Full text of "How to keep household accounts : a manual of family finance"

See other formats

Boston Public Library

Do not write in tliis book or mark it with pen or ^
pencil. Penalties for so doing are imposed oy the
Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This book 'uoa^ issued to the horrozver on th, .late
1 .rf et^-K.-hnd helozv. . — ,

—

B.P.L. FORM NO. 609; 2.29,40: 4t4M.

HOW TO KEEP
HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

A MANUAL OF FAMILY FINANCE

C. W, HASKINS, L.H.M., C.P.A.

Late Dean of the New York University School of
Commerce, Accounts, and Finance

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

^-j/i J4 .1 fa ^

rig^hts reserved.

MY DAUGHTER
RUTH

DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2013

http://archive.org/details/howtokeephousehoOOhask_0

PREFACE

HIS little book is not a treatise on

more. Far less, because it treats of but
one of many thousand applications of
that useful art; and more, because, be-
ginning with the very simplest exposition
of general principles, it endeavors to un-
fold, as pleasantly as may be, a science of
accountancy, and to indicate its relations,
in the sphere of domestic economy, to
finance, administration, and the other sci-
ences of social life.

In view of the present unsatisfactory
condition of instruction in domestic ac-
countancy, it has been thought well to

It is less, and it is

PREFACE

employ, as far as possible, the historical
method of teaching. The story form, it
is hoped, will lend interest to the ex-
ploration of the field and to the laying
down of the bases upon which the ac-
countancy of the house is built.

Very little has been as yet written
upon this important subject of household
accounting. Especially is this true of
books in our own language. To a few
Italian, German, and French writers,
however, a general acknowledgment is
here due for material assistance in the
effort to produce a manual of domestic
money matters which may prove of prac-
tical utility in the administration of the
modern home.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Domestic Economy i

II. Household Accounts/ 9

III. The Home Account-book /. .... 34

IV. The Balance-sheet 57

V. Budget, Vouchers, and Inventory . 66

VI. The Bank Account 91

HOW TO KEEP

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

DOMESTIC ECONOMY
HE oldest existing literary work on

X household management is the Eco-
nofntcs of Xenophon. From this charm-
ing Greek classic — of which there are
many good translations — we have our
very words economy and economics ; and
for twenty-three himdred years it has
held its ovm as the code, the breviar}^
the book of books, of all thrift. Aristotle
adopted its title for one of his o^n trea-
tises ; Cicero made a Latin rendering of it

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

in his youth; and the only other really
great book on the same subject, the
Italian Delia FamigUa, was written in
imitation of it.

The Italian work, fotmded upon that
of Xenophon, is variously ascribed to
the celebrated architect Alberti, whose
name is closely associated with that of
Leonardo da Vinci, and to Pandolfini,
another Florentine of the early Renais-
sance. It very closely follows its original,
even to the incidents of the introductory
prayer and the later advice to forego the
use of face powders. It takes the yoimg
bride over the house ; gives her the keys ;
teaches her the oversight of servants
and the right ordering of all her affairs ;
makes honesty her chief virtue; inducts
her into the science of family finance;
in a word, develops her from a shy girl,
brought up in careful seclusion, to the

DOMESTIC ECONOMY

perfect mistress of the household, and
sets before us, in a well-drawn picture,
one of the ideal characters of early
Italian literature.

The Florentines became noted for their
orderliness in the affairs of domestic
economy; and when modem book-keep-
ing, invented by a monk, was introduced
into their household matters, the women
we are told ''are supposed to have been
in this respect model helpmates to their
husbands."

About twenty-five hundred books, in
the English language alone, have been
classed in one way or another imder the
general head of domestic economy. A
very great number of them are handy
collections of recipes of various kinds;
many are books of practical advice to the
members of the household; some are
special discussions of the application of
3

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

particular departments of human knowl-
edge to family life; and others are com-
mendable and often successful attempts
to develop or elucidate one or more
of the administrative ftmctions of the
housewife. A limited number of these
books are of scientific aspect, and of the
highest value within their sphere ; and all,
no doubt, would be of use in a scientific
treatment of the whole subject. Were
some genius, however, to erect, out of
the mass of their material, a science of
domestic economy having its own iden-
tity and its own broad comprehensive-
ness, a few staring gaps, it is feared,
would be left in the superstructure. On
the financial front, certainly, the absence
of accountancy would be noticeable. To
supply this lack is the object of the
present volume.

Educational leaders and reformers in
4

DOMESTIC ECONOMY

various countries have endeavored, not
wholly without encouragement and suc-
cess, to introduce domestic economy into
their national systems of instruction. As
in the case of our literature of the subject,
their actual teaching, thus far, has been
largely confined to particular branches
of housekeeping. Their profession, how-
ever, has induced a careful study of pro-
found works on female education; has
led them to a lively interchange of ideas ;
and has kept alive their scientific as-
pirations. Thus, aggressively, they have
pushed on, enlarging and unifying their
courses of study, imtil a few of them, have
gained for domestic economy a sort of
permissive foothold on the lecture plat-
forms of certain imiversities. Their pro-
grammes, if combined, would suggest a
consideration of the household, its moral,
intellectual, social, and economic welfare,
5

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

and its organization and general admin-
istration; woman, her sphere, her need
of directive inteUigence, and the edu-
cation of girls; the house, its location
with reference to business, health, econo-
my, and general convenience, and its in-
terior arrangement ; heat, light, and venti-
lation ; furniture, from the point of view
of hygiene, art, and practical use, its
disposition about the house, its freedom
from dirt, and its repair and maintenance ;
carpets, draperies, and the like ; clothing
and toilet articles, their choice, cost, and
care; foods, their varieties, succession by
seasons, cost, use according to one's age,
occupation, and condition of health, with
rules for the detection of adulteration;
care of the sick; and the advantages of
keeping down expenses.

The high school for yotmg women at
Geneva teaches, both in its literary
6

DOMESTIC ECONOMY

department and in its pedagogical sec-
tion, the principles of domestic economy,
the role of the mistress, the need of
professional teaching, care of furniture,
clothing, linen, washing, light, heat, ali-
mentation, provisions, accoimts, budget
of receipts and expenses, savings, and
insurance.

A programme of domestic economy
laid before a congress of educators at
Brussels is of value for the prominence
it gives to a suggested course of family
finance, and is interesting for the place
upon the faculty accorded to ''Le Bon-
homme Richard." Its concluding head
is:

"Money and work. Receipts and expenses.
How to make the most of one's knowledge and
talents. Gaining and keeping, a double profit ;
temperance in the number of articles desired;
how to buy; knowledge of the price of pro-

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

visions, of cloth, of linen, of calico, of utensils,
and the like. Avarice and prodigality. Ac-
counts of the household. The memorandum-
book and the monthly examination. The
superfluous and the necessary. Buying on
credit; danger of debt; honesty. Promptness
in repairing or replacing articles broken, de-
teriorated, or worn out. The toilet. Luxury,
good taste, and simplicity. The maxims of
Benjamin Franklin, 'Poor Richard': wise em-
ployment of time. The habit of taking notes. ' *

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

IT is clearly evident that domestic
economy, or household manage-
ment, is very largely a matter of money
and money's worth, and that it marks
out an important field of financial ac-
countancy.

Nor is this financial aspect of the sub-
ject in any wise confined, as we are too
apt to imagine, to that exterior" de-
partment of administration which is to-
day included under the head of political
economy, or economics. All who have
ever treated this phase of the subject
have contended that finance and accoimt-
ancy sustain important relations to wel-
9

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

fare in the ''interior" management, to
which we now more particularly apply
the term domestic economy, and which
lies within the special province of the
woman.

The story told by Josephus, and less
fully by Esdras, of the Jewish captive
who argued, in a prize essay read before
Darius and his princes and grandees, that
the care and preservation of all house-
hold business is dependent upon wom-
an's administration, shows that such an
argument could be understood and ap-
preciated throughout the whole Persian
empire, from India to the Danube.

To the Greek, as may be seen in Xen-
ophon, the home interior was a depart-
ment of economic administration, de-
manding of woman a very fair measure
of business ability. Aristophanes, in his
comic argument that women should be

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

also at the head of all outside affairs, says
that they are already taking care of
everything within, as, from the days of
old, they have been always doing, and
adds that for ways and means there's
nothing cleverer than a woman; that as
for negotiation, she's hard indeed to beat
or cheat. And i\ristotle, borrowing the
time-worn figure of the Danaides, says
that a domestic economy which does not
join to the exterior talent for acquisition
the interior one of managing and util-
izing, and especially of calculating ex-
penses so that they shall not exceed the
receipts, is like the sieve, or the bucket
pierced with holes, with which one tries
to carry water.

The Latins were a calculating, adminis-
trative people ; and the matron of Rome,
freer than her sister of Athens, and bear-
ing undisputed sway in her household,
II

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

guided her affairs frugally and with taste,
and enriched the family treasury by her
business-like activity and exactness.

The woman of the Middle Ages, wheth-
er lady of the manor, mistress of the
city residence, or guardian of the humble
cottage of the peasant, was remarkable
for business ability. The Florentine imi-
tation of the Economics of Xenophon, al-
ready referred to, was one of the most
popular books of the Renaissance. A
hundred years later, Olivier de Serres,
a French writer on rural and household
affairs, could still describe the mistress
of the mansion as Xenophon had de-
scribed her; and Montaigne, avowing
that he had no concern with business,
and was glad that women do find de-
light in managing affairs," could safely
relinquish to his wife the planting and
reaping of his crops, the oversight of

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

his masons, the negotiating of bargains
for him, the collection of debts due him,
and the keeping of his accoimts, while
he, as one of his coimtrymen has said,
dawdled through Italy at his leisure.'*
Writing of woman's administration as
understood in the sixteenth century, Mon-
taigne says: ''The most useful and hon-
orable science and occupation for the
mother of a family is that of domestic
economy. I see many who are avari-
cious, but of real economists I find but
few. This, indeed, is the mistress qual-
ity— the one that should be sought above
all others, the dowry that will either ruin
or save our establishments.''

Still later, two women, allied by mar-
riage to the family of La Rochefoucauld,
gave to the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries examples of the wisest ad-
ministration of extensive cotmtry and
13

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

city establishments. The former, Jeanne
de Schomberg, Duchess of Liancourt,
drew up a scheme of administration in
which we discover a broad conception of
family finance ; and the latter, x\ugustine
de Montmirail, Duchess of Doudeauville,
not only administered her own estate,
but brought the large hereditary prop-
erty of her exiled husband through the
Reign of Terror, and ''left the family
of La Rochefoucauld in the unusual posi-
tion of landed proprietors when nearly all
the French nobility were irretrievably
ruined/'

A close view of early domestic ac-
cotmting may be had in many of the old
household books'' of the women of
England. ''We read," says an English
writer, "of the abimdant hospitality of
the great houses of past days ; but refer-
ence to books like those which record the
14

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

household expenses of Northtimberland
or the Coiintess of Hardwick show how
carefully every expense was regulated by
the heads of the family. The famous
' Bess of Hardwicke ' was a careful house-
keeper. ' Avoiding superfluities or waste
of an3^hing' is to be the rule of her
establishment, as laid down in the house-
hold books which have come down to
us; and it is curious, in perusing docu-
ments like these, to observe how careful
our ancestors were to look into every
trifle of their domestic expenditure.''

What is still more curious, however,
and worthy of all admiration, is the sur-
prising perfection of result obtained with
the very primitive appliances at their
disposal. The books were hardly more
than diaries; the entries were mere
memorandums, and were written, for a
long time, in a crabbed Latin; and the
IS

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

amounts were expressed, up to a late
period, in the old Roman numerals, some-
times in columns, oftener run in with
the text, and almost impossible of addi-
tion except by a roundabout method of
figuring or with the aid of the abacus,
a device somewhat similar to the cotmt-
ing-frame of our kindergartens. So ut-
terly unscientific, indeed, was the whole
scheme, and so dependent upon con-
trivance for the accomplishment of any
general result, that men of great reputa-
tion— as in the Rules of Saint Robert,
''that the good Bishop of Lincoln, Saint
Robert the Greathead, made for the
Countess of Lincoln'' — gave themselves
up to the writing of chapters on ''How
you may know to compare the accounts."

The household book of the ducal
family of Buckingham is written in the
abbreviated Latin of the year 1507, the
16

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

numbers being expressed in Roman let-
ters incorporated with the reading-mat-
ter. The following is one of the shorter
paragraphs ; it records the expenditure at
Newbury for the dinner of the Lord with
his household; dined, gentry, twenty;
valets, fourteen; gargons, twenty-nine":

Die D'nica die Janu. ib'm.

Panet. ex it'm ex empcon. xxxiij pan. p'c.
xvj^. ob.

Cellar, expend, it'm ex empcon. ij pich. vini

gasc. p'c. xvj^.
Buttill. exp. it'm ex empcon. xv lag. cervis.

p*cii iij^. ix^.
Coquin. exp. it'm ex empc. j qrt. cam. boum

p*cij iiij^. iiij^. vitul. p'c. ij^. viij^.
Achates ex in i^b^* porcellis xij^. ij capon xiiij^.

ij ctmictis xvj^. j curlew, v^. ix redshankes

vj^. V disc, butir v^. ovis gallin. iiij^. herbis

et farin. aven. ij^.
Aul. & Camer. ex. de fagottes xxviij. p'cij

ij^ iiij^.

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

[Translation.]
Sunday, 30th January.
Pantry, Spent, from purchase there, 33
loaves price lOYzd. Cellar, Spent, from pur-
chase there, 2 pitchers of Gascony wine price
i6d. Buttery, Spent, from purchase there, 15
flagons of ale price 35. gd. Kitchen, Spent,
from purchase there, i quarter of beef price
45. 4(i., veal price 2s. Sd. Fresh Provisions,
Spent for two pigs i2d., 2 capons i4d., 2
rabbits i6d., i curlew 5J., 9 redshanks 6d., 5
dishes of butter 5J., eggs 4J., herbs and oat-
meal 2d. Hall and Chamber ^ Spent, 28 faggots
price 2^. 4d.

Mistress Kytson, of Hengrave, widow
of a wealthy London merchant of the
time of EHzabeth, kept her accounts in
EngHsh, but in the old memorandum
form. Her outlay for one day, while
travelling to the City in the winter of
1574, is thus entered in her household
book :

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Wednesday afternoon, December ist, my
entering London, imtil she was en-
tered the City, viz. for her dyett w^^ all her
men in that space, \]s. ixd. — for the horses
meet, Iviij^. hijti. — for firing, ijs. ixd.

In reward at Mr. Bedal's house, where my
jjjres lodged the first night, vj^. viijJ.

In rewarde to the musicians at Ware, iijs.

For the hire of certain horses to draw my
m^ cooch from Whits worth to London,
xxvj5. viijJ.

Delivered to my m^^ to give by the way in
her little purse, xx5.

To the carrier for the carriage of simdry
things, amounting to Ixxx. c. wayght, at ij5.
m]d. le c. — ix/z. vi5. viijJ.

To the hire gf certain men to attend upon
his cart by the waye, being charged with
plate, iij5.

If we compare with these extracts a
few lines taken, say, from the "booke of
the howshold'' of Lord and Lady North,
1577, and endeavor to foot the figures

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

up, we shall wonder why, unless in blind
imitation of the new ** Italian method,*'
columns have been introduced at all .
and we shall adniire the administrative
mind that could base a budget upon a
book containing ** A "cartload, '* 2 " horse-

loads, and " v

" livres in a

single line:

Gammonds of

bacon

viij

XXX5.

Lardc

xiij lbs

viijs.

viijrf.

Neats tongs,

feet, and

udd"

xi". i

Iiij5.

iiijJ.

Butter

iiijC XXX lb

vj/f.

vij5. vjJ

Eggs

ijM vC. xxij

iij/f.

iij5.

Sturgeons

iij caggs

xlvj5.

viijd.

Crayc f yshcs

viij doos

xiij^.

iiijj.

Turbutts

viij

liij.s*.

iiijc/.

Oysters A cartload and 2 horseloads.

v/i.

These were the accounts of the titleil
and the wealthy. The woman of hura-
20

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

bier condition, whose afTairs were less
complicated, had simpler methods.

A story is told of an old lady who kept
her accounts in chalk on the back of her
shop door, in a system known only to
herself. She fell ill, and her son came
home to manage the shop until his mother
recovered ; but he did not understand her
method of booking.*' The result was
that every time a customer came to set-
tle up the son was compelled to unhinge
the door and carry it up to his mother's
bedroom, so that she might calculate the
amount of the debt. He endured this for
a day or two, and then gave the door a
coat of paint, thus finally settling the ac-
counts. The old lady declared,' when she
came down again, that by this action she
lost nearly five hundred dollars.

But now comes an unexplained wonder ;
and it is partly on account of the exist-

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

ence of this unique riddle of economic
history that the narrative form has been
thus far followed in our attempt to instil
into the mind of the reader the general
principles of household accountancy. It
must have been evident that we are deal-
ing with a branch of human knowledge
once and for long ages recognized and
fully accepted as an important part of
woman's education, but now, unfort-
unately, almost extinct. It creates, in-
deed, less surprise to-day to read that a
woman of Babylon was a principal mem-
ber of the great banking firm of that an-
cient city than it would to be told that
a thoroughly modem lady of the United
States had incorporated into her domes-
tic administration a fairly comprehensive
system of financial accounting. We have
seen that accoimting is an essential feat-
ure of domestic economy, that its fimc-

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

tions are embraced in the sphere of the
woman, that her administrative abihty
requires it, and that for a long time she
was identified with its appHcation. Why,
then, we are compelled to ask, and at what
point in the world's history, did the wom-
an of the household begin to lose interest
in the science and practice of accounts?
As early, at least, as the sixteenth century
this falling away had become noticeable,
and from that time on there is a general
tone of regretful argument, instead of the
old Xenophontean praise, in approaching
the subject of household accounting.

While women of the type of Madame de
Maintenon were looking after their home
accounts, others, more susceptible of ex-
traneous influences, were drawn into the
swirl of a less practical life; and we
read that the Precieuses — a nickname
bestowed upon the somewhat finical la-
23

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

dies of the early part of the seventeenth
century — ''left their servants' accounts
unaudited that they might preach the
doctrines of grace/'

Sir Matthew Hale complains that in his
time ''the young gentlewomen think it
disparagement for them to know what
belongs to good housewifery or to prac-
tise it. They know/' he says, " the ready
way to consume an estate and to ruin a
family quickly, but neither know nor can
endure to learn or practise the ways and
methods to save it or increase it; and
it is no wonder that great portions are
expected with them, for their portions
are commonly all their value."

It had become a maxim of the Dutch,
however, that " no one is ever ruined who
keeps good accounts"; and Mary Astell,
an English reformer of the seventeenth
century, could still recommend to her
24

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

countrywomen the example of the house-
wives of Holland, who, she writes, *'keep
the books, balance the accounts, and do
all the business with as much dexterity
and exactness as their own or our men
can do.''

To the amiable Fenelon, however, we
must look for a picture of the real con-
dition of things, as well as for an in-
dication of the true line of reform. He
and Madame de Maintenon complained
that in their day few girls could cast up
the simplest household accounts without
falling into confusion; and while the
prelate, in his classical work on female
education, developed his theories, the
court lady endeavored to apply them and
to promulgate them by the example of her
famous school of Saint-Cyr.

Fenelon thought that besides Latin,
^ history, biography, travels, poetry, music,

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

and art, a young woman should know
something of law, trade, and manufact-
ure, and should be taught the ''minutest
details of domestic economy." He pre-
scribed for her a knowledge of the four
rules of arithmetic, not that she might
become a second Hypatia, but in order
that she might keep the accounts of the
household.

Miss Edgeworth, a century later, writ-
ing of economy as a domestic virtue, says
that children must have the management
of money, and that girls ought to keep
the family accounts; and Mrs. Ellis, in
one of her remarkable works on English
women, dedicated to Queen Victoria, says
that married women who love justice to
themselves as well as to others should
always keep strict accounts."

Anne Cobbett, in her once popular
work for English housekeepers, seems to
26

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

have in mind the comprehensive ac-
cotmtancy of the chatelaine. After re-
ferring favorably to her father's writings
on cottage economy, she says: ''One
branch of domestic economy which de-
volves upon the mistress of a house is
to keep an account of the expenditure of
her family. She ought to make this as
simple an affair as possible, by ascertain-
ing, first, how much the housekeeping
is to cost — that is to say, how much she
can afford to expend in it; then, by keep-
ing a very strict account of every article
for the first two months, and making a
little allowance for casualties, she may
be able to form an estimate for the year ;
and if she finds that she has exceeded in
these two months the allotted sum, she
must examine each article, and determine
in which she can best diminish the ex-
pense; and then, having the average of
27

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

two months to go by, she may calculate
how much she is to allow each month
for meat, bread, groceries, washing, and
the like. Having laid down her plan,
whatever excess she may be compelled
to allow in one month she must make up
for in the next month.

should not advise the paying for
everything at the moment," she writes,
''but rather once a week; for if a trades-
man omit to keep an account of the
money received for a particular article,
he may, by mistake, make a charge as
for something had extra and upon trust.
A weekly account has every advantage
of ready money, and it saves trouble. I
should recommend that all tradespeople
be paid on a Monday morning, the bills
receipted, . . . and put by in a portfolio
or case where they may be easily referred
to as vouchers, or to refresh the memory
28

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

as to the price of any particular article.
It is a satisfaction, independent of the
pecuniary benefit, for the head of a
family to be able at the end of the year
to account to herself for what she has
done with the money."

The same attitude of entreaty is seen
in the writings of the Americans. Our
best-known work on domestic economy,
for many years, was a treatise by Miss
Catherine Beecher. ''How few," she
says, ''keep any account at all of their
current expenses! If a woman," she
again says, arguing for benevolence, " has
never kept any accounts, nor attempt-
ed to regulate her expenditures by the
right rule, nor used her influence with
those that control her plans, she has no
right to say how much she can or cannot
do. Let a v/oman keep an accotmt of all
she spends for herself and her family for
29

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

a year, arranging the items under three
general heads. Under the first put all
articles for food, raiment, rent, wages, and
all conveniences. Under the second
place all sums paid in securing an edu-
cation, and books, and other intellectual
advantages. Under the third head place
all that is spent for benevolence and
religion.

''At the end of the year the first and
largest account will show the mixed
items of necessaries and superfluities,
which can be arranged so as to gain
some sort of idea how much has been
spent for superfluities and how much
for necessaries. Then, by comparing
what is spent for superfluities with what
is spent for intellectual and moral ad-
vantages, data will be gained for judging
of the past and regulating the future.''

And again, arguing on purely economic
30

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

grounds, Miss Beecher continues : There
are certain general principles which all
unite in sanctioning. The first is that
care be taken to know the amount of in-
come and of current expenses, so that the
proper relative proportion be preserved
and the expenditures never exceed the
means. Few women can do this
thoroughly without keeping regular ac-
cotmts. A great deal of uneasiness is
caused to both husband and wife, in
. many cases, by an entire want of system
and forethought in arranging expenses.
Both keep buying what they think they
need, without any calculation as to how
matters are coming out, and with a sort
of dread of running in debt all the time
harassing them. Such never know the
comfort of independence. But if a man
and woman will only calculate what their
income is, and then plan so as to know
31

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

that they are all the time living within it,
they secure one of the greatest comforts
which wealth ever bestows, and what
many of the rich who live in a loose and
careless way never enjoy. It is not so
much the amount of income as the regu-
lar and correct apportionment of expenses
that makes a family truly comfortable.

Young ladies also,'' she adds, should
learn systematic economy in expenses;
and it will be a great benefit for every
young girl to begin at twelve or thirteen
years of age to make her own purchases
and keep her accounts, under the guid-
ance of her mother or some other friend.
How strange it appears,'' she concludes,
''that so many young ladies take charge
of a husband's establishment without hav-
ing had either instruction or experience
in one of the most important duties of
their station."

HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Thus we have shown that fireside ac-
countancy rests upon moral as well as
economic bases, and have indicated the
character of these bases as viewed by
those who have made domestic admin-
istration their study.

Ill

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

.CCOUNTING is commercial or non-

xV commercial. Non - commercial ac-
coimting applies to the finances of those
who do not make commerce, or buying
and selling for profit, their habitual pro-
fession. Under this head are included
the capitalist and all those who live on
the labor of their brain and of their
muscles. Household accounting is prac-
tically identical with that of the brain-
worker and laborer. It is simple and
elementary, and is properly introductory,
in an educational sense, to capitalistic
and commercial accounting and to all
the higher developments of scientific ac-

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

cotintancy. By a very pretty fiction of
accountancy, the lady of the house may
lead a son or daughter through all the
experiences of an industrious and econom-
ical yoimg man or woman who, from a
wage-earner, becomes an investor and a
leader of commerce and industry; and
thus this domestic education will lay the
foimdation for actual business life. (This
method is followed in several educational
institutions in Europe.*)

For instance, the class is given the
case of a poor young man w^ho, having
saved a little money, goes to town and
finds employment as a laborer in the es-

conduct and intelligence are noted by his
employer, who makes him his book-
keeper and salesman. His continued
activity advances him in favor, and the
merchant gives him his niece in marriage.

tablishment of a merchant. His good

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Then, with his savings augmented with
the dowry of his bride and the facili-
ties of credit gained by his character,
the young man enters mercantile life on
his own account. Thus the student, ac-
companying a single individual through
various conditions in life, sees how the
simple accountancy of the laborer is
transformed into that of the small cap-
italist; how, alongside of the latter, the
accountancy of the merchant is con-
stituted; and how both of these sys-
tems of accountancy, working side by
side, establish the situation of the same
individual as viewed in the double
character of capitalist and merchant.
Meanwhile, upon the simple accotmtancy
of the young employe and that of his
bride is formed the accountancy of the
new domestic establishment.

The matron will see, also, by this

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

illustration, that her own household ac-
counting will afford her an easy intro-
duction to the care of money in bank
or invested in securities, and that if
thrown upon her own resources she will
be able the more readily to adapt her
methods to the administration of exterior
business affairs.

We labor to satisfy our needs and to
increase our hoard. Our labor is pro-
ductive of these results, however, in pro-
portion as it is well ordered ; and it is
by noting and writing down our dealings
as regularly and methodically as possible
that we are able, whether we belong to
the commercial or the non-commercial
community, to keep in touch with the
progress and outcome of our affairs and
to modify their direction to the best ad-
vantage.

Accoimtancy, which consists of a state-
37

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

ment of receipts and expenses, is there-
fore the controUing record of exchanges ;
and the matron of the household, though
not engaged in the pursuit of commerce,
is none the less continually effecting ex-
changes. She buys the goods or services
of which her household is in need, and
she settles with her dealers and her ser-
vants, on the spot or on time, in coin
or bills. The family accounts may in-
clude the purchase of a piece of real or
personal property, or a paper security,
and the sale of it at a loss or profit.
And in all this buying and selling the
economic aim of the household, as that
of the business establishment, is to amass, ^
year by year, a new capital — to save, to
make, to become possessed of a part of
the mass of social wealth.

In thus producing, exchanging, con-
suming, and saving, the household es-

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

tablishment, as well as a business concern,
must call to its aid the science of accounts,
in order, first, to follow the movements
of its receipts and expenses; second, to
keep track of its investments ; and third,
to determine, at the end of the year or
other set period, the results of its opera-
tions and the exact situation of its cap-
ital.

Now, it is well known that any blank-
book, ruled for dates, details, and dollars
and cents, and exhibiting receipts on the
left-hand page and disbursements on the
right, is far better than nothing at all
as a help to the memory. Indeed, the
income and outgo of money are often
thus inscribed on the back and front
of the stubs of a check-book; so that,
if all receipts have been deposited in
the bank and all expenses have been
taken therefrom, the stub -book is left
39

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

as a chronological record of cash move-
ments.

A series of ordinary expense books,
though cumbersome, are of some as-
sistance in keeping control of the cost
of conducting the different departments
of the home establishment ; and the pass-
books of the grocer and other dealers,
and miscellaneous receipted bills, are not
wholly useless as accounting appliances
even in the most hand-to-mouth ad-
ministration. A miniature set of com-
mercial books, consisting of ledger, cash-
book, and journal, is now and then seen
in the home, and would seem to have
been heretofore needed wherever credit
transactions have occurred.

A convenient form for a very simple
household cash-book, in which entries,
both of receipt and expense, are con-
fined to one page, is shown in example A :
40

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

1903
Jan. I
" 2

" 8

PARTICULARS

Cash in hand

Wood and oil

Bread

Ribbon

Bread

Potatoes

Provisions

Dry-goods

Washing

Mending

Bread

Salary

Cloak

Under^^ear

Rent

Paid grocer , .

Paid butcher

Fares and sundries . .

(Balance $39.15). .

RECEIVED

$80.00

40.00

$120.00 $80.85

EXAMPLE A
41

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

In example B it will be noticed that
the simple plan is carried a step further,
making it even more convenient.

But what is really needed, and the
want of which has been a source of in-
creasing discouragement in home man-
agement during the centuries in which
modem accountancy has been industri-
ovisly fitted to the varying forms of count-
ing-house administration, is a system of
household accounting that shall be at
once comprehensive in scope and aim,
and easy to work and to interpret. And
to meet these requirements a single reg-
ister, scientifically arranged as will be de-
scribed, is sufficient.

The method recommended will be im-
derstood from the following model and
a few words of explanation. It meets
the requirements already specified, estab-
lishes the balance-sheet of the family and
42

DATES OF
RECEIPTS

AND
EXPENDI-
TURES

RECEIPTS

NATURE OF CASH EXPENSES

CASH EXPENSES

SOURCES OF INCOME

SUMS

DAILY
TOTALS

1903

Jan. I

Cash in hand

$80.00

Wood and oil

$1.20
.80

$2.00

Ribbon . .

.90
.80

Bread

Potatoes

2.00

Provisions

•65

4-35

" 5

Dry-goods

3-50

. " 7

Washing

Mending

2.00

•75
•95

3-70

Salary

40.00

8.00

Underwear

3-50

Rent

I O.oO

Paid grocer

Paid butcher

Car-fare and sundries y»

i 67.30

Total

$1 20.00

(Balance $39-i5)- • \

f $80.85

Lie

EXAMPLE B"

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

constitutes, as it were, the financial his-
tory of the household. It enables the
matron to keep a complete and exact ac-
count of her domestic operations.

Household receipts, independently of
gifts and inheritances, consist of wages,
salaries, allowances, fees, profits, ^rents,
dividends, interest, and the like, and may
be entered in the register merely as items
of cash brought in by this or that mem-
ber of the family.

Household expenses are composed' of
purchases of articles for consumption —
I such as food, raiment, fuel, and amuse-
ments ; or of remunerationj'^s for service,
instruction, rent, insurance, transporta-
tion ; o? of purchases of durable utilities,
such as tools, pictures, books, furniture,
real estate; or'^f investments of money
in enterprises or in securities.

The receipts and expenses do not al-
43

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

ways, however, exhibit this variety. In
the larger number of households a saving
— that is, an excess of receipts over ex-
penses— is obtained only by a careful
cutting off of the superfluous, by a wise
employment of the necessary, and by the
utmost order and economy in the domes-
tic management. Those who impose this
line of conduct upon themselves, and
follow it persistently, create a capital
which, in time, adds an interesting col-
umn to their scheme of accounts.

Receipts represent a simple account.
Expenses represent another simple ac-
count. These together form a true ac-
countancy, as has been stated, which,
however rudimentary, may register three
kinds of result. First, if the expenses
are more than the receipts, either by the
insufficiency of the latter or because
the household has been improvident and
44

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

prodigal, not only is there nothing left
at the end of the period, but, having
lived upon credit — that is, upon the cap-
ital of others — the household has con-
tracted debts, and this will be expressed
by the debit balance upon closing the
annual account. Second, if the expenses
exactly balance the receipts, the money
has merely passed through the establish-
ment ; nothing remains at the end of the
year; and this fact will be shown upon
closing the annual accoimt. Third, if the
receipts exceed the expenses, \^a surplus
has been created,\^ capital remains in
the possession of the household ; and this
is expressed by the credit balance ap-
pearing upon closing the annual account.

The books necessary for household ac-
coimts, as well as for business accounts,
are the journal and ledger, and, in ad-
dition, the balance-sheet. But as the
45

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

household journal is a mere record of
movements of cash, it is practically re-
duced to a simple original cash-book.
As for the ledger, it is limited to the
credit accounts of a few dealers,\together
with a classified statistical display of
expenses, which display, after a time,
will furnish the means of comparison by
which to regulate future expenses. Thus
the cash journal records the dates and
amounts of all moneys received or paid
out; the ledger records the same trans-
actions, which have been transferred to
it from the cash journal, each item
being placed under its proper account
whether of a person or thing. And still
further to simplify this rudimentary ac-
coimtancy, the two books may be fused
into a single journal-ledger, in which the
receipts and expenses day by day are
seen at a glance. This view indicates

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

by dates, throughout the period, all
receipts and their sources; all cash and
credit purchases; detailed sums of all
cash expenses; daily totals of cash ex-
penses; all credit transactions with deal-
ers; statistics, according to kind, of all
articles bought on time and for cash, and
daily totals of entire outlay; so that the
whole financial situation of the household
may be definitely determined at the end
of a set period or at any other time.

A view of the accompanying model
will show the use to which the various
divisions of the journal-ledger are de-
voted. The left-hand page of the book
is the journal, which, in the accoimtancy
of the household, as we have seen, is re-
duced to little more than a cash-book.
The right-hand page is the ledger, carry-
ing the accounts of persons and of things.

Beginning on the left of the left-hand
47

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

page, the first column is reserved for the
dates of the entire record on both pages.

The second column indicates the
sources of the receipts. Whether re-
ceipts shall be traced to their outside
sources, as wages, fees, and other speci-
fied earnings, or merely recorded as
coming from the different members of
the household into the hands of the
matron, will depend upon the stand-point
she may choose to occupy as keeper of
the accounts.

In the third column are inscribed the
sums of the receipts and the cash in
hand at the beginning of the period. This
column should be totalled up at least
once a week.

The fourth column is devoted to a
chronological record of the nature of all
purchases. It is essential that this in-
dication of kinds of goods bought should
48

^ w o.

iqo3
Jan. I

RECEIPTS

SOURCES

Cash in Hand.

"50.00

Salary

40.00

Mea
Woe
Brei
Gro(

Rib;
Brec
Bee
PoU
Pro

Wa.
Me.
Mut
Brer

Cloc
Und

Sug;
Ren
Paic
Paic
Car-

Total

20.00

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

be explicit, so as to furnish the informa-
tion required for the statistical columns
which follow on the ledger side; but to
avoid the multiplication of detail, the
entries here may be under somewhat
general heads, and the particulars may be
kept in the butcher's and grocer's pass-
books or in a rough memorandum-book
of daily expenses. The two following
columns carry, in the one the detailed
figures of the cash expenses, and in the
other the daily totals of the same ex-
penses. At least once a week the cash
outlay should be totalled up and com-
pared with the total receipts, and the
balance, as found by the book and veri-
fied by actual count of money in hand,
may be set down within brackets in the
fourth column, as shown in the model.
It will be better still if this balance in
hand be figured up and verified daily.
4 49

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Credit purchases as well as cash pur-
chases are described in the fourth col-
umn, but their figures are carried forward
to the credit columns of the dealers —
that is to say, to the columns in which are
placed all amounts due the dealers; and
thus the housewife has, day by day, a
view 6f her entire cash and credit ex-
penses. The nimiber of credit accounts,
of course, is optional. Each dealer has
a debit and a credit column. When the
payment, or a part payment, is made, it
is described in the fourth and the amount
is entered in the fifth column as a cash
expense, and the amount of payment is
also entered in the debit column of the
dealer — that is to say, in the column
which records the amounts paid the deal-
er. When the columns of the dealers are
footed up, if a debit column does not
amount to as much as the adjoining
50

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

credit column, the difference is the
amount due the dealer.

Following the accounts of the dealers
on the ledger page are several columns
exhibiting together a daily statistical
abstract of all expenses. This abstract
is merely a classified repetition of the
entries already made, and must agree in
its collective total with the combined
totals of the cash and credit expense
columns on the journal, or left-hand,
page. It must be remembered, how-
ever, that as credit expenses have been
carried into these statistical columns
from the credit columns of the dealers,
they must not be again brought forward^
from the debit columns of the dealers, oij
from the cash column on the journal
page, when the payments are made.

The statistical columns enable the
housewife to make constant comparison
51

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

of the cost of the Hving departments with
one another and with her income; to
make necessary modifications ; and to reg-
ulate, at the end of any period, her bud-
get for the ensuing period. The number
of these columns is optional, depending
upon the variety of statistical informa-
tion desired.

Mrs. Ellen Richards, an American au-
thority on the cost of living, has suggest-
ed a number of budgets under the follow-
ing five general heads : first, food ; second,
rent; third, operating expenses, wages,
fuel, light, and so on; fourth, clothes;
fifth, higher life, books, travel, church,
charity, savings, insurance. On the other
hand, in a table of actual family ex-
penses, the same lady uses twenty-eight
general heads of outlay. The simple dis-
tribution adopted in the model will be
sufficiently elaborate for a modest be-
52

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

ginning; and the housewife may set off
other columns, as desired, at the begin-
ning of any new period.

When, by industry and economy, and
by order therein, a capital shall have
been saved that may be invested in any-
thing of permanent value, such as furni-
ture, pictures, books, etc., a column may
be set apart from the miscellaneous col-
umn for the record of such transactions.
This will lead, by an easy gradation, to
the establishment of a capitalistic ac-
cotmtancy ; an accountancy of the second
degree, whose twofold mission is, first, to
render account of current receipts and
expenses ; and, second, of a capital amass-
ed and successively modified. At first,
however, it will be well to become thor-
oughly familiar with the simpler form by
carrying all unusual items into the mis-
cellaneous column.

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

The final column receives the entire
daily total of cash and credit expenses.
It should be footed up weekly. It must
always agree with the sums shown by the
statistical columns. It must also agree
with the combined sums of the credit
columns of the dealers and the cash
column of expenses, minus the pay-
ments to dealers, as already explained.
It will agree with the cash expense
column alone, if the dealers have been
fully paid ; if not, the difference will show
the entire amount remaining unpaid.

Thus we see that the administrator of
the household affairs, by means of this
simple series of concurrent columns, may
know from day to day: first, from the
cash balance, her pecimiary situation
with reference to herself; second, from
the accoimts of the dealers, her pecuniary
situation with reference to her creditors ;
54

THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK

third, her daily cash expense ; fourth, her
total current cash and credit expense;
fifth, from the statistical columns, the
current cost of each department. The
columns should be totalled each week.

The entries for each week follow with-
out break the totals as shown under the
preceding week, so as not to interrupt the
addition of the columns. On the last day
of December the total of the cash ex-
pense column indicates the annual cash
outlay; the columns of the dealers show
the full yearly amount of debt incurred
and the full amount paid in settlement;
and the final column presents the grand
total of the cost of the household, cash
and credit, for the yeai'. On the first
of January, or the day following the
close of the old period, the journal-ledger
is again opened, for the ensuing period,
with the cash in hand entered as before,
55

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

and with any balance that may still be
due to a dealer entered in his credit
column.

All these financial details the house-
wife must know, in order that she may
regulate her administration 'intelligently,
that she may economize methodically,
and that she may constitute a savings
fund and direct that fund in the way of
increase.

THE BALANCE-SHEET

IT is at this point, when the accounts
of a period are closed and those of
the following period are opened, that the
financial condition of the household is
recorded on the balance-sheet. This
closing and opening of the accounts in
no wise interferes with the movement of
affairs; and the balance-sheet is but a
kind of instantaneous photograph of the
status of the business at the chosen mo-
ment, showing how the situation com-
pares, on the one hand, with a former
condition, and, on the other, with the
ideal in the mind of the administrator.
In form, a balance-sheet, as its name
57

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

implies, is a sheet of balances. In the
complicated accotintancy of modem com-
merce and finance, it is the result of much
labor expended in centralizing the figures
of a more or less extensive system of
books of account. Its appearance is
often awaited with anxiety, and its con-
tents are studied with care by the stock-
holder, the bondholder, the manager, the
competitor, and the political economist.

In the accountancy of the household,
however, the balance-sheet is a much
simpler affair. The journal-ledger here
recommended affords a ready view of the
situation from day to day; while the
weekly or monthly balancings, appearing
at a glance in one short, horizontal row
of figures, are a kind of periodical review ;
and thus, in this progression of the
whole record together, the housewife has
a complete history of her conduct of

THE BALANCE-SHEET

affairs. But for permanent comparison
of the results of her administration, it
is convenient to make a division of time
into periods of uniform length and
character, and to sum up the results of
each period and record them by them-
selves. The natural uniform period is
the year; and the form in which the re-
sults of the period are brought together
for convenient reference and comparison
is the balance-sheet.

Three kinds of result, as already noted,
are possible: the income may have been
insufficient, or just enough, or more than
enough, to meet the expense. We may
apply these three results to the ac-
coimtancy of a yoimg couple who, let us
say, open their book of financial record
on Januan,' i, 1902, with S80 cash in
hand. The first year, besides the S80
entered on the ist of Januar}^ there is
59

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

an income of $40 a week for fifty weeks —
two weeks having been lost in one way
and another — ^being a total of receipts of
$2,000 + $80 = $2,080. Their expenses,
by reason of their want of experience in
the practice of economy, and because of
their early need of household effects,
have reached the sum of $2,300, leaving
a deficit of $220, of which $70 are due
to the butcher and $150 to the grocer.
To express, at the close of the year, this
result in a methodical manner, they pre-
pare their simple household balance-sheet,
dated December 31, 1902, based upon the
following facts as shown by their jour-
nal-ledger :

Their cash income, including the cash
in hand at the beginning of the period,
has given them $2,080, and the grocer
has loaned them $150 and the butcher
$70 worth of goods, making in all $2,300
60

THE BALANCE-SHEET

to meet a total expense of $2,300, $220 of
which is an indebtedness which they will
carry over to the credit of the grocer and
butcher when the accounts are reopened.
This situation is expressed in tabular
form as follows :

DECEMBER 3I, I902

DR.

CR.

$2,080
70

Balance due on credit pur-
diases :

Butcher

Expenses for the year

Totals

$2,300

HOUSEHOLD BALANCE-SHEET EXPRESSING A
DEFICIT.

The table given above may be in-
scribed in any convenient place, say
near the end of the journal-ledger; and
on the first day of January, 1903, the
61

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

journal-ledger is reopened with the $70
carried to the credit of the butcher and
the $150 carried to the credit of the
grocer.

The second year a total of $2,080,
being $40 a week for the full fifty-two
weeks, is earned and entered in the cash
receipts. An examination of the statis-
tical columns has shown the yoimg house-
wife that money has been spent in one or
two of the departments which might have
been saved ; and this second year she has
not only paid off the debt of $220 to the
butcher and grocer, but has kept her
nmning expenses down to the $1,860
remaining of the $2,080, thus equaliz-
ing the receipts and expenses. At the
close of the second year, therefore, she
is in a position to prepare a balance-
sheet expressive of freedom from obliga-
tion :

THE BALANCE-SHEET

DECEMBER 3I» I903

DR.

CR.

Cash resources

$2,080

Balance paid on credit ptir-
chases :

Grocer

$150
70
1,860

Butcher

Expenses for the year

Totals

$2,080

HOUSEHOLD BALANCE - SHEET EXPRESSING
FREEDOM FROM OBLIGATION.

On the I St of January, 1904, the house-
wife, upon a serious consideration of this
second result, resolves to bring her affairs
to the close of another year with a still
better balance-sheet, and to this end they
endeavor together to decide upon a min-
imum outlay upon which they may live
comfortably. Upon the same day the
young man learns that his salary is raised
to $50 a week, and this good news con-

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

firms them in their projects of economy.
The income during this third year is
S50 X 52 = $2,600, while the expenses are
82,025. Thus there is a cash balance at
the end of the year of S575, and the new
balance-sheet shows the young domestic
economist is now prepared to add to her
household accountancy the further feat-
ure of capitalistic accoimtancy:

DECEMBER 3I, I904

DR.

CR.

$2,600

Totals

S575
2,025

$2,600

HOUSEHOLD BALANCE - SHEET EXPRESSING
POSSESSION OF CAPITAL.

It ought here to be again noted that
the simple journal-ledger contains in it-
self all the accounts of the household.
64

THE BALANCE-SHEET

The balance-sheet, valuable for purposes
of administration and the full expression
of the financial situation, can be made up
at any time for any past period or series
of periods, and need not give the house-
wife any concern for at least a year after
the first opening of her journal-ledger.

This journal-ledger may be any wide-
paged blank-book, in which she may rule
off her columns a couple of pages at a
time as wanted; and the ruling, it need
hardly be said, may be with pencil or with
pen and ink, and with or without all the
captions fully expressed as in the model.

It cannot be too strongly emphasized
that the entire value of the book rests
upon a recognition of the absolute need
of order and method in the financial
administration of the modem household ;
that is, that the whole question is first
and last a matter of business.

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

THE budget, though one of the most
important features of the matron's
administration, and the twin -sister, we
may say, of her accoimtancy, is not to be
considered as in any way affecting the
completeness of the subject as already
viewed. And so with the voucher ; and
so, also, with the inventory. All these
are of greater or less importance; but,
with or without them, the journal-ledger
embraces the entire movement, the bal-
ance-sheet records the exact situation,
and whatever is more is, at most, only
of correlative value to accountancy.
66

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

THE BUDGET

The budget has been often called the
prospective balance-sheet/' We have
seen that the statistical columns of the
journal-ledger are for the purpose of
distributing or classifying the household
purchases according to the nature of the
articles bought, and that the number and
headings of these columns are dependent
upon the variety of information the
matron may desire thus to preserve. She
may have a special reason for wishing to
know just how much money she is spend-
ing on some particular object in which
another household might not be interest-
ed, and to this end she can mark off a
column in which to carry the cost of each
purchase of this article ; and so on.

But the principal use of this informa-
tion is to furnish a basis for estimating
67

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

the cost of maintaining the household in
the immediate future. This estimate is
known as the budget, so called from the
bag or budget of financial estimates laid
before the British House of Commons by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

*'And let us not deceive ourselves,"
says Louise d'Alq, in La Mattresse de
Maison ; ''many a household has quite
as much trouble as certain ministers, and
much more, to attain this object of es-
tablishing its budget of receipts and ex-
penses; for it cannot have recourse, as
they can, to forced loans and other ar-
bitrary sources of income."

The household budget, or statement of
the probable revenue and expenditure of
the establishment for the ensuing period,
is the result of a careful comparison of
what is wanted or desired with what can
be attained. '' The budget is bom," said
68

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

a noted French journalist, ''of the im-
perious necessity for an equihbrium of
receipts and expenses/' There must be,
first of all, an approximately correct
notion of the amount of income from
which the expenditure may be drawn;
and within this limit — by reason, indeed,
of the limitation itself — there is ample
room for the fullest exercise of woman's
ingenuity and judgment in arriving at a
well-proportioned estimate of expenses.
In this work, the one indispensable ally
of the matron will be the statistical
department of her journal-ledger. Her
accountancy will unite the past to the
future of her finances, and her household
budget will be the connecting link be-
tween this accountancy and her active
administration.

A few general considerations, founded
upon a study of many budgets, will not,
69

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

it is hoped, be out of place. This study,
it must be admitted, Hke that of the more
elementary household accounting upon
which it is fotmded, has not, in our
modem civilization, gone very deep or
very far. The commissioner of labor of
the United States has tabulated the
average percentages of various expenses
to income of a number of families en-
gaged in the iron, coal, glass, cotton, and
woollen industries. Dr. Engels, head of
the Prussian royal bureau of statistics,
has published a series of studies on fam-
ily budgets; Ellen Richards, to whom
reference has already been made, has
instituted inquiry in the same line of re-
search ; and a number of valuable articles
have been contributed to various peri-
odicals on the same subject. And thus
it will be seen that a beginning has been
made, and that ''it is for those educated
70

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

persons with one thousand to three
thousand dollars annual income to lead
the way in the studies necessary to be un-
dertaken before any authoritative state-
ments can be made/'

The Bulletin of the International Insti-
tute of Statistics has printed a formula-
tion of four laws by Dr. Engels, which
have been pronounced by other statis-
ticians to be ''absolutely exact/' These
laws, the result of observation, are ex-
pressed in the language of mathematics ;
the drift of them is : first, that as income
increases, the smaller is the relative
percentage of outlay for food; second,
that the outlay for clothing maintains a
constant proportion to the whole; third,
that the percentage of the outlay for
shelter, and for heat and light, is the
same, whatever the income; and fourth,
that the percentage of outlay for stm-
71

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

dries (expressing the degree of prosper-
ity) increases as income advances. A
concluding observation is, that the less
a household earns t^ie greater is the pro-
portion expended for nutriment, what-
ever ^Ise may have to l>e renounced.

The Prussian statistician estimates
that, taking one country with another, a
poor family, with an inconie qf a dollar
a day for the working year of three
hundred days, will expend oii an aver-
age $i86 for food, $36 for rent, $15 for
light and heat, $48 for raiment, and $15
on the higher life. A modest household,
dependent upon one of the industries se-
lected by the commissioner of labor for
comparison, and having a total of receipts
of $1,000 a year, lays out $343.40 for
food, $149.60 for rent, $40 for fuel,
$7.40 for light, $168.40 for clothing, and
$291.20 f(^r all other purposes.

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

A very common American budget is
that of a household of four adults and
two children, who, with an income of
$2,000, spend $726 for nutriment, $484
for shelter and car-fares to and from place
of business, $418 for light, heat, semce,
and other operating items, and $372 for
clothing, education, amusements, benevo-
lence, savings, and the higher life general-
ly ; in contrast with which Mrs. Richards
has suggested, for the same income, a dis-
tribution of $500 for food, about $400
for rent, about $300 for service, light, fuel,
and other operating expenses, about
$400 for raiment, and $400 for the higher
life, books, travel, church, charity, sav-
ings, and insurance ; while Miss Florence
Stacpoole, an English lecturer and writer
on domestic economy, recommends tq^her
countrywomen, for the same total outlay,
$300 for rent, $835 for housekeepiiife,
73

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

$200 for service, S80 for heat and light,
$225 for dress, and $360 for education,
amusements, sickness, and incidentals.
It will be remarked that if these amounts
are reduced to percentages, a very wide
latitude is seen in the proportioning of
expenses; food, for example, ranging all
the way from 62 down to 25 per cent.
This may be partially attributed to eco-
nomic differences between Great Britain
and America.

The following interesting budget, the
original of which is preserv^ed at Osmas-
ton Hall, Derbyshire, England, will show
that the latter percentage for food was
considered fair in the middle of the
eighteenth century; though to produce
this proportion we must leave out of
the 25 per cent, the beer and liquors,
the cows, and the board of the boys at
school :

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

Computation for Yeardley 19 May 1753

£48$ a year at Osmaston.
Upon a plan of living altogether at Osmaston.
2 and Sister Wilmot

2 Marow and Betsey

3 Maids
3 Men

10 in Family

I constant in addition

11 to be provided for

Simday Roast or boiled fowls

Roast and boiled beef &
Pudding P^'e or Pancake.

Monday Boiled or Fry^ Cow heel
Roast Mutton & Do.

Tuesday Veal & Bacon, Mutton & Stakes

Wednesday Herbs & Bacon, Roast veal

Thursday Boiled Mutton Roast Pork

Rabbits Fowls & Pudding Pye

Friday Fish Boiled or Roast Beef and do

HOV TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Saturday Marrow Bones. liver
heart, etc.

The above to be varied just as most agree-
able or convenient according to the season
and cheapness or goodness of things.

Sunday 2 fowls o i 3

II lbs of hi^vi

at 2^ . . o 2 6%

a lb of bacon at

o o 6

Pudding or Pye o o 3^
047

Monday Cow heal o o 6

Pudding o o 3^^

II lbs of Mut-
ton at 2 f< . . . o 2 6]i
034

Tuesday 11 lbs of Veal
& Mutton

at 2 54 o 2 654

Puddinj* 003^
Bacon 006
034

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

Wednesday

Bacon

II lbs of Veal

Pudding

Thursday

II lbs of mut-

ton or pork

Pudding

3^4

Rabbits

Friday

Fish removed

with chickens

II lbs of Beef

6/4

Pudding

Saturday

Marrow Bones.

Fry

Pudding

' 2

1 1 lbs of butter a week at 6'^

6 ^^f^

Bread and M

uffins

Salt Vinegar & pepper oyl . . .

Cheese

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Two guineas a week amount

to 109 4 o

Strong beer, small beer, or ale . . 30 o o

Wine 15 o o

Spirits 10 o o

Coals 12 o o

Soap, candles, blacking 12 o o

Tea, chocolate, coffee, rice 6 o o

Sugar for tea and house 7 o o

3 maids wages 10 o o

3 mens wages and liveries 25 o o

Sister Wilmots Cloathes and pin

money 20 o o

Marow Do 10 o o

Betty 10 o o

Gardeners [2] 13 o o

3 Boys at School £^0 90 o o

Yeardley 50 o o

4 horses ^£40 coach tax and re-
pairs 10 o o

2 Cows etc 5 16 o

£445 Q o

Balance over
£40.

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

These budgets emphasize the perma-
nence of certain wants, and indicate the
few statistical columns to which the in-
experienced housewife may confine her
distribution of expenses. A matron who
should begin with a record of outlay
for shelter, for general operation of the
house, for nourishment, for dress, and
for stmdries, might have occasion, in the
course of years, to set off particular col-
umns for board, meat, groceries, medi-
cine, the doctor, the lawyer, servants,
travelling, local car -fares, amusements,
books, periodicals, papers, furniture,
taxes, interest, insurance, stable, charity,
education, latmdry, music, water, repairs,
milk, ice, and the private expenses of
the sons, of the daughters, and of mon-
sieur and madame.

But, in the main, the reasoning of the
domestic economist will be that we must
79

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

eat and drink, wear clothes, have a roof
over our heads, pay for service, edu-
cate the young, look after the general
comfort and well-being of the household,
and save what we may, conveniently, out
of our income. And nothing, it may be
said, will require more careful considera-
tion— will more clearly reveal the charac-
ter of the mistress of the home, or repay
her with greater results — than the pro-
duction of a well-balanced and economi-
cal budget founded upon well-kept ac-
counts.

THE VOUCHER

The voucher is a written evidence of
payment, and, as we have seen in the
administration of the chatelaine and the
recommendation of modem writers, it
ought as such to be preserved.

The voucher is of threefold value — ac-
80

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

counting, administrative, and legal. A
complete series of vouchers would alone
constitute a reliable though clumsy rec-
ord of expenses. But, as in the case of
the check -book used for a cash-book,
this is not the primary object of the
voucher; nor does accountancy depend
upon any such secondary employment
of borrowed appliances.

In the organization of extensive en-
terprises, the idea of the voucher in-
cludes all kinds of interior documentary
authority for payment, as well as ex-
terior evidence of it; and as labor is
more and more divided in these vast con-
cerns, the voucher becomes of greater
importance and variety. But, as Eu-
gene Leautey, author of La Science des
Comptes, has said, ''we must admit that
in the accountancy of simple individuals
the need of classifying all vouchers as
6 8i

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

supports for the movements of money is
much less rigorous than in mercantile
and industrial accounting/' The matron
of the household will find her receipts,
receipted bills, dealers' passbooks, letters
of acknowledgment, and the like, useful
as memoranda when making up her ac-
counts, and legally valuable as vouchers
in case of dispute, and may be content
merely to keep them for a reasonable
while in some handy way of reference,
and then either to get rid of them or store
them away in packages.

THE INVENTORY

The inventory, if kept at all, will take
form according to its intended use. It
may be a simple list of household goods,
made up either with or without order;
it may be either without valuation, or
priced according to cost, or according to
82

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

some notion of present worth ; and it may
be kept entirely apart by itself, or the
money value may be entered, either as
a total or as several sub - totals, in the
accounts. Such entry, to keep the ac-
counts in balance, can be made, with
accompanying explanation, as cash re-
ceived and cash expended for the goods,
and thus the household effects will obtain
representation.

But as no practical purpose is served
by the introduction of this element into
the book, and as all articles bought since
the opening of the book are already ac-
coimted for, the inventory will better be
kept out of the account-book until the
housewife shall have studied the mys-
teries of fluctuating values in connection
with capitalistic accountancy.

Small articles of value, if not kept in a
safe-deposit vault or under lock and key,
83

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

especially silven\'are, ought to be care-
fully noted in such a list and compared
with the list frequently, as one of the
principal uses of a methodically arranged
and conser\'atively priced inventor}^ of
household effects is as an insurance record
in case of loss by fire.

How a catalogue of household goods
appeared in the olden time may be seen
from a few conserv^ative lines in a long
Inventor}' of the Goodes belong\'ng to
the Kynges Grace by the forfettoure of
the Lady Hungerford,'* who was attaint-
ed in the fourteenth year of the reign of
Henry VHI. :

Item, a flowre of golde, fulle of
sparkes of dyamondes set abowte
with perles, and the Holy Gost in
the mydste of yt.

Item, a table of golde with the
pyktor of Seynt Cristofer in hym.

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

Item, a harte of golde inhand with
a wyd chene, inameled with white and
blewe.

Item, a gret broiche of golde with a
man and a woman in hym, the valure
iiij pounde iiij ^.

Item, ij broches of golde with the
pykter of Seynt Kateren in them, the
value of them v marcs v marc.

Item, XXXV payre of aglettes of
golde, which coste iiij^ xiij^ iiij'^.

The following inventor}' of the house-
hold effects of a young couple Hving in
comfort in one of the suburbs of Xew
York is fairly representative. The fur-
nace and ranges are fixtures ; therefore no
account is taken of heating apparatus.
Wearing apparel, books, pictiu-es, a sew-
ing-machine, and the parlor organ are
also excluded, in order that the list may-
be suggestive merely of what is usually re-
quired for the furnishing of the house :
85

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Sitting - room or parlor. — Carpet, in-
grain, thirty yards, say $45 ; two roller
shades, $4 ; two cornices, S8 ; lace curtains
for two windows, $30; rep-covered sofa
and two chairs, $80 ; two reception-chairs,
$8; fancy chair, Sio; sewing-chair, S4;
marble-top table, $15. Total, $204.

Dining-room. — Carpet, ingrain, thirty
yards, say S30; two roller shades, $3;
cornices, $5 ; curtains, $7 ; extension-table,
$12; six cane-bottom chairs, $15; side-
board, $30; cooler, S2.50; two trays, $2;
coffee-pot, $2.50; egg-boiler, 50c.; three
dozen spoons, three sizes, S20; two dozen
forks, two sizes, $15; dinner caster, $8;
one dozen knives, $5 ; carving-knife, with
steel sharpener, $3; mats, Si; two bells.
Si. 50; dinner-set, china, 134 pieces,
$27; tea-set, china, forty -four pieces,
$7 ; one dozen cut-glass goblets, S3 ; one
dozen timiblers, $1; two cut-glass pre-
86

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

ser\'e-dishes, $3; china fruit-basket, Si;
glass, $1 ; celer}^-glass, 50c. ; pitcher, 50c. ;
molasses-jug, 50c. ; one dozen salts, soc.
Total, S208.

•Bedroom. — Carpet, thirty yards, say
$30; two shades, cornice, and curtains,
$12; furniture, ten piece 5, S55 ; springs,
$5; mattress, hair, S26; pillows and
bolster, $12; pair blankets. Si 2; two
spreads, $6 ; sheets and pillow - cases,
three sets, Sio; china toilet-set, $7.
Total, $175.

Bedroom, or ser\'ant's room. — Carpet
twenty-five yards, S25; window - shade,
$1; table, Si. 30; bureau and glass, $S;
wash-stand, $2 ; two chairs and rocker,
$4; bedstead and springs, $9: mattress,
$15; pair blankets, S6; spread and com-
fortable, S4; pillows and bolster, SS;
sheets and pillow-cases, three sets, $6:
toilet-set, S4. Total, S93.50.

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Hall and stairs. — Hall carpet, $12;
stair carpet, $10 ; padding, $3.50 ; eighteen
rods, $6 ; hat - stand and umbrella - rack,
$9. Total, $40.50.

Linen. — Table - cloths, eight yards
damask, $5 ; five yards fine damask, bor-
dered, $7.50; two plain table-cloths, $2;
three dozen napkins, two qualities, $7.50;
three dozen common towels, $1.50; one
dozen dish-towels, $1. Total, $32.50.

Kitchen. — Large and small table, $7;
five chairs, $2.50; refrigerator, $12 ; clock,
$2.50; ladder, $2; hammer and tack-
hammer, 50C. ; scales, $1.25; clothes-
basket and market-basket, $2 ; scuttle,
$1 ; covered slop-pail, $1 ; hatchet and
screw-driver, $1 ; knife-board, knife-box,
spoon-basket, and can-opener, $2; pint
and quart measure, 25c.; canisters for
tea, coffee, and sugar, $1 ; nest of boxes,
75c. ; bread and cake boxes, $2.50 ; funnel.

BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY

ISC. ; wash-tubs, $3 ; ironing-boards, $1.25 ;
wash - board, 2 5c. ; clothes - pins, 25c. ;
boiler, $2 ; clothes-line, 50c. ; six irons and
two stands, $3.25; brooms and brushes,
$2; dust -pan, 25c.; tea-kettle, $1; two
iron pots, $3; preserve - kettle, $1.50;
saucepans, $2 ; frying-pans, $1 ; dish-pans,
$2 ; tin pans, various sizes, $3 ; earthen
pans, $1 ; bowls, $1 ; pudding-dishes, 50c. ;
griddle, soapstone, $1.50; chopping-knife
and board and, bowl, $1.50; rolling-pin
and kneading board and bowl, $1.25;
cutters, 25c.; coffee-pot, 75c.; dipper and
skimmer, 40c. ; two pails, 50c. ; three
sieves, $1.25;, masher, loc. ; dredgers,
40c.; egg-beater and cake -turner, 30c.;
pie-plates, 50c. ; patty -pans, 50c. ; lemon-
squeezer, 20c. ; graters, 50c. ; gridiron,
50c. ; colander, 50c. ; jelly - mould, 50c. ;
salt-box, 30c. ; feather duster, $1. Total,
$82.95.

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Recapitulation. — Sitting - room, $204 ;
dining-room, $208; bedroom, $175; bed-
room or servant's room, $93.50; hall and
stairs, $40.50; linen, $32.50; kitchen,
$82.95. Total, $836.45.

THE BANK ACCOUNT

IT has been already remarked that if
all the household money were passed
through the bank, the bank check-book
might be used as a cash-book ; but such
a proceeding is neither desirable nor nec-
essary in view of the simple accoimtancy
of the journal-ledger, in which the cash-
book is a component part of a tabular
system fully controlling all the finances
of the matron.

To say that accoimtancy is able, upon
occasion, to adapt itself to all the circum-
stances and exigencies of place and time;
that it can utilize, and has utilized, for
its own scientific ends, the check - book,

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

the voucher, the wooden tally of the old
exchequer, the fringe - record of ancient
America, the terra-cotta book of the far-
thest antiquity of the Orient, and a thou-
sand other interesting appliances, is but
to emphasize the vitality, the wonderful
flexibility, and the vast importance of
the science of accountancy itself.

The modem bank, by means of the
check-book given to its depositors, will
act for them without salary, as a cashier.
That is to say, it will not only become the
depository of the money of the household,
but will, to whatever extent required,
make the payments of the establishment.
And these payments can all be made
direct to the creditors of the housewife,
or a part can be handed back to her by
the bank to be dealt out by herself as
petty cash. Thus it will be seen that
banking, for the requirements of any con-
92

THE BANK ACCOUNT

siderable domestic establishment, is a con-
venient and very accommodating institu-
tion.

But, on the other hand, the frequent
inconvenience of this double handling of
petty cash will show that the turning of a
check-book into a cash-book, because of a
cast-iron rule that all money must go
through the bank, is an accoimting con-
trivance inferior in every way to an in-
dependent, comprehensive, and scientific
system of household accountancy.

The possession of a considerable
amotmt of cash imposes upon the house-
wife the consideration of two distinct
questions. If the money is a surplus
above the requirements of the household,
the question is one of investment. She
is a capitalist ; and the moment her cap-
ital is put in the way of becoming itself
productive, her accountancy takes on a
93

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

feature more than that of mere household
accounting. But the handUng of money
in the affairs of a more or less extensive
domestic establishment is a matter for
the consideration of the housewife as such ;
the question here is purely one of house-
hold administration. In any case, the
regular bank of deposit offers her its ser-
vices, exactly as it offers them to the man
of business.

The bank will pay any bill in answer to
her order by check, and will see that the
amount paid is exact and that it is paid
only to the proper party. Thus she will
avoid the inconvenience and risk attend-
ing the possession of a large amoimt of
loose cash. She cannot be robbed; she
need not run to the savings-bank for the
amount ; and she is not afraid that she has
miscounted, or that perhaps her money
is counterfeit. If she desires to send
94

THE BANK ACCOUNT

money by mail, or by the hands of a
messenger, she may send a check so made
out that it is worthless without proper
indorsement. Her checks, also, after
payment, are returned to her by the
bank, and are perfect receipts. By
means of her bank, also, she may have
upon her person a check representing cash
to herself, but worthless to any other if
lost or stolen. Through her bank she also
collects the checks of others, and cashes
the coupons of such bonds as may be
in her possession.

Thus it will be seen that there is a
wide difference between a bank and a
savings - bank. The savings - bank is a
quasi-benevolent institution, existing for
the encouragement of the habit of sav-
ing. It pays interest on deposit, refunds
money only to depositors who present
their pass-books, and knows nothing of
95

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

the check system. The deposit of money
in a savings-bank is therefore an invest-
ment, and its consideration does not He
within the field of household administra-
tion.

The bank, on the other hand, is a busi-
ness convenience; and it is because of
the value of the service rendered by it
in permitting the depositor to draw or
transfer her money by check at any time,
and in any amount within her existing
balance, that the money is left with the
bank for safe-keeping. Certain other in-
stitutions, known generally as loan and
trust companies, add to their other busi-
ness functions those of the bank, and
allow a conservative rate of interest on
deposits. But to the housewife, the dis-
tinction is very important between the
various enterprises which offer opportu-
nities for the investment of her surplus
96

THE BANK ACCOUNT

capital and the bank which will act as her
cashier in handling the income and outgo
of her domestic establishment.

Tfhe bank finds a profit in rendering this
service and thus attracting deposits, be-
cause it has been found that the sum
total of the money of depositors on hand
from day to day will generally be about
twenty times the amount called for by
check; that is, that depositors, at any
one moment, are using only, say, about
five per cent, of their money, so that the
bank, by careful management, can itself
have the temporary use of nearly the
whole amount. ,

Other sources of profit to the bank are :
the use of its own capital, of its own ac-
cumulated profits, and of its own notes.
Its debts may be said to consist of what
it owes to the depositors who leave their
money in its keeping, to the stockholders
' 97 ^ _ _

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

who furnish its capital, to the individual
creditors from whom it has borrowed as a
business organization, and to the mem-
bers of the general public who are us-
ing its circulating notes. To meet these
debts, it usually has outstanding loans
made on short time to the active busi-
ness men who are transacting their af-
fairs many miles apart on the credit sys-
tem; securities in the way of stock and
mortgage held as investments; real es-
tate that may have been acquired ; debts
due from other banks; and cash either
in hand or readily collectable by check.
Any surplus, of course, is the profit of the
bank; and it must be remembered, also,
that the known character of a bank for
careful, conservative, and upright dealing
constitutes in itself a moral security upon
which the housewife may safely rely for
assistance in her financial administration.
98

THE BANK ACCOUNT

Banks in the United States are of three
general kinds : private, State, and nation-
al, organized respectively as firms or indi-
vidual dealers, as institutions doing busi-
ness under State authority, or under the
laws of the general government with ex-
clusive authority to issue bank-notes, the
notes being secured by national bonds de-
posited with the Treasurer of the United
States. These distinctions, however, are
not of as great weight as might be sup-
posed in deciding the selection of a bank
in which to deposit the money of the
household. What the matron of any con-
siderable establishment needs is banking
accommodation ; and this being available,
and the question of financial soimdness
being disposed of, the rest will be settled
by local convenience and personal pref-
erence.

The bank, at first view, has the ap-
99

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

pearance of an extensive accounting in-
stitution ; and from this point the house-
wife begins to understand that the jour-
nal-ledger of her own establishment is
part of one universal system of financial
accountancy. All the money coming into
her household monthly or weekly has
been drawn, doubtless, in one way or an-
other, from this or other banks ; and all,
or nearly all, that she has laid out for
its support has found its way back into
some bank. And thus, time and again,
the books of the bank have already re-
corded the income and outgo of this
floating capital. Her business here will
be with a concern organized for profit, but
conducted, under severe legal restrictions,
in the interest of the entire world of af-
fairs. Her money will be in the hands
of a board of directors and of a staff of
officers and assistants consisting, with

lOO

THE BANK ACCOUNT

more or less variation, of a president, a
vice-president, a cashier, an assistant-
cashier, a chief clerk, a country book-
keeper, a dealers' book - keeper, several
ledger-keepers, a discount clerk, a note
teller, a receiving teller, a paying teller,
and a general book - keeper. Her per-
sonal dealings, ordinarily, will be with
the president and cashier, or their im-
mediate representatives, and, in the
routine of business, with the receiving
and paying tellers and a certain book-
keeper.

Upon her first introduction, she will be
asked to sign her name in a special rec-
ord for identification; and having been
then supplied with a number of de-
posit tickets, a pass-book, and a book
of blank checks, she hands in her first
deposit to the receiving teller. There-
after, if she would rather transact her

lOI

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

business by messenger, she will have
little occasion to visit the bank in per-
son.

Her signature will be kept either in a
book of signatures or in a cabinet of
signature cards. It should contain her
first and last names in full. Prefixed or
suffixed words and abbreviations are gen-
erally objectionable, as well as the use of
the first name of the husband. Thus, her
signature should be ''Mary Smith,'' or
''Mary A. Smith,'' not" Mrs. Mary Smith,"
or "Mrs. John Smith," or "Mary Smith,
M. D. " This rule, of course, is not absolute,
and is not without necessary exception. If
Mary A. Smith, for example, is acting for
another, she must add the distinguishing
title, as "Agent," "Attorney," "Treas-
urer," " Trustee," and the like, to her own
name. It is upon comparison with her
signature as kept upon record, and with

I02

THE BANK ACCOUNT

which the paying teller quickly becomes
familiar, that her checks are honored by
the bank. If transactions are extensive,
or if the housewife has reason to believe
that her signature may be counterfeited,
she may follow the rule of certain finan-
ciers and adopt some slight peculiarity
in the bank signature, to be known only
to herself, and not used in general cor-
respondence.

The deposit ticket, which she herself
or her messenger fills out and hands in
with each deposit, is a small printed
blank form, ruled for dollars and cents,
and worded for amounts in specie, bills,
checks," or, sometimes, ''gold, silver,
bills, checks,*' and often having also a
special column for out-of-town checks.
The following is the usual form of a de-
posit ticket, and shows how it should be
filled out:

103

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

DEPOSITED BY

IN THE

3Pra«kltn ^quar? Nattottal lank

New York,. . / 190

25
40

104

THE BANK ACCOUNT

The depositor's name, with the date, is
written upon the ticket ; the coin is count-
ed and entered in the doUars-and-cents
columns ; then the bills ; then the amount
of each check, if any checks are to be de-
posited. The whole is then footed up, and
deposit, deposit ticket, and pass-book are
handed together to the receiving teller.
He counts the deposit, verifies the figures,
enters the total amount against the bank
in the pass-book, which he hands back to
the depositor, the money going into the
treasury and the deposit ticket into the
accounting department. It must be re-
membered that, the name of the depositor
written on the deposit ticket is not nec-
essarily her signature; and, as already
noted, anybody whom she chooses to
send to the bank can make the deposit.

A check is any written order, dated
and bearing the signature of the de-
105

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

positor, directing the bank to pay on
demand a specified sum to the bearer of
the check, or to a person named, or to
that person's order.

A person to whose order a check is
made payable can collect the money
from the bank itself, or can deposit it in
another bank and have that bank collect
it from the first bank, or can sign it over
to another person, and that person can
collect it, or sign it over still further, and
so on. When the check reaches the de-
positor's own bank, and is paid, it is can-
celled and returned to the depositor when
her pass - book is balanced, and becomes
her voucher or receipt of payment. As
her check may pass through the hands of
others, so theirs may pass through hers,
and thus it is that at times her deposits
in the bank will consist of checks as well
as of cash.

1 06

THE BANK ACCOUNT

She must, of course, have in bank the
amount called for when her check is pre-
sented for payment, otherwise the bank
must refuse to honor the check, or must
pay the amount out of its own funds, in
which latter case the bank would assume,
for the time, the character rather of a
charitable institution, or a chivalrous un-
dertaking, than a true business organiza-
tion. Depositors are creditors, to whom
the bank is debtor.

A check may be drawn payable to
bearer, " in which case the paying teller
will pay it to the person presenting it,
unless some suspicious circumstance may
seem to warrant an inquiry into the
genuineness of the check. Or it may be
made payable to the depositor herself
by using the word ''cash" or ''myself."
Or it may specify by name the person,
firm, or corporation to whom it is to be
107

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

paid. In all cases where the payee is
named, the words **or order," or ** to the
order of," will make the check trans-
ferable by indorsement, and thus it may
finally reach the bank by some unexpect-
ed channel.

Indorsement is the writing by the
payee of his or her name across the back
of the check, either with or without di-
rection to pay it to, or to the order of,
another party. To indorse a check in
the conventional way, hold it by the
upper left-hand comer and timi it over
so that this will still be the upper left-
hand comer, and thus vrrite across the
back of the check, beginning the first in-
dorsement about one-third the length of
the check below what is now the top.
Subsequent indorsements are written be-
low in chronological order.

To indorse a check in which the payee's
1 08

THE BANK ACCOUNT

name is made to differ from the name
she uses at the bank, both names must
be signed — as, for example, a check made
out to Mrs. John Smith " woukl be taken
to the bank with the indorsement **Mrs.
John Smith" followed by the proper in-
dorsement Mary A. Smith/* When the
depositor has given her check to any
one, she may still, if there is reason for
so doing, instruct her bank not to pay it,
and the request will, as a rule, be respected.

A final safeguard in the interest of all
concerned is that any specified person
to whom a check ought to be paid must
be known to the bank or must be iden-
tified** by somebody who is so known.

The check may be wholly in writing;
it is usually, however, made out on the
bank's own printed blank. These blanks
are furnished singly, or in packages
bound together into books with a very
109

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

wide inner margin. This margin, known
as the stub, and numbered to corre-
spond with the accompanying check, is
commonly ruled for dollars and cents,
and is filled out as a memorandum of
the date, amount, and purpose of the
check. The stubs, thus filled out, form
a record of money paid out through the
bank; and by using their backs as a
record also of money deposited in the
bank, a sort of cash-book is obtained,
which, in the absence of any proper
domestic accountancy, would be of some
assistance as a book of the household.
It is best to have a check-book with not
less than three checks to a page. The
words *'or order" or ''to the order of,"
appearing on the printed form, are
erased, when not required, by drawing
the pen through them. The accompany-
ing is the usual form of a blank check :
no

Nn lurk ^^^^^^ ^7 i^n:

Jmttklm i^quar^ Nattnnal lank

ro r/>e order of ^ ^

_qo_
^00

~- DolUrs

SHOWING A PROPERLY DRAWN CHECK

THE BANK ACCOUNT

The pass - book is the depositor's
voucher; it serves as a receipt for her
deposit. In form it is a small and very
simple account-book, containing a copy
of her account as it stands in the bank's
own books. She should not make any
entries in the pass - book, but should
merely present it to the receiving teller
with each deposit, and should also send
it to the bank about the last day of each
month, or whenever requested to do so,
in order that it may be written up and
balanced to agree with the bank ledger.

When a deposit is made, the receiving
teller enters, on the left or debit side of
the pass - book, the date and the amount
of the deposit as by count' he finds it to
agree with the deposit ticket, sets his
own initial to the entry, and hands back
the book to the depositor or her messen-
ger. When the book is left or sent in to
III

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

be balanced, all payments that have been
made by the bank for the depositor are
entered on the right or credit side, and
the book is returned. These payments,
as we have seen, have been made upon
presentation of the depositor's order in
the form of a check, and these checks are
now cancelled as paid and are returned
to the depositor with her pass-book.

From all this it will be seen that the
pass-book should be preserved as an im-
portant document, and that cancelled
and returned checks should be carefully
examined and compared with their stubs
in the check-book.

It will be found that the balance as
shown by the check-book and the balance
as shown by the pass-book will differ
by the amount of checks that may have
been issued by the depositor but not yet
received at the bank ; and the reconciling

112

THE BANK ACCOUNT

of these will be an easy task if she re-
members, in her calculation, that the
total amount of these outstanding or un-
paid checks, subtracted from the balance
as given by the bank pass-book, should
equal the balance as shown by her own
check-book. To arrive at this result, she
puts down, on the left-hand side of her
check -book, where the balance in bank
is shown, the balance as given by the
bank pass-book, and deducts from it the
amoimt of the outstanding checks, noting
the number and amount of each. This
should give the true balance of cash
available, and should agree with the
figures of the check -book. The out-
standing checks will have been found,
of course, by the comparison of the re-
turned checks with their stubs.

The following is the usual form of
pass-book :

8 113

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

^vmkixn ^qmn JJatuinal lank

TSfV* account with

LEFT-HAND PAGE OF BANK-BOOK

THE BANK ACCOUNT

^^^^ Q^. <^mtM

dr.

RIGHT-HAND PAGE OF BANK-BOOK

HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS

Neither pass-book nor check-book in-
terferes in any way, as help or as hin-
derance, with a scientific system of domes-
tic accountancy. The pass - book shows
what was in the bank at the last date
of balancing. The check-book shows a
present safely dependable balance upon
which the depositor may draw.

Her bank account is but another form,
in part or in whole, of her cash account,
the bank itself being only, as it were, a
very convenient department of her cash-
drawer. Cash in hand and cash in bank
are, to her own domestic accountancy,
one and the same thing.

Her journal-ledger is a component part
of her own independent system of ad-
ministration. It utilizes, for purposes of
scientific interpretation, all that may be
read from such financial and commercial
books and papers as have come in its way,
ii6

THE BANK ACCOUNT

and been incorporated day by day into
its columns. But the end of this inter-
pretation is domestic economy, and not
finance or commerce. While the journal-
ledger of the household is essentially a
conservator of the public welfare, its pri-
mary vajue, as a trusted domestic, is not
to those who ring the door-bell on outside
business, but to its ,ownen the matron of
the home, and, by reason of her faithful
domestic accountancy, true mistress of
the situation.

THE END

By M. E. W. SHEEWOOD

AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY. Being Rambling
Recollections of Many Years of My Life. With a
Photogravure Portrait. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Orna-
mental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.
The book may be opened at any page and the eye will be
greeted by the name of some figure of national reputation,
and most likely a bit of lively incident or an anecdote that
throws light upon his or her character. It is the note-book
of one whose fortune it was to be thrown into the company
of the makers of history, and who cherished with apprecia-
tion the most of what she observed and heard when in that
company. — Philadelphia Bulletin.

The whole book is a delight. — Boston Advertiser.
Mrs. Sherwood has had an interesting life, and she has
made an especially interesting narrative of its incidents. —
N. Y. Press.

MANNERS AND SOCIAL USAGES in America. A
Book of Etiquette. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.
Mrs. Sherwood's admirable little volume differs from ordi-
nary works on the subject of etiquette chiefly in the two facts
that it is founded on its author's personal familiarity with
the usages of really good society, and that it is inspired by
good sense and a helpful spirit. There is nothing of pre-
tence in it, nothing of that weak worship of conventionality
which gives the stamp of vulgarity to the greater part of
what is written on this subject. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser,

A TRANSPLANTED ROSE. A Story of New York
Society. 16mo, Paper, 50 cents.

Might well be dedicated to society at large and its aspirants.
. . . There is a great deal about social forms in New York which
will make the book interesting to the feminine mind, details
about sending cards, introducing people, etc. — Boston Ad-
vertiser.

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers

NEW YORK AND LONDON

M^Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to
any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

W. M. THACKERAY'S COMPLETE
WORKS

BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

This New and Revised Edition Comprises Additional Ma-
terial and Hitherto Unpublished Letters, Sketcfoes, and
Drawings, Derived from the Author's Original Manu-
scripts and Note-hooks.

Edited by Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie.

1. VANITY FAIR. 7. ESMOND, Etc.

2. PENDENNIS. 8. THE NEWCOMES.

3. YELLOWPLUSH 9. CHRISTMAS BOOKS,

PAPERS, Etc. Etc.

4. BARRY LYNDON, Etc. 10. THE VIRGINIANS.

5. SKETCH BOOKS, Etc. 11. PHILIP, Etc.

6. CONTRIBUTIONS TO 12. DENIS DUVAL, Etc.

PUNCH." 13. MISCELLANIES, Etc.

/ Crown 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top8,$l 75
C per Volume.

The edition is one which appeals peculiarly to all Thack-
eray lovers. — Philadelphia Ledger.

Although we are not to have an authorized life of Thack-
eray, we are to have the next best thing, in the notes that his
daughter, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has supplied to the bio-
graphical edition of her father's work. — Chicago Tribune.

The biographical introductions, which promise no little per-
sonalia fresh to most readers or not before collected, will to-
gether invest this edition with unique interest and give it a
value which will easily place it at the head of editions of the
great English novelist. — Literary Worlds Boston.

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers

NEW YORK AND LONDON

H^Any of the above works will he sent by mail, postage prepaid^
to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 06706 980 5

Boston Public Library
Central Library, Copley Square

Division of
Reference and Research Services

The Date Due Card in the pocket indi-
cates the date on or before which this
book should be returned to the Library.

Please do not remove cards from this
pocket.

JUL 16 1915

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "How to keep household accounts : a manual of family finance"

See other formats