it is costing money to live in your own home. If you moved and rented your house, you would get money for your home. Hence you should charge as rent the rent you would have to pay if some one else owned your home.