THE DOMESTIC BALANCE SHEET

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 391, 27 June 1928, Page 5

THE DOMESTIC BALANCE SHEET

No man would dream of running an enterprise without keeping books and drawing up balance sheets. Yet the housekeeper whose enterprise is the administration of her home seldom keeps accounts of her expenditure, or knows at the end of the year in what proportions her funds have been allocated to various purposes. There can hardly be a “profit and loss’* account for the housewife, unless, indeed, she attributes the physical ills of her family to her defective budgetting and places the doctor’s bills to the “loss” side! But she can apportion all her outgoings to a penny, and it will probably astonish her to discover just how much she spends on non-edible things—polishes, brushes, laundry, renewal of curtain nets, employment of outside help and so on. Now all these expenses may, if properly analysed, demonstrate to her a means of economy. For instance, she may conclude that there is money to be gained by making furniture creams and floor polish at home. Again, she may be appalled by the frequency with which she has had to renew her stock of brushes, and conclude that in future she must lay in her stock from the nearest cheap bazaar, or else buy only the most expensive makes. The middle course has probably been "long in her particular case. The laundry total may well prove the wisdom of investment in an electric washer and ironer, for a year’s laundry account might easily cover such an outlay. It may, indeed, prove true economy to buy the washer, cut out the wages of the occasional “help” and employ in her place an extra maid tvho will in future do the washing and other work for which outside assistance is now needed. S.G.