One of the reasons for the high cost of living has been the complication of our living. The past generation has been brought up to feel that so many more things are necessary to comfort than was the previous generation. Short cuts to comfort cost money. The grocery order sent over the telephone saves steps but adds to the bill. The dress bought ready-made is a convenience--and an extra expense. The food and drink picked up at shops have added to the cost of living--especially the drink. Nowadays Congress is encouraging the making of drinks at home, sensible women will take a basket on arm and supervise their own buying at grocery stores, and we are forgetting the silly twaddle about clothes not looking tailor-made. The way to meet the high cost of living is to simplify the manner of living. And the way to simplify the manner of living is to live more at home and do more at home. We’ve reached the ebb-tide. The flood is leaving the restaurant and the cabaret and turning toward home. Make no mistake about that. We are being cleansed with the fire that we ourselves kindled. The home is coming into its own, and with it, the woman in the home. Taking them by and large, our grandmothers were pretty good managers. They didn’t have vacuum cleaners or electric toasters or telephones or a lot of other equipment that has cut down housework today, but, if you will remember, they did have a very decided system in running and managing their households. Our mother’s day saw the introduction of labor-saving devices. The household work then stood on the threshold of a new era, but it didn’t have the courage to put a foot across. Moreover, the equipment had not reached the degree of proficiency where it could be considered practical. The machinery of household equipment complicated living. This present generation has the perfected machinery and much more to come, but it lacks what our grandmothers had--a system. We are dealing with old problems with new equipment. It is a case of old wine in new bottles, and we have to find a way of handling it. The secret, of course, is a system, a policy. The housewife of today is to her home what a man is to his office. She is a house manager, a Domiologist, as the author of this book suitably coined. To be successful in that sphere she must apply the same principles of management to her work that her husband does to his. She must consider three things: (1) household policy; (2) household equipment; (3) employed personnel. The employed personnel not only includes the cook and the other servants of the house, but also the grocer from whom the vegetables are bought, the butcher, the dealer in housewares. There is just as much reason for looking into the character of her butcher before she buys from him as for looking into her cook’s reputation before she hires her. In this respect the housewife is a purchasing agent and she should apply the same exacting principles that a purchasing agent of a factory does.