The world needs a practically fixed amount of food, clothing, and supplies for the maintenance of its life and activity. It has also a practically fixed amount of wealth to keep them moving. Unsteady prices are always changing the value of a dollar and making the necessities of life easier or harder to get. The world cannot, therefore, supply its wants with the same ease and in the same abundance at any two successive times. The value of supplies and the value of money should both be constant. The world could then meet its needs at every point. No worker would lose his reward; commodities would be certain to yield their worth; and no one would be any the poorer for the change. The Home Budget (1920) After he had gained the pinnacle of his success, some one asked Andrew Carnegie to formulate the secret of wealth. His reply was as significant as it was laconic. He said: “Pay as you go, and keep books.” Each part of this formula is important. They are very closely related, but the second is the more fundamental. However important it is to pay as one goes, his chances for doing so are rendered very uncertain if he fails to keep books. There are different ways, however, of keeping books. Some keep books only as a means of knowing where they stand with their finances and current bills. This is good as far as it goes, but it is possible to make the process of keeping books yield a much greater service. Others realize this, and keep books as a means of keeping in the right relation to their financial affairs. They make their bookkeeping system represent their plan of operation. It then serves to keep them from getting too near the edge of any financial precipice. If one is to get on, one of the first principles he must learn is the necessity of keeping within his income—and a little more. Books can be kept in such a way as to enable one to do it. This is keeping books according to the budget plan. Some one is always certain to say that bookkeeping systems and budget plans are very well for people who have adequate incomes. It is said that the rich have something to keep books on, but that it is of little use for those who tread the ragged edges of want to undertake anything of the kind. This assumption is a grand mistake. Whatever benefits the budget system has are certainly common to all who care to adopt it. It is even more greatly needed by the home with an income below the normal level than by that with an income above the line of necessity. This is because its purpose is to enable one to make the most of the amount of money at command, whatever that sum may be. This service is not needed so much by those who have an abundance. It is calculated to help most those who must watch their corners and husband their resources. The budget system is a desirable plan in the home of wealth; it is a helpful thing in the home of moderate circumstances; but it is a necessity in the home where takes place an occasional battle with want.