Any blank book may be ruled and used for this purpose. A form such as the 

 above shows the date and nature of each transaction. Receipts and expenses are 

 clearly shown and the balance may be found daily or weekly as preferred. The remain- 

 ing columns are added to enable the housekeeper to see what amounts are spent on each 

 department and may be added to at her discretion. For instance, she may wish to 

 subdivide her food account in order to show the relative amounts of the butcher's, 

 baker's and grocer's accounts, or she may wish to keep her light and fuel accounts 

 separate in Running Expenses, or to keep separate clothing or personal accounts for 

 different members of the family. She may add a column for Education, or Recreation, 

 or Investments. Each account form should meet the needs of the household for which 

 it is kept. Statistics such as these enable the housewife to see where her heaviest 

 expenses are and if any seem disproportionate to the size of her income she can 

 investigate and find out the reason. It also enables her to determine where she can best 

 retrench if retrenchment becomes necessary. Extra demands can be met by the saving 

 of a few cents here and there. Figures obtained from the study of the expenditures of 

 many thousands of families show that for an average family of five the division of 

 income in percentages should be about as follows: 



The less the amount of the income the larger the percentage which must be spent 

 for food, leaving less for the other expenses of the family. These figures furnish a stand- 

 ard by which one may judge whether one's own income is apportioned to the best 

 advantage. 



In addition to the daily account sheet it is well to have a similarly ruled sheet in 

 which to enter the monthly totals, viz., total Receipts and Expenses and monthly 

 balance as well as the amounts spent each month on the several divisions. This 

 furnishes a record for comparison from month to month, and the idea may be carried 

 still further and a yearly account sheet made out showing the totals for the year. 



Monthly Account Sheet 



200 



