If this way of recording actual credits does not seem convenient, a general account can be kept to supplement the detailed accounts. It will be well to have a small account book especially for this purpose. Two of its pages will look like the example below. The items on the debit page are gathered from detailed accounts such as have been described. Completed for a month, it should be balanced as any account is balanced. +-------+-----------------+---------++--------+-----------------+----------+ | | | || | | | | 1909 | _General Acc._ | _Dr._ || 1909 | _General Acc._ | _Cr._ | +-------+-----------------+---------++--------+-----------------+----------+ |Jan. 1 | Savings for Jan.| 5 | 00 || Jan. 1 | Salary | 125 | 00 | |" 3 | Rent " " | 35 | 00 || " 15 | Interest on | 15 | 00 | |" 31 | Clothes " " | 20 | 00 || | (investment) | | | |" " | Food " " | 38 | 00 || " 25 | Extra work | 10 | 00 | |" " | Fuel " " | 8 | 00 || | | | | +-------+-----------------+----+----++--------+-----------------+-----+----+ Many people keep no accounts except in their checkbooks. That is, they write down carefully therein the date and source of every check deposited; and on the stub of each check drawn they write the purpose for which the money is to be used. This method is much better than no account keeping, but it is hardly detailed enough for a house account in which there are many items too small to be paid by check. After every three or four checks there is apt to be one marked "Incidentals," or "General Expenses." Into these indefinite checks often go the trip the family meant to take, the table linen they meant to buy, the savings they meant to put away, and at the end of a year it is impossible to say what they had instead. Unless purchases are always paid for in cash, charge-accounts will have to have a place in the house account book. Some people have passbooks kept by the baker and the butcher and the grocer, and pay these accounts weekly. Others have charge-accounts with all their tradespeople and pay their bills monthly. If one has a charge-account with a firm, purchases made from them should invariably be charged. Paying for one purchase, and charging the next makes a tangle which neither the purchaser nor the shopkeeper can hope to prevent.