HouseJiold Book -keeping 231 



perhaps, allow herself a very small margin for 

 those "sundries" which have not been put down, 

 and which would waste valuable time to hunt 

 out. Every housewife knows by experience that 

 it is not the regular meat and grocery bills that 

 eat up the income; if adequate care is taken of 

 them, they can be reduced to a definite scale 

 and kept there; but it is the incidentals. A sys- 

 tem of accurate accounts will speedily show how 

 many of these are extravagant or unnecessary. 

 Book-keeping is a bugbear to most women, 

 chiefly because the system which they undertake 

 is too complicated. The simplest form is the 

 best. Any blank book may be used ; put down 

 on the right hand side everything bought; on 

 the left side all money received ; at the end of 

 the week or month the total sum of the right- 

 hand column plus the money still on hand 

 should equal the total of the left-hand column. 

 If it does not, some item has been omitted or 

 not accurately entered. It is better in the be- 

 ginning to balance the account at least once a 

 week, for then inaccuracies can be more easily 

 traced. The secret of success is to put down at 

 the time of the transaction wiiat has been re- 

 ceived and spent. When the account has been 

 balanced, a second step is much more inter- 

 esting. In another book or in the back of the 

 day- book, if it be large enough, open several 



