ENGLAND IN WAR TIME.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16156, 9 March 1918, Page 7

ENGLAND IN WAR TIME.

4 HOW- MINISTERS' WIVES MANAGE SOME HOUSEKEEPING BUDGETS. The "British Weekly" rocently offered prizes for the best domestic budgets sent in by ministers' wives. A large number of replies were 6ent in. It is pathetic to read of tlio struggles to make both ends meet, but one cannot help feeling the highest admiration for {he brave women who manago so well in the face of such difficulties, and who keep up such a fine spirit of cheerful attention to duty. Great care (says the Editor of our contemporary; has been taken in drawing up detailed tables of figures, and 1 almost every contribution suggests that | the writer is a model housewife. The ■ incomes dealt with run from about £85 1 to £200 and over. The largest budget f sent is for a household of seven per- i sons, but the average "number in fami- j Iv" is three,- four, and five. Sometimes there are only the pastor and his wife, and a small salary can be made to stretch surprisingly far until the little ones appear. Proud mothers tell us how they keep the children neat, clean, and well fed where means are small. One correspondent tolls how paying j guests add a few pounds to the income; z another speaks of "employment given t by a local tradesman." Growing daugh- t ters are eager to learn. The paitor himself is very often an expert gardener, t and in not a few cases a clever cobbler a as well. 3

a THE SERVICE PROBLEM; • s j Only a few of our competitors employ i servants in the house. - j "My housekeeping allowance,*-' says a J a Yorkshire reader, "is £1 10s weekly. 3 ! Out of this I pay a washerwoman fort- * | Wo find that 30s a week for I housekeeping is sufficient when very earefuliy expended now, but when wo _ kept a maid it was almost impossible to . maintain a moderate standard of living ; on that amount. We have occasional 1 help for household work, but Ido most of the work myself, and in a house of j four stories, besides the basement, I am * | kept very busy." 1 FOOD IN WAR-TIME, t Onr contributors dwell much on tho - riso of food prices caused by the war. = With a salary of £120 a year, and three [ in family, of whom one is an invalid, . "meat can only be had once a week, f and that on Saturday, when thero is a 1 small joint, mado appetising with voge- * tables and a Norfolk dumpling. This j will come up cold on Sunday and Monf day, and sometimes Tuesday, and the ; chanccs are that sufficient will be left ■ to make a hash for Wednesday's dinner. | For Thursday wo have savoury soup, I. made with butter beans, with a boiled . pudding afterwards. On Friday an- - other vegetarian dinner of rice, cheese, 5 and onions, with perhaps apple puff 1 afterwards " Breakfast in this fami'y 5 consists of one rasher of bacon for tho r master of tho house, "bread and mar- . garine and jam for mother and daugh- ■ ter. Supper consists of bread and | cheese, with cocoa and Benger's food ' for the invalid. ' Another reader (income £130 to i £150) has the following note: —'"In > 1916 butcher meat had increased to 5 double its former price, and in some ' cases more than that. My invariable 1 rule was to order half the quantity I that I formerly asked for. Insensibly ; wo ate less, with greater' relish and bet--1 ter results.'' j i HOUSE RENT. ! A number of our contributors "sit " rent free," and are relieved from the L burden of taxes. Tho hardest cases are ' those of pastors' families who must allow for rent and taxes in the annual ' budget. Only a few are in this ; position. ■ DRESSMAKING AT HOME. Nearly all our contributors arc expert needlewomen. "My husband * allows me £20 annually," says one, "as ' a dress allowance for myself and my daughter aged twelve, and a boy of ton. His own expenditure on clothing aver- . ages £7 a year. Theso sums would be quite insufficient if I did not make practically all my own and the children's garments, and all my husband's underclothing. I also knit socks for him and tho boy. Boots and shoes are a heavy item." ■ CHILDREN'S DRESS. ?'Next to the housekeeping," says Femina, "the allowance for clothing causes the most anxiety, and perhaps <.no of tho greatest trials of these wartime days is the inability to dress one's children as one would wish. The amount includes boots and shoes and their repairs, suits, costumes, frocks, hats, etc. All sewing, of course, is done at home. Though my little daughter is going to school, I have never yet bought her a coat or the material for one. I have always nad something by me that wo.uld servo. Her school coat was made out of an old frock, and her best coat out of an old one of mine. Her little muff and fur were also made out of an old fur of mine, and really looked quite smart. "When possible, I put a touch of embroidery—which is now so fashionable—on her coats and frocks; It makes them look less home made. "Her frocks, when too small, are made into pinafore frocks. Mothers will know how they burst out/ at the elbows and underneath the arms, while the skirt is quite good. I cut the top right away, make shoulder straps with pieces from tho sleeves —which incidentally has the result of .lengthening the frock and frequently saves undoing the bottom bem. I then buy »i pretty picce of delaine, - the same colouring as frock. One and.a half yards makes a little blouse, and the result is a splendid school frock." IN PRAISE OF ADVERTISEMENTS. A clever Scottish housewife hopes that pictorial dress advertisements will not be banished from the papers; "An illustration of some firm's special fur necklets, for instance, raises in my mind not the idea of purchasing one, but of turning a wearied-looking stole into something smart and new, so combating effectively a husband's desire to buy me a new set." VARIOUS ITEMS. A number of writers dwell oil the outside claims so freely made on ihe poor minister's income. "Our income when the war broke out w;i.s £130. a year, and appeals for charities were almost a weekly institution," says tho mistress of a household of three. "It was no part of our intention to avoid answering them. It is true that, while wo began by giving pounds e.g., ot tho institution of the Belgian Relief Fund—we had to descend via halfcrowns and florins to shillings, and :n two instances to the actual sixpence." Hospitality is freely and cheerfully given, even in the smallest country manse. Many readers allude with pleasure to the extra expense incurred by entertaining members of the congregation to tea or supper. A Primitive Methodist minister's wife says: "Porridge and bread and milk were always prominent for breakfast or supper. We had to sacrifice, certainly (but we did not suffer in tho least), for we entertained on a very large scale. We live in a military centre, and we try to make ours 'a home away .from home' to the dear, gallant, worthy defenders of our homeland. How I have 'managed' surprises us, but, like the 'widow,' we have alwavs had some 'oil in our cruse' to supply the real needs of our family and company." Very few references are made to holidays. Some say definitely that the income allows of no expenditure cn this important item. Here is a typical paragraph:— "Our luxuries, strictly so-called, were never very serious items. The chief of these used to be an occasional 'off' day spent in roaming over some special part of the beautiful and historic district in which we lived. Sometimes we walked to it, had tea in an hotel, and returned by train. By 1916 these little expeditions were no more. They had gone the way of our golf. Less than the money for them even is the time which was then, and is now. being devoted to extra visitation md war work." A remarkable feature of ■ the bompetion is tho unvarying cheerfulness of the writers. We have not found a ' single instance of grumbling or complaint. House-mistresses are proud of their skill in making a small salary , go a long way, and we are far mis- : taken if these country manses do not include some of the happiest homes in the United Kingdom." SAMPLE BUDGETS. FROM A GLOUCESTERSHIRE MANSE. J We have an income cf £130, i.e., £120 in cash and a manse valued at £10 per annum. Judged by pro-war standards , this is only worth £80 —perhaps less — i to-day. 1 Our family consists of a girl aged five '• and a boy aged two. A large garden is , attached to the house, which provides ' [vegetables for tho year and fruit for

about six months. The cheapness oi the country is somewhat counteracted by the absence of shops, "which necessitates many articles being purchased from the town, with a carrier's charge of 3d per article added. Our Budget for the year is as follows: , Food£ s. d. Garden seeds (potatoes, etc.) .. 1 5 C 1 Bread, 16l'o per week at 2J<l per lb 71G 0 Heat and bacon, slb per wee):, at Is 7d (average) .. .. 20 11 S Margarine, 21b per week, at laid lb 513 S Sugar, Sib per week, at 6d lb .. 212 0 Tea, Jib per week, at 3s lb .. S 18 0 Milk, 2igals. per week, at Is Sd gal. 915 0 Cereals, lib per week, at 7d (average) 2 16 4 Fruit, dry and fre3li .. 2 0 0 Various articles, 6uch as cocoa, coffee, ogfrs, syrirp. baking powders, currants, fiih (thtc latter 1 rarely obtainable} .. ..15 0 0 Babies' foods during illness: Mellin's, Virol, Brand's cssence, Ai--1 lenbury's, liquid bocf .. 3 0 0 Food total .. 74 6 8 " A' s. d. Fuel and Light: — Coal, 4 tons per annum, at 38s 712 0 Oil. 1 gallon per week, at is .. 212 0 Doctor's bill and medicine .. 5 0 0 Clothing:— Garments and suits .. .. 10 0 0 Boots .. .. .. 2 0 0 Laundry, washing materials, etc. .. 4 0 0 Papers .. .. .. 212 0 Subscriptions .. .. 2 0 0 War savings .. .. .. 10 0 Charwoman .. .. 5 0 0 Hardware, and miscellaneous .. 3 15 0 JQI9 17 8 A glance at this budget shows that even when the vegetables and fruit are included from the garden, tho bulk ol ! the income is taken for the tliree chief necessities of food, fuel, and clothing. Even then the greatest economy is needed to make 51b of meat suffice. In tho summer a sustaining meal is made of vegetables, preferably with peas, for they coutain much nitrogenous matter. A meal can also be made of potatoes, but as they contain only 2.1 per cent, of nitrogenous matter and 0.2 fat, the deficiency of these essentials is made up by mixing with a small quantity of milk and flour and frying in fat. Meat goes further when boiled, and the most economical is beef, lor it can ■ be cooked in a greater variety of ways. It is cheaper to buy in large quantities than in small. Stews of meat and . vegetables have the greatest food value, as the valuable salts of the vegetables are retained in the stew and not thrown away as when boiled separately. Jam is made from tho garden fruit, and is only half the price of shop jam. As regards clothes, many a garment shows a tendency to descend to posterity from father to son or from mother to daughter. £3 invested in a sowing machine is probably the best- investment a busy mother can make. But with all these economies the steadj rise in prices results in an increasing strain week by week, and any further increase in this direction must make it impossible for even the most thrifty housewife to manage on such a small income. FROM A COLLIERY VILLAGE. We are a family of five, consisting of my husband, myself, two girls, aged respectively eighteen and seventeen, and a bov aged fifteen and a half. We are Jiving at present in a small colliery villago on the outskirts of a great munition centre, where the cost of living is necessarily high, owing to. ,the temporary incrense of population and the shortage of supplies to the town; the high wages earned by tho workers and- consequent spending powers by no means diminishes the difficulty of making a small income adequately cover the needs of a family. As all ministers' wives know, a certain amount of appearance must be kept up, both as regards clothing and also m tho home, about •which- the wife of a working-man, -whoso salartf is much higher than that of a minister, need trouble little, if at all. Fortunately for us, our children are all past the school age (for they must ; be educated, and even taking into con- . sideration reduced fees for ministers' ; children, it means a good proportion ot one's income must go in that "direction), i Our yonngcr daughter has been at work for a year, earning 7s Cd to. 12s 6d per wceK ; which, wnen travelling expenses, etc., are deducted, leaves sufficient, with much »carol ill scheming, to provide clothing and other necessaries for the girls, and occasionally help out tho ; wardrobe of the rest of the family. Being in the growing stage still, the children are constantly needing .new garments to' replace those out-grown, and we make as many as possible at home, and mend as •long as there is anything mcndablc, and by careful pressing atid a little alteration now and then, old garments renew their youth, especially for us older folk. Boots and shoes arc a large item in our expenditure, and, as all mothers know, young people's boots are quickly worn through, even with care. In the early stages of the war, when tho rise in prices was commencing, my husband began to do a little amateur cobbling, with the result that. ho now docs all the family's repairs, which means a considerable saving in a year. For instance, a fow -weeks ago with 10s worth of pieces of leather, he soled and heeled five pairs of boots and shoes—tho present cost of which at a cobblcr's is 4s 6d to 5s 6d a pair. My husband is a Methodist minister, 'whose salary is £140 per year, but wc have insurances amounting to £20 per year, which down our incomo to £120, further reduqed by travelling expenses, this being a large circuit. Of course, our house is provided, but like most ministers' houses, is far fjom perfect—for instance, we have in our present house a kitchen range which, while burning a 'vast amount of coal, will not cook, thereiore a gas cooker is essential, making the lighting and heating expenses greater than they ought to be in a small house, oven though the kitchen fire is always allowed to die out after dinner, and by using the study as a liv-ing-room one fire does for most of tho day—economy of fuel being an absolute necessity with coal at 30s a load, even in a colliery village, and gas 3s 6d per 1000 feet at present, with tho prospect of a further rise in the future. My housekeeping allowance is 30s a week, »vhich covers food, washing, all household cleaning necessities, ctc., and in these days of increasingly high prices, ono is sometimes at a loss to know how to sot about portioning it ! Out. Having no accommodation for family washing the heavier things go out, and we do as many of the smaller things at home as possible, the cost of wliich oomes to from 2s 6d to 3s per week. Our meat allowance seldom exceeds 5s a week. 1 buy what I consider to bo the most profitable piece at the week-end, which we have not for the Sunday dinner (my husband, unlike many ministers, "is always at homo for meals). Monday we have cold meat, and then Tuesday commences a series of transformations —hash, with plenty of vegetables (carrots, parsnips, onions, etc.), liotpotcottage pie, stuffed potatoes or onions, and many other mado-up dishes, which require little meat. Occasionally I get a little shin of beef, which, when slowly stewed for a long time, makes an excellent filling for a "beef steak" pudding. Fortunately, we have sufficient land to grow vegetables, and, my husband being fond of gardening, this keeps us supplied with plenty of fresh vegetables, potatoes, etc., all the year round, which is, of course, a great help to tho housekeeping, and also saves the bread. Approximately, I portion out my week's money as follows : —12s 6d for groceries, etc.; 5s for meat; 2s 6d milk; us, bread, etc.; 3s 6d. washing and cleaning: leaving a small margin for odd necessaries. Naturally, all luxuries are banned, however simple, and if at the end of the -week there i 3 a small balance in hand; that is a matter for thankfulness.