24 
House & Garden 
COMPUTING A HOUSEHOLD BUDGET 
I F the business of home managing was to be legally investigated, the 
average housekeeper, when cross-questioned on the witness stand, 
could give without preparation a fairly accurate, itemized accounting 
of the cost of running her establishment. If pinned down to it, she 
could also doubtless show an excellent knowledge of the difference be¬ 
tween economy and waste, necessities and luxuries. Our American 
women are mentally keen. Yet it is an astounding fact that the most 
important of our national industries—the business of home-making— 
has the reputation of being operated under a disorganized system and 
run upon unbusiness-like principles. 
Now the business of managing a home may be quite different from 
the business of managing a factor}^ but the principles that guide both 
to success are identical. You can wreck the home business as easily as 
3 ’ou can a commercial business—and you can make it as successful. 
One of the first and most important procedures in managing a business 
is to make a budget. Indeed, this is the foundation stone of its manage¬ 
ment. Once understood, a budget is as easily worked as a sewing ma¬ 
chine, and is much more interesting. You have it always before you 
as a guide, counselor and friend. You can talk it over with your hus¬ 
band and 3 -our family. You can interest them in its revelations— 
things you cannot do with a sewing machine! 
A BUDGET is simplicity itself. The definition of the word makes 
this clear. A famous industrial engineer called a budget “a be¬ 
forehand estimate of just how much 3 ^ou will spend for each classification 
of necessities, conveniences and luxuries during any month or year.” 
No special knowledge of bookkeeping or accounting is required to 
make or keep a budget. The first thing 3 "ou must do is to be con¬ 
vinced of the necessity for using it. The second thing you must convince 
yourself of is that 3 'ou cannot do without it—that you will not do with¬ 
out it. Most of us have attempted, at one time or another, to keep some 
sort of expense account, and, after a brave start, gave it up. We offered 
to our consciences a variety of excuses for stopping what we knew was a 
good thing to do, but we did not realize that the real reason was because 
we did not have a practical system to work upon. Now suddenly the 
high cost of living challenges us to solve its problems. 
To-day when the budget stands at the basis of all correct household 
management, more and more women are starting anew their business of 
home-making, and starting it on a budget system. 
T O present an ideal budget which can be used for every fam.ily is 
obviously impossible, because the apportionments must vary accord¬ 
ing to the size of the income and the demands upon it. We can how¬ 
ever start by describing a method which a woman of our acquaintance 
has evolved from her own experience, has tested and found successful. 
This woman’s family is a fair average of American family groups. It 
consists of herself, her husband, one son and a small daughter. The 
son is now attending high school and her daughter goes to a public 
kindergarten in the city where they live, which is near New York. The 
figures are based on a family income of $5,000. From this woman’s 
experiences and figures the reader can easily apply the system in adjust¬ 
ing her own problem. 
The first thing this home manager did was to decide that the budget 
was a fundamental necessity. Consequently, she reduced her home 
requirements to four basic needs:— 
1 . Bare necessities—house, food, clothing. 
2. Operating expenses for the home and family. 
3. Provisions against fear and worry. 
4. Cultural advancement. 
These four groups, this woman figured, covered the total require¬ 
ments of her family, all the things she wanted them to get out of life to 
the utmost of the income’s possibility. Then she set about apportioning 
the percentages of the $5,000 income to each one of these needs. At first 
she had to set an arbitrary amount for each item. Later her figures 
for the months and the years, as they accumulated, gave her a sounder 
basis for more accurate estimates. They are as follows:— 
1 . (a) House including cost of investment of home owned, and 
maintenance (taxes, repair, improvement, etc). 17% $850 
(b) Food including all kitchen expense (materials, supplies, etc) 25% $1,250 
(c) Clothing including care and repair for all of the family.. 18% .$900 
2. (a) Furnishings and equipment, its up-keep including heat, 
light, laundry and labor. 10% $500 
(b) Allowances for car fare and the personal running expenses 
for each member of family. 6% .$300 
(c) Medical and dental care. 2% $100 
3. (a) Provisions against fear and worry including Health and 
Life Insurance. 7% $350 
(b) Savings which include emergency expenses of sickness, 
special demands on the income for extra funds in any 
of the budget items. 7% $350 
4. (a) Recreation including books, amusements, entertainments, 
holidays, vacations. 5% $250 
(b) The decorations of life, special education, benevolences, 
and the little luxuries. 3% $150 
T he important and useful thing about these figures and percentages 
is that they represent facts for the future of the family. They tell 
the story of the family management year by year and form traditions 
of the home business. Upon them are based the expending and 
accounting. They are the mirror before which each item of expense is 
held up to be reflected against the light of past performances and 
experience, and the comparison tells the story simply and clearly. 
Several methods exist for the handling of the family expense accounts 
in their necessary relation to the budget. This we have not the space 
to go into at this time, except to show by one example how the budget 
{Continued on page 78) 
......... 
I SPRING I 
I (From the French of Charles Vildrac) I 
.4 woman conies up the road 
And pushes tenderly before her 
A squeaking old baby-carriage. 
The ingenuous fields about, 
The new April fields, 
Laugh at the adolescent sun. 
For everything today is young and gentle. 
The woman is very young today 
And gentler even than the trees. 
Her heart overflows like the light heart 
Of a convalescent. 
.And the eyes of a young girl 
Have this morning come back to her. 
And everything she sees on her walk 
Is her delight. 
She sees before her feet 
The tiniest things on the road, 
The gravel washed with the rains of March, 
Where her footsteps make a fresh noise that she 
loves. 
The twigs of trees, the wisps 
Which make the road appear to her 
Like a barren landscape seen in miniature 
From very- high, 
The two parallel ditches she digs 
Where she trundles her carriage. 
And the little green fringe-like blossoms 
Which the wind snuffles down from the trees, 
And here and there like an oasis 
The baby grass. 
She sees everything 
Her quick feet touch. 
Renewing ■ 
An old secret. 
And she sees, far before her, the road 
And its poplars trembling with shoots. 
And the gala look of the orchards 
And the heavenly smile of the hedges. 
And the langorous sky 
And the high faint branches under it. 
She mounts, mounts, to the heart of the blue — 
With the uplifted larks 
She is dazzled and faints with them and falls. 
And she sees her little child 
Lying on his back and marveling 
At the sun that shines through his fingers. 
And now and then she stops the rickety carriage 
To bend over her baby 
And to look at him and kiss him twenty times. 
A woman comes up the road, 
A poor woman who has had plenty to weep for. 
But today she has the eyes of those arisen from 
the dead 
Who have never wept. 
A poor woman who has lost 
All the other children she has had 
But who has her child before her, living. 
As she comes through the villages 
With their gray shine of light and of lilacs. 
She laughs to the old walls and she sings 
A tune as fresh as a Sunday. 
A woman comes up the road; 
A woman and her new-born baby 
T 0 meet summer .... 
Witter Bynner. 
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