A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at SchoolBeecher, Catharine Esther
General
A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Home economics
Another lady, whose husband is a lawyer, divides the year into four
quarters, and the income into four equal parts. She then makes her
plans, so that the expenses of one quarter shall never infringe on the
income of another. So resolute is she, in carrying out this
determination, that if, by any mischance, she is in want of articles
before the close of a quarter, which she has not the means for
providing, she will subject herself to temporary inconvenience, by
waiting, rather than violate her rule.
Another lady, whose husband is engaged in a business, which he thinks
makes it impossible for him to know what his yearly income will be, took
this method:--She kept an account of all her disbursements, for one
year. This she submitted to her husband, and obtained his consent, that
the same sum should be under her control, the coming year, for similar
purposes, with the understanding, that she might modify future
apportionments, in any way her judgement and conscience might approve.
A great deal of uneasiness and discomfort 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 or woman will only calculate
what their income is, and then plan so as to know 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 regular and correct apportionment of expenses, that makes a family
truly comfortable. A man, with ten thousand a year, is often more
harassed, for want of money, than the systematic economist, who supports
a family on only six hundred a year. And the inspired command, "Owe no
man any thing," can never be conscientiously observed, without a
systematic adaptation of expenses to means.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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