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Author: 
 
 Haskins, Charles Waldo 
 
 Title: 
 
 How to keep household 
 accounts 
 
 Place: 
 
 New York 
 
 Date: 
 
 1903 
 
MASTER NEGATIVE # 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 PRESERVATION DIVISION 
 
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 ORIGINAL MATERIAL AS FILMED - EXISTING BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD 
 
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 430 ,09 4 
 
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 Haskins, Charles Waldo, 1852-1903. 
 
 How to keep lioiiseliold accounts ; a manual of family 
 finance, by C. ^V. Haskins ... New York and London, 
 Haiper & brotliers, 1903. 
 
 V, rli p., 1 l, 116, ill p. forms. 17.^'". 
 
 1. iiai»esttt! CLUiiuirry— Accounting. i. Title. 
 
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 I Columbia ®[mbers(itp 
 
 m ttje Citp ot iBeto l^orfe 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 THE ALUMNI FUND 
 COMMITTEE 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CLIFFORD GRAY, '02S. 
 
 1924 
 
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 > 
 
 HOW TO KEEP 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 A MANUAL OF FAMILY FINANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 C. W. HASKINS. L.H.M., C.P.A. 
 
 Late Dean of the New York University School of 
 Commerce, Accounts, and Finance 
 
 K '. 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1903 
 
 
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 Copyright, 1903, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 j4/i rig^hts reserved. 
 Published April, 1903. 
 
 
 
 
 f 00 
 
 
 I 
 
 TO 
 
 MY DAUGHTER 
 
 RUTH 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 
r t 
 
 % } 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I" I 
 
 ¥"< : 
 
 II 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS little book is not a treatise on 
 book-keeping. It is less, and it is 
 more. Far less, because it treats of but 
 one of many thousand applications of 
 that useful art; and more, because, be- 
 ginning with the very simplest exposition 
 of general principles, it endeavors to un- 
 fold, as pleasantly as may be, a science of 
 accountancy, and to indicate its relations, 
 in the sphere of domestic economy, to 
 finance, administration, and the other sci- 
 ences of social life. 
 
 In view of the present unsatisfactory 
 condition of instruction in domestic ac- 
 countancy, it has been thought well to 
 
1% I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 employ, as far as possible, the historical 
 method of teaching. The story form, it 
 is hoped, will lend interest to the ex- 
 ploration of the field and to the laying 
 down of the bases upon which the ac- 
 countancy of the house is built. 
 
 Very little has been as yet written 
 upon this important subject of household 
 accounting. Especially is this true of 
 books in our own language. To a few 
 Italian, German, and French writers, 
 however, a general acknowledgment is 
 here due for material assistance in the 
 effort to produce a manual of domestic 
 money matters which may prove of prac- 
 tical utility in the administration of the 
 modem home. 
 
 r 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Domestic Economy i 
 
 II. Household Accounts g 
 
 III. The Home Account-book 34 
 
 IV. The Balance-sheet 57 
 
 V. Budget, Vouchers, and Inventory . 66 
 
 VI. The Bank Account 91 
 
 W«W-ii«9«*^i&^^^Wi 
 
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 ^\ 
 
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 '6 I 
 
 HOW TO KEEP 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 I 
 
 THE oldest existing literary work on 
 household management is the Eco- 
 nomics of Xenophon. From this charm- 
 ing Greek classic — of which there are 
 many good translations — we have our 
 very words economy and economics ; and 
 for twenty-three hundred years it has 
 held its own as the code, the breviary, 
 the book of books, of all thrift. Aristotle 
 adopted its title for one of his own trea- 
 tises ; Cicero made a Latin rendering of it 
 
, i^t^^^twi^^-J 5S?-i; X ~ ^ ^iff 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 in his youth; and the only other really 
 great book on the same subject, the 
 Italian Delia Famiglia^ was written in 
 imitation of it. 
 
 The Italian work, founded upon that 
 of Xenophon, is variously ascribed to 
 the celebrated architect Alberti, whose 
 name is closely associated with that of 
 Leonardo da Vinci, and to Pandolfini, 
 another Florentine of the early Renais- 
 sance. It very closely follows its original, 
 even to the incidents of the introductory 
 prayer and the later advice to forego the 
 use of face powders. It takes the yoimg 
 bride over the house ; gives her the keys ; 
 teaches her the oversight of servants 
 and the right ordering of all her affairs ; 
 makes honesty her chief virtue; inducts 
 her into the science of family finance; 
 in a word, develops her from a shy girl, 
 brought up in careful seclusion, to the 
 
 I 
 
 
 • 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 perfect mistress of the household, and 
 sets before us, in a well-drawn picture, 
 one of the ideal characters of early- 
 Italian literature. 
 
 The Florentines became noted for their 
 orderliness in the affairs of domestic 
 economy; and when modem book-keep- 
 ing, invented by a monk, was introduced 
 into their household matters, the women 
 we are told "are supposed to have been 
 in this respect model helpmates to their 
 husbands." 
 
 About twenty-five hundred books, in 
 the English language alone, have been 
 classed in one way or another xmder the 
 general head of domestic economy. A 
 very great number of them are handy 
 collections of recipes of various kinds; 
 many are books of practical advice to the 
 members of the household; some are 
 special discussions of the application of 
 
 3 
 
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 4- .s't^^-^3^«>1S*i^-«*^i" '^ ■9^=35 Jiv^a ?, ^ ^Iffe.^ ,^, ^ 
 
 I 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 particular departments of human knowl- 
 edge to family life; and others are com- 
 mendable and often successful attempts 
 to develop or elucidate one or more 
 of the administrative functions of the 
 housewife. A limited number of these 
 books are of scientific aspect, and of the 
 highest value within their sphere ; and all, 
 no doubt, would be of use in a scientific 
 treatment of the whole subject. Were 
 some genius, however, to erect, out of 
 the mass of their material, a science of 
 domestic economy having its own iden- 
 tity and its own broad comprehensive- 
 ness, a few staring gaps, it is feared, 
 would be left in the superstructure. On 
 the financial front, certainly, the absence 
 of accountancy would be noticeable. To 
 supply this lack is the object of the 
 present volume. 
 
 Educational leaders and reformers in 
 
 ' 
 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 various countries have endeavored, not 
 wholly without encouragement and suc- 
 cess, to introduce domestic economy into 
 their national systems of instruction. As 
 in the case of our literature of the subject, 
 their actual teaching, thus far, has been 
 largely confined to particular branches 
 of housekeeping. Their profession, how- 
 ever, has induced a careful study of pro- 
 found works on female education; has 
 led them to a lively interchange of ideas ; 
 and has kept alive their scientific as- 
 pirations. Thus, aggressively, they have 
 pushed on, enlarging and unifying their 
 courses of study, until a few of them have 
 gained for domestic economy a sort of 
 permissive foothold on the lecture plat- 
 forms of certain universities. Their pro- 
 grammes, if combined, would suggest a 
 consideration of the household, its moral, 
 intellectual, social, and economic welfare, 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 and its organization and general admin- 
 istration; woman, her sphere, her need 
 of directive intelligence, and the edu- 
 cation of girls; the house, its location 
 with reference to business, health, econo- 
 my, and general convenience, and its in- 
 terior arrangement ; heat, light, and venti- 
 lation ; furniture, from the point of view 
 of hygiene, art, and practical use, its 
 disposition about the house, its freedom 
 from dirt, and its repair and maintenance ; 
 carpets, draperies, and the like ; clothing 
 and toilet articles, their choice, cost, and 
 care ; foods, their varieties, succession by 
 seasons, cost, use according to one's age, 
 occupation, and condition of health, with 
 rules for the detection of adulteration; 
 care of the sick; and the advantages of 
 keeping down expenses. 
 
 The high school for young women at 
 Geneva teaches, both in its literary 
 
 'I 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOMY 
 
 department and in its pedagogical sec- 
 tion, the principles of domestic economy, 
 the role of the mistress, the need of 
 professional teaching, care of furniture, 
 clothing, linen, washing, light, heat, ali- 
 mentation, provisions, accounts, budget 
 of receipts and expenses, savings, and 
 insurance. 
 
 A programme of domestic economy 
 laid before a congress of educators at 
 Brussels is of value for the prominence 
 it gives to a suggested course of family 
 finance, and is interesting for the place 
 upon the faculty accorded to *'Le Bon- 
 homme Richard." Its concluding head 
 is: 
 
 ** Money and work. Receipts and expenses. 
 How to make the most of one's knowledge and 
 talents. Gaining and keeping, a double profit ; 
 temperance in the number of articles desired; 
 how to buy; knowledge of the price of pro- 
 
 7 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 visions, of cloth, of linen, of calico, of utensils, 
 and the like. Avarice and prodigality. Ac- 
 counts of the household. The memorandum- 
 book and the monthly examination. The 
 superfluous and the necessary. Buying on 
 credit; danger of debt; honesty. Promptness 
 in repairing or replacing articles broken, de- 
 teriorated, or worn out. The toilet. Luxury, 
 good taste, and simplicity. The maxims of 
 Benjamin Franklin, *Poor Richard': wise em- 
 ployment of time. The habit of taking notes. ' ' 
 
 f 
 
 \ 
 
 II 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 IT is clearly evident that domestic 
 economy, or household manage- 
 ment, is very largely a matter of money 
 and money's worth, and that it marks 
 out an important field of financial ac- 
 countancy. 
 
 Nor is this financial aspect of the sub- 
 ject in any wise confined, as we are too 
 apt to imagine, to that "exterior" de- 
 partment of administration which is to- 
 day included under the head of poHtical 
 economy, or economics. All who have 
 ever treated this phase of the subject 
 have contended that finance and account- 
 ancy sustain important relations to wel- 
 
 9 
 
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 .ii(K**i»>«l«ili«**'«S»««aiWW(S%*« 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 ^^1 
 
 fare in the ''interior" management, to 
 which we now more particularly apply 
 the term domestic economy, and which 
 lies within the special province of the 
 woman. 
 
 The story told by Josephus, and less 
 fully by Esdras, of the Jewish captive 
 who argued, in a prize essay read before 
 Darius and his princes and grandees, that 
 the care and preservation of all house- 
 hold business is dependent upon wom- 
 an's administration, shows that such an 
 argument could be understood and ap- 
 preciated throughout the whole Persian 
 empire, from India to the Danube. 
 
 To the Greek, as may be seen in Xen- 
 ophon, the home interior was a depart- 
 ment of economic administration, de- 
 manding of woman a very fair measure 
 of business ability. Aristophanes, in his 
 comic argument that women should be 
 
 ID 
 
 also at the head of all outside affairs, says 
 that they are already taking care of 
 everything within, as, from the days of 
 old, they have been always doing, and 
 adds that for ways and means there's 
 nothing cleverer than a woman; that as 
 for negotiation, she's hard indeed to beat 
 or cheat. And Aristotle, borrowing the 
 time-worn figure of the Danaides, says 
 that a domestic economy which does not 
 join to the exterior talent for acquisition 
 the interior one of managing and util- 
 izing, and especially of calculating ex- 
 penses so that they shall not exceed the 
 receipts, is like the sieve, or the bucket 
 pierced with holes, with which one tries 
 to carry water. 
 
 The Latins were a calculating, adminis- 
 trative people ; and the matron of Rome, 
 freer than her sister of Athens, and bear- 
 ing undisputed sway in her household, 
 
 II 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 guided her affairs frugally and with taste, 
 and enriched the family treasury by her 
 business-like activity and exactness. 
 
 The woman of the Middle Ages, wheth- 
 er lady of the manor, mistress of the 
 city residence, or guardian of the humble 
 cottage of the peasant, was remarkable 
 for business ability. The Florentine imi- 
 tation of the Economics of Xenophon, al- 
 ready referred to, was one of the most 
 popular books of the Renaissance. A 
 hundred years later, Olivier de Serres, 
 a French writer on rural and household 
 affairs, could still describe the mistress 
 of the mansion as Xenophon had de- 
 scribed her; and Montaigne, avowing 
 that he had no concern with business, 
 and was glad that '' women do find de- 
 light in managing affairs,'' could safely 
 relinquish to his wife the planting and 
 reaping of his crops, the oversight of 
 
 12 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 his masons, the negotiating of bargams 
 for him, the collection of debts due him, 
 and the keeping of his accounts, while 
 he, as one of his countrymen has said, 
 '* dawdled through Italy at his leisure.'' 
 
 Writing of woman's administration as 
 tmderstood in the sixteenth century, Mon- 
 taigne says: ''The most useful and hon- 
 orable science and occupation for the 
 mother of a family is that of domestic 
 economy. I see many who are avari- 
 cious, but of real economists I find but 
 few. This, indeed, is the mistress qual- 
 ity — the one that should be sought above 
 all others, the dowry that will either ruin 
 or save our establishments." 
 
 Still later, two women, allied by mar- 
 riage to the family of La Rochefoucauld, 
 gave to the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries examples of the wisest ad- 
 ministration of extensive country and 
 
 13 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 city establishments. The former, Jeanne 
 de Schomberg, Duchess of Liancourt, 
 drew up a scheme of administration in 
 which we discover a broad conception of 
 family finance ; and the latter, Augustine 
 de Montmirail, Duchess of Doudeauville, 
 not only administered her own estate, 
 but brought the large hereditary prop- 
 erty of her exiled husband through the 
 Reign of Terror, and ''left the family 
 of La Rochefoucauld in the unusual posi- 
 tion of landed proprietors when nearly all 
 the French nobility were irretrievably 
 ruined/' 
 
 A close view of early domestic ac- 
 cotmting may be had in many of the old 
 '* household books'* of the women of 
 England. ''We read," says an English 
 writer, "of the abundant hospitality of 
 the great houses of past days ; but refer- 
 ence to books like those which record the 
 
 14 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 household expenses of Northumberland 
 or the Countess of Hardwick show how 
 carefully every expense was regulated by 
 the heads of the family. The famous 
 ' Bess of Hardwicke ' was a careful house- 
 keeper. ' Avoiding superfluities or waste 
 of anything' is to be the rule of her 
 establishment, as laid down in the house- 
 hold books which have come down to 
 us; and it is curious, in perusing docu- 
 ments like these, to observe how careful 
 our ancestors were to look into every 
 trifle of their domestic expenditure." 
 
 What is still more curious, however, 
 and worthy of all admiration, is the sur- 
 prising perfection of result obtained with 
 the very primitive appliances at their 
 disposal. The books were hardly more 
 than diaries; the entries were mere 
 memorandums, and were written, for a 
 long time, in a crabbed Latin; and the 
 
 15 
 
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HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 amounts were expressed, up to a late 
 period, in the old Roman numerals, some- 
 times in columns, oftener run in with 
 the text, and almost impossible of addi- 
 tion except by a roundabout method of 
 figuring or with the aid of the abacus, 
 a device somewhat similar to the count- 
 ing-frame of our kindergartens. So ut- 
 terly unscientific, indeed, was the whole 
 scheme, and so dependent upon con- 
 trivance for the accomplishment of any 
 general result, that men of great reputa- 
 tion — as in the Rules of Saint Robert, 
 ''that the good Bishop of Lincoln, Saint 
 Robert the Greathead, made for • the 
 Countess of Lincoln'' — gave themselves 
 up to the writing of chapters on ''How 
 you may know to compare the accounts/' 
 The household book of the ducal 
 family of Buckingham is written in the 
 abbreviated Latin of the year 1507, the 
 
 16 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 numbers being expressed in Roman let- 
 ters incorporated with the reading-mat- 
 ter. The following is one of the shorter 
 paragraphs ; it records the expenditure at 
 Newbury for " the dinner of the Lord with 
 his household; dined, gentry, twenty; 
 valets, fourteen; gargons, twenty-nine'': 
 
 Die D'nica ZXX^^ die Janu, ib'm. 
 Panet. ex it'm ex empcon. xxxiij pan. p'c. 
 
 xvj^. ob. 
 Cellar, expend, it'm ex empcon. ij pich. vini 
 
 ;d 
 
 gasc. p c. XV] 
 ButtilL exp. it'm ex empcon. xv lag. cervis. 
 
 • • • • • , 
 
 pen 11]^. ix*^. 
 Coquin. exp. it'm ex empc. j qrt. cam. boum 
 
 p'cij iiijs. iiij^. vitul. p'c. ij^. viij^. 
 Achates ex in ijb^T porcellis xij^. ij capon xiiij<^. 
 
 ij cunictis xvj^. j curlew, v^. ix redshankes 
 
 vj^. v disc, butir v^. ovis gallin. iiij^. herbis 
 
 et farin. aven. ij*^. 
 AmL & Camer. ex. de fagottes xxviij. p'cij 
 
 13*. 111]'*. 
 
 17 
 
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 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 [Translation.] 
 
 Sunday, 30th January. 
 Pantry, Spent, from purchase there, t,^ 
 loaves price idYzd. Cellar , Spent, from pur- 
 chase there, 2 pitchers of Gascony wine price 
 i6d. Buttery, Spent, from purchase there, 15 
 flagons of ale price 35. gd. Kitchen, Spent, 
 from purchase there, i quarter of beef price 
 45. ^d., veal price 25. 8g?. Fresh Provisions, 
 Spent for two pigs i2d,, 2 capons i^d,, 2 
 rabbits i6d., i curlew $d., 9 redshanks 6d,, 5 
 dishes of butter 5<i., eggs ^d., herbs and oat- 
 meal 2d, Hall and Chamber, Spent, 28 faggots 
 price 2s. 4c/. 
 
 Mistress Kytson, of Hengrave, widow 
 of a wealthy London merchant of the 
 time of Elizabeth, kept her accounts in 
 English, but in the old memorandum 
 form. Her outlay for one day, while 
 travelling to the City in the winter of 
 1574, is thus entered in her household 
 book: 
 
 18 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Wednesday afternoon, December ist, my 
 m^^ entering London, p^ until she was en- 
 tered the City, viz, for her dyett w*^ all her 
 men in that space, \]s, iKd. — for the horses 
 meet, lviiJ5. m]d. — for firing, iJ5. ixJ. 
 
 In reward at Mr. BedaFs house, where my 
 m^^^ lodged the first night, y]s. viijd. 
 
 In rewarde to the musicians at Ware, iiJ5. 
 
 For the hire of certain horses to draw my 
 mF^^ cooch from Whitsworth to London, 
 XXVJ5. viijJ. 
 
 Delivered to my m^^^ ^q gj^^ i^y ^j^^ ^^y j^^ 
 
 her little purse, xx5. 
 
 To the carrier for the carriage of sundry 
 things, amounting to Ixxx. c. wayght, at i]s. 
 iiijd. le c. — ix/i. vi^. viijd. 
 
 To the hire of certain men to attend upon 
 his cart by the waye, being charged with 
 plate, iiJ5. 
 
 If we compare with these extracts a 
 few lines taken, say, from the ''booke of 
 the howshold'' of Lord and Lady North, 
 1577, and endeavor to foot the figures 
 
 19 
 
 I i 
 
1 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Up, we shall wonder why, unless in blind 
 imitation of the new ''Italian method,'' 
 columns have been introduced at all; 
 and we shall admire the administrative 
 mind that could base a budget upon a 
 book containing ' * A ' ' cartload, * ' 2 ' ' horse- 
 loads, and '*v" livres in a single line: 
 
 Gammonds of 
 
 
 
 
 
 bacon 
 
 • • • 
 
 Vllj 
 
 
 XXX5. 
 
 
 Larde 
 
 xiij lbs 
 
 
 viiJ5. 
 
 viijd. 
 
 Neats tongs, 
 
 
 
 
 
 feet, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 udd^ 
 
 xi^. i 
 
 
 liiJ5. 
 
 • • • • « 
 iiija. 
 
 Butter 
 
 iiijC XXX 
 
 lb 
 
 v]li. 
 
 viJ5. vj(i. 
 
 Eggs 
 
 ijM vC. xxij 
 
 • • • J • 
 
 ii]h. 
 
 • • • 
 
 11J5. 
 
 Sturgeons 
 
 iij caggs 
 
 
 xlvJ5. 
 
 Yii]d, 
 
 Craye f yshes 
 
 viij doos 
 
 
 xiiJ5. 
 
 • • • • « 
 
 luja. 
 
 Turbutts 
 
 • • • 
 
 VllJ 
 
 
 Iiij5. 
 
 • • • • « 
 
 iiija. 
 
 Oysters A cartload and 2 
 
 horseloads. 
 
 vH, 
 
 These were the accounts of the titled 
 and the wealthy. The woman of hum- 
 
 20 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 bier condition, whose affairs were less 
 complicated, had simpler methods. 
 
 A story is told of an old lady who kept 
 her accounts in chalk on the back of her 
 shop door, in a system known only to 
 herself. She fell ill, and her son came 
 home to manage the shop until his mother 
 recovered ; but he did not understand her 
 method of *' booking.'' The result was 
 that every time a customer came to set- 
 tle up the son was compelled to unhinge 
 the door and carry it up to his mother's 
 bedroom, so that she might calculate the 
 amount of the debt. He endured this for 
 a day or two, and then gave the door a 
 coat of paint, thus finally settling the ac- 
 counts. The old lady declared, when she 
 came down again, that by this action she 
 lost nearly five hundred dollars. 
 
 But now comes an unexplained wonder ; 
 and it is partly on account of the exist- 
 
 21 
 
 
II 
 
 !l 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 ence of this unique riddle of economic 
 history that the narrative form has been 
 thus far followed in our attempt to instil 
 into the mind of the reader the general 
 principles of household accountancy. It 
 must have been evident that we are deal- 
 ing with a branch of human knowledge 
 once and for long ages recognized and 
 fully accepted as an important part of 
 woman's education, but now, unfort- 
 unately, almost extinct. It creates, in- 
 deed, less surprise to-day to read that a 
 woman of Babylon was a principal mem- 
 ber of the great banking firm of that an- 
 cient city than it would to be told that 
 a thoroughly modern lady of the United 
 States had incorporated into her domes- 
 tic administration a fairly comprehensive 
 system of financial accounting. We have 
 seen that accounting is an essential feat- 
 ure of domestic economy, that its func- 
 
 22 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 tions are embraced in the sphere of the 
 woman, that her administrative ability 
 requires it, and that for a long time she 
 was identified with its application. Why, 
 then, we are compelled to ask, and at what 
 point in the world's history, did the wom- 
 an of the household begin to lose interest 
 in the science and practice of accounts? 
 As early, at least, as the sixteenth century 
 this falling away had become noticeable, 
 and from that time on there is a general 
 tone of regretful argument, instead of the 
 old Xenophontean praise, in approaching 
 the subject of household accounting. 
 
 While women of the type of Madame de 
 Maintenon were looking after their home 
 accounts, others, more susceptible of ex- 
 traneous influences, were drawn into the 
 swirl of a less practical life; and we 
 read that the Precieuses — a nickname 
 bestowed upon the somewhat finical la- 
 
 23 
 
PH 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 dies of the early part of the seventeenth 
 century— " left their servants' accounts 
 imaudited that they might preach the 
 doctrines of grace." 
 
 Sir Matthew Hale complains that in his 
 time "the yoimg gentlewomen think it 
 disparagement for them to know what 
 belongs to good housewifery or to prac- 
 tise it. They know, ' ' he says, " the ready 
 way to consume an estate and to ruin a 
 family quickly, but neither know nor can 
 endure to learn or practise the ways and 
 methods to save it or increase it; and 
 it is no wonder that great portions are 
 expected with them, for their portions 
 are commonly all their value." 
 
 It had become a maxim of the Dutch, 
 however, that " no one is ever ruined who 
 keeps good accounts"; and Mary Astell, 
 an English reformer of the seventeenth 
 century, could still recommend to her 
 
 24 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 countrywomen the example of the house- 
 wives of Holland, who, she writes, " keep 
 the books, balance the accounts, and do 
 all the business with as much dexterity 
 and exactness as their own or our men 
 can do." 
 
 To the amiable Fenelon, however, we 
 must look for a picture of the real con- 
 dition of things, as well as for an in- 
 dication of the true line of reform. He 
 and Madame de Maintenon complained 
 that in their day few girls could cast up 
 the simplest household accounts without 
 falling into confusion; and while the 
 prelate, in his classical work on female 
 education, developed his theories, the 
 court lady endeavored to apply them and 
 to promulgate them by the example of her 
 famous school of Saint-Cyr. 
 
 F6nelon thought that besides Latin, 
 history, biography, travels, poetry, music, 
 
 25 
 
 I 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 and art, a young woman should know 
 something of law, trade, and manufact- 
 ure, and should be taught the *' minutest 
 details of domestic economy/' He pre- 
 scribed for her a knowledge of the four 
 rules of arithmetic, not that she might 
 become a second Hypatia, but in order 
 that she might keep the accounts of the 
 household. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth, a century later, writ- 
 ing of economy as a domestic virtue, says 
 that children must have the management 
 of money, and that girls ought to keep 
 the family accounts; and Mrs. Ellis, in 
 one of her remarkable works on English 
 women, dedicated to Queen Victoria, says 
 that '' married women who love justice to 
 themselves as well as to others should 
 always keep strict accounts." 
 
 Anne Cobbett, in her once popular 
 work for English housekeepers, seems to 
 
 26 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 have in mind the comprehensive ac- 
 countancy of the chatelaine. After re- 
 ferring favorably to her father's writings 
 on cottage economy, she says: '*One 
 branch of domestic economy which de- 
 volves upon the mistress of a house is 
 to keep an accotmt of the expenditure of 
 her family. She ought to make this as 
 simple an affair as possible, by ascertain- 
 ing, first, how much the housekeeping 
 is to cost — that is to say, how much she 
 can afford to expend in it ; then, by keep- 
 ing a very strict account of every article 
 for the first two months, and making a 
 little allowance for casualties, she may 
 be able to form an estimate for the year ; 
 and if she finds that she has exceeded in 
 these two months the allotted sum, she 
 must examine each article, and determine 
 in which she can best diminish the ex- 
 pense; and then, having the average of 
 
 27 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 i 
 
 J 
 
 M 
 
 two months to go by, she may calculate 
 how much she is to allow each month 
 for meat, bread, groceries, washing, and 
 the like. Having laid down her plan, 
 whatever excess she may be compelled 
 to allow in one month she must make up 
 for in the next month. 
 
 **I should not advise the paying for 
 everything at the moment,'' she writes, 
 **but rather once a week; for if a trades- 
 man omit to keep an account of the 
 money received for a particular article, 
 he may, by mistake, make a charge as 
 for something had extra and upon trust. 
 A weekly account has every advantage 
 of ready money, and it saves trouble. I 
 should recommend that all tradespeople 
 be paid on a Monday morning, the bills 
 receipted, . . . and put by in a portfolio 
 or case where they may be easily referred 
 to as vouchers, or to refresh the memory 
 
 28 
 
 as to the price of any particular article. 
 It is a satisfaction, independent of the 
 pecuniary benefit, for the head of a 
 family to be able at the end of the year 
 to account to herself for what she has 
 done with the money." 
 
 The same attitude of entreaty is seen 
 in the writings of the Americans. Our 
 best-known work on domestic economy, 
 for many years, was a treatise by Miss 
 Catherine Beecher. **How few," she 
 says, ''keep any account at all of their 
 current expenses! If a woman," she 
 again says, arguing for benevolence, ''has 
 never kept any accounts, nor attempt- 
 ed to regulate her expenditures by the 
 right rule, nor used her influence with 
 those that control her plans, she has no 
 right to say how much she can or cannot 
 do. Let a woman keep an account of all 
 she spends for herself and her family for 
 
 29 
 
;! 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 a year, arranging the items under three 
 general heads. Under the first put all 
 articles for food, raiment, rent, wages, and 
 all conveniences. Under the second 
 place all sums paid in securing an edu- 
 cation, and books, and other intellectual 
 advantages. Under the third head place 
 all that is spent for benevolence and 
 religion. 
 
 ''At the end of the year the first and 
 largest account will show the mixed 
 items of necessaries and superfluities, 
 which can be arranged so as to gain 
 some sort of idea how much has been 
 spent for superfluities and how much 
 for necessaries. Then, by comparing 
 what is spent for superfluities with what 
 is spent for intellectual and moral ad- 
 vantages, data will be gained for judging 
 of the past and regulating the future." 
 
 And again, arguing on purely economic 
 
 30 
 
 I 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 grounds. Miss Beecher continues : ''There 
 are certain general principles which all 
 unite in sanctioning. The first is that 
 care be taken to know the amount of in- 
 come and of current expenses, so that the 
 proper relative proportion be preserved 
 and the expenditures never exceed the 
 means. Few women can do this 
 thoroughly without keeping regular ac- 
 cotmts. A great deal of uneasiness is 
 caused to both husband and wife, in 
 many cases, by an entire want of system 
 and forethought in arranging expenses. 
 Both keep buying what they think they 
 need, without any calculation as to how 
 matters are coming out, and with a sort 
 of dread of running in debt all the time 
 harassing them. Such never know the 
 comfort of independence. But if a man 
 and woman will only calculate what their 
 income is, and then plan so as to know 
 
 31 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 i''.. 
 
 that they are all the time living within it, 
 they secure one of the greatest comforts 
 which wealth ever bestows, and what 
 many of the rich who live in a loose and 
 careless way never enjoy. It is not so 
 much the amotmt of income as the regu- 
 lar and correct apportionment of expenses 
 that makes a family truly comfortable. 
 
 *' Young ladies also,'' she adds, '* should 
 learn systematic economy in expenses; 
 and it will be a great benefit for every 
 young girl to begin at twelve or thirteen 
 years of age to make her own purchases 
 and keep her accounts, under the guid- 
 ance of her mother or some other friend. 
 How strange it appears," she concludes, 
 '*that so many young ladies take charge 
 of a husband's establishment without hav- 
 ing had either instruction or experience 
 in one of the most important duties of 
 their station." 
 
 Thus we have shown that fireside ac- 
 cotmtancy rests upon moral as well as 
 economic bases, and have indicated the 
 character of these bases as viewed by 
 those who have made domestic admin- 
 istration their study. 
 
 3 
 
 32 
 
Ill 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 ACCOUNTING is commercial or non- 
 /jL commercial. Non - commercial ac- 
 cotmting applies to the finances of those 
 who do not make commerce, or buying 
 and selling for profit, their habitual pro- 
 fession. Under this head are included 
 the capitalist and all those who live on 
 the labor of their brain and of their 
 muscles. Household accounting is prac- 
 tically identical with that of the brain- 
 worker and laborer. It is simple and 
 elementary, and is properly introductory, 
 in an educational sense, to capitalistic 
 and commercial accounting and to all 
 the higher developments of scientific ac- 
 
 34 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 countancy. By a very pretty fiction of 
 accotmtancy, the lady of the house may 
 lead a son or daughter through all the 
 experiences of an industrious and econom- 
 ical young man or woman who, from a 
 wage-earner, becomes an investor and a 
 leader of commerce and industry; and 
 thus this domestic education will lay the 
 foimdation for actual business life. This 
 method is followed in several educational 
 institutions in Europe. 
 
 For instance, the class is given the 
 case of a poor yotmg man who, having 
 saved a little money, goes to town and 
 finds employment as a laborer in the es- 
 tablishment of a merchant. His good 
 conduct and intelligence are noted by his 
 employer, who makes him his book- 
 keeper and salesman. His continued 
 activity advances him in favor, and the 
 merchant gives him his niece in marriage. 
 
 35 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Then, with his savings augmented with 
 the dowry of his bride and the facili- 
 ties of credit gained by his character, 
 the young man enters mercantile life on 
 his own account. Thus the student, ac- 
 companying a single individual through 
 various conditions in life, sees how the 
 simple accountancy of the laborer is 
 transformed into that of the small cap- 
 italist; how, alongside of the latter, the 
 accountancy of the merchant is con- 
 stituted; and how both of these sys- 
 tems of accountancy, working side by 
 side, establish the situation of the same 
 individual as viewed in the double 
 character of capitalist and merchant. 
 Meanwhile, upon the simple accountancy 
 of the young employe and that of his 
 bride is formed the accountancy of the 
 new domestic establishment. 
 
 The matron will see, also, by this 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 illustration, that her own household ac- 
 counting will afford her an easy intro- 
 duction to the care of money in bank 
 or invested in securities, and that if 
 thrown upon her own resources she will 
 be able the more readily to adapt her 
 methods to the administration of exterior 
 business affairs. 
 
 We labor to satisfy our needs and to 
 increase our hoard. Our labor is pro- 
 ductive of these results, however, in pro- 
 portion as it is well ordered ; and it is 
 by noting and writing down our dealings 
 as regularly and methodically as possible 
 that we are able, whether we belong to 
 the commercial or the non-commercial 
 community, to keep in touch with the 
 progress and outcome of our affairs and 
 to modify their direction to the best ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 Accotmtancy, which consists of a state- 
 
 37 
 
r 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 ment of receipts and expenses, is there- 
 fore the controlling record of exchanges ; 
 and the matron of the household, though 
 not engaged in the pursuit of commerce, 
 is none the less continually effecting ex- 
 changes. She buys the goods or services 
 of which her household is in need, and 
 she settles with her dealers and her ser- 
 vants, on the spot or on time, in coin 
 or bills. The family accounts may in- 
 clude the purchase of a piece of real or 
 personal property, or a paper security, 
 and the sale of it at a loss or profit. 
 And in all this buying and selling the 
 economic aim of the household, as that 
 of the business establishment, is to amass, 
 year by year, a new capital — to save, to 
 make, to become possessed of a part of 
 the mass of social wealth. 
 
 In thus producing, exchanging, con- 
 suming, and saving, the household es- 
 
 38 
 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 tablishment, as well as a business concern, 
 must call to its aid the science of accounts, 
 in order, first, to follow the movements 
 of its receipts and expenses; second, to 
 keep track of its investments ; and third, 
 to determine, at the end of the year or 
 other set period, the results of its opera- 
 tions and the exact situation of its cap- 
 ital. 
 
 Now, it is well known that any blank- 
 book, ruled for dates, details, and dollars 
 and cents, and exhibiting receipts on the 
 left-hand page and disbursements on the 
 right, is far better than nothing at all 
 as a help to the memoryo Indeed, the 
 income and outgo of money are often 
 thus inscribed on the back and front 
 of the stubs of a check-book; so that, 
 if all receipts have been deposited in 
 the bank and all expenses have been 
 taken therefrom, the stub -book is left 
 
 39 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 as a chronological record of cash move- 
 ments. 
 
 A series of ordinary expense books, 
 though cumbersome, are of some as- 
 sistance in keeping control of the cost 
 of conducting the different departments 
 of the home establishment ; and the pass- 
 books of the grocer and other dealers, 
 and miscellaneous receipted bills, are not 
 wholly useless as accounting appliances 
 even in the most hand-to-mouth ad- 
 ministration. A miniature set of com- 
 mercial books, consisting of ledger, cash- 
 book, and journal, is now and then seen 
 in the home, and would seem to have 
 been heretofore needed wherever credit 
 transactions have occurred. 
 
 A convenient form for a very simple 
 household cash-book, in which entries, 
 both of receipt and expense, are con- 
 fined to one page, is shown in example A : 
 
 40 
 
 i 
 
 
 I 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 DATES 
 
 1903 
 
 Jan. I 
 2 
 
 <( 
 
 (( 
 
 (( 
 
 tt 
 
 t( 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 PARTICULARS 
 
 RECEIVED 
 
 Cash in hand 
 
 Wood and oil 
 
 Bread 
 
 Ribbon 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Provisions 
 
 Dry-goods 
 
 Washing 
 
 Mending 
 
 Bread 
 
 Salary 
 
 Cloak 
 
 Underwear 
 
 Rent 
 
 Paid grocer 
 
 Paid butcher 
 
 Fares and sundries . . 
 
 (Balance $39.15).. 
 
 0.00 
 
 PAID 
 
 40.00 
 
 120.00 
 
 1.20 
 .80 
 .90 
 .80 
 
 2.00 
 
 •65 
 
 3-50 
 2.00 
 
 •75 
 •95 
 
 8.00 
 
 3-5° 
 40.00 
 
 10.80 
 3-50 
 
 $80.85 
 
 EXAMPLE A 
 41 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 In example B it will be noticed that 
 the simple plan is carried a step further, 
 making it even more convenient. 
 
 But what is really needed, and the 
 want of which has been a source of in- 
 creasing discouragement in home man- 
 agement during the centuries in which 
 modem accountancy has been industri- 
 ously fitted to the varying forms of coimt- 
 ing-house administration, is a system of 
 household accounting that shall be at 
 once comprehensive in scope and aim, 
 and easy to work and to interpret. And 
 to meet these requirements a single reg- 
 ister, scientifically arranged as will be de- 
 scribed, is sufficient. 
 
 The method recommended will be tm- 
 derstood from the following model and 
 a few words of explanation. It meets 
 the requirements already specified, estab- 
 lishes the balance-sheet of the family and 
 
 42 
 
 1 4^^ 
 
DATES OF 
 RECEIPTS 
 
 AND 
 EXPENDI- 
 TURES 
 
 RECEIPTS 
 
 NATURE OF CASH EXPENSES 
 
 • 
 
 CASH EXPENSES 
 
 SOURCES OF INCOME 
 
 SUMS 
 
 SUMS 
 
 DAILY 
 TOTALS 
 
 1903 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 4 4 
 
 2 
 
 '' 3 
 
 '' 5 
 '' 7 
 
 " 8 
 
 Cash in hand 
 
 Salary 
 
 Total 
 
 $80.00 
 40.00 
 
 Wood and oil 
 
 Bread 
 
 Ribbon 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Provisions 
 
 Drv-2^oods 
 
 $1.20 
 .80 
 
 $2.00 
 
 4.3s 
 3-50 
 
 3^70 
 67.30 
 
 .90 
 
 ,80 
 
 2.00 
 
 •65 
 
 3^50 
 
 Washing 
 
 Mending 
 
 Bread 
 
 Cloak 
 
 Underwear 
 
 2.00 
 
 •75 
 •95 
 
 8.00 
 
 350 
 40.00 
 
 10.80 
 
 3^5° 
 150 
 
 Rent 
 
 Paid grocer 
 
 Paid butcher 
 
 Car-fare and sundries . 
 
 (Balance $39.15). . . 
 
 $120.00 
 
 
 $80.85 
 
 EXAMPLE B 
 

 1 = 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 'J i 
 
 
 ;l 
 
 t 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 constitutes, as it were, the financial his- 
 tory of the household. It enables the 
 matron to keep a complete and exact ac- 
 count of her domestic operations. 
 
 Household receipts, independently of 
 gifts and inheritances, consist of wages, 
 salaries, allowances, fees, profits, rents, 
 dividends, interest, and the like, and may 
 be entered in the register merely as items 
 of cash brought in by this or that mem- 
 ber of the family. 
 
 Household expenses are composed of 
 purchases of articles for consumption — 
 such as food, raiment, fuel, and amuse- 
 ments ; or of remuneration, as for service, 
 instruction, rent, insurance, transporta- 
 tion ; or of purchases of durable utilities, 
 such as tools, pictures, books, furniture, 
 real estate; or of investments of money 
 in enterprises or in securities. 
 
 The receipts and expenses do not al- 
 
 43 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 

 a 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 ways, however, exhibit this variety. In 
 the larger number of households a saving 
 — that is, an excess of receipts over ex- 
 penses — is obtained only by a careful 
 cutting off of the superfluous, by a wise 
 employment of the necessary, and by the 
 utmost order and economy in the domes- 
 tic management. Those who impose this 
 line of conduct upon themselves, and 
 follow it persistently, create a capital 
 which, in time, adds an interesting col- 
 umn to their scheme of accoimts. 
 
 Receipts represent a simple account. 
 Expenses represent another simple ac- 
 coimt. These together form a true ac- 
 countancy, as has been stated, which, 
 however rudimentary, may register three 
 kinds of result. First, if the expenses 
 are more than the receipts, either by the 
 insufficiency of the latter or because 
 the household has been improvident and 
 
 44 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 prodigal, not only is there nothing left 
 at the end of the period, but, having 
 Hved upon credit— that is, upon the cap- 
 ital of others— the household has con- 
 tracted debts, and this will be expressed 
 by the debit balance upon closing the 
 annual account. Second, if the expenses 
 exactly balance the receipts, the money 
 has merely passed through the establish- 
 ment ; nothing remains at the end of the 
 year; and this fact will be shown upon 
 closing the annual account. Third, if the 
 receipts exceed the expenses, a surplus 
 has been created, a capital remains in 
 the possession of the household ; and this 
 is expressed by the credit balance ap- 
 pearing upon closing the annual account. 
 The books necessary for household ac- 
 counts, as well as for business accounts, 
 are the journal and ledger, and, in ad- 
 dition, the balance - sheet. But as the 
 
 45 
 
I 
 
 11 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 household journal is a mere record of 
 movements of cash, it is practically re- 
 duced to a simple original cash-book. 
 As for the ledger, it is limited to the 
 credit accounts of a few dealers, together 
 with a classified statistical display of 
 expenses, which display, after a time, 
 will furnish the means of comparison by 
 which to regulate future expenses. Thus 
 the cash journal records the dates and 
 amounts of all moneys received or paid 
 out; the ledger records the same trans- 
 actions, which have been transferred to 
 it from the cash journal, each item 
 being placed under its proper accotmt 
 whether of a person or thing. And still 
 further to simplify this rudimentary ac- 
 coimtancy, the two books may be fused 
 into a single journal-ledger, in which the 
 receipts and expenses day by day are 
 seen at a glance. This view indicates 
 
 46 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 by dates, throughout the period, all 
 receipts and their sources; all cash and 
 credit purchases; detailed sums of all 
 cash expenses; daily totals of cash ex- 
 penses ; all credit transactions with deal- 
 ers; statistics, according to kind, of all 
 articles bought on time and for cash, and 
 daily totals of entire outlay ; so that the 
 whole financial situation of the household 
 may be definitely determined at the end 
 of a set period or at any other time. 
 
 A view of the accompanying model 
 will show the use to which the various 
 divisions of the journal-ledger are de- 
 voted. The left-hand page of the book 
 is the journal, which, in the accountancy 
 of the household, as we have seen, is re- 
 duced to little more than a cash-book. 
 The right-hand page is the ledger, carry- 
 ing the accounts of persons and of things. 
 
 Beginning on the left of the left-hand 
 
 47 
 
**l 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 page, the first column is reserved for the 
 dates of the entire record on both pages. 
 
 The second column indicates the 
 sources of the receipts. Whether re- 
 ceipts shall be traced to their outside 
 sources, as wages, fees, and other speci- 
 fied earnings, or merely recorded as 
 coming from the different members of 
 the household into the hands of the 
 matron, will depend upon the stand-point 
 she may choose to occupy as keeper of 
 the accounts. 
 
 In the third column are inscribed the 
 sums of the receipts and the cash in 
 hand at the beginning of the period. This 
 column should be totalled up at least 
 once a week. 
 
 The fourth column is devoted to a 
 chronological record of the nature of all 
 purchases. It is essential that this in- 
 dication of kinds of goods bought should 
 
 48 
 
W Q 
 
 W 
 
 0_ t— I 
 
 t/3 
 
 CO 
 
 Q 
 
 t: w cu 
 
 < u X 
 
 IQ03 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 ( ( 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 5 
 " 6 
 
 t< 
 
 ** 8 
 
 RECEIPTS 
 
 SOURCES 
 
 Cash in Hand 
 
 Salary 
 
 X Obai • 
 
 NATURE OF CASH AND 
 CREDIT EXPENSES 
 
 SUMS 
 
 $80.00 
 
 Meat 
 
 Wood and oil 
 
 Bread 
 
 Groceries .... 
 
 Ribbon . . . 
 Bread .... 
 
 Beef 
 
 Potatoes . 
 Provisions 
 
 Dry-goods 
 
 Groceries 
 
 40.00 
 
 120.00 
 
 Washing 
 Mending 
 Mutton . 
 Bread. . . 
 
 Cloak 
 
 Underwear 
 
 Sugar 
 
 Rent 
 
 Paid grocer 
 
 Paid butcher 
 
 Car-fare and sundries 
 
 (Balance $39.15) 
 
 CASH 
 EXPENSES 
 
 SUMS 
 
 $1.20 
 
 .80 
 
 .90 
 .80 
 
 2.00 
 .65 
 
 3-50 
 
 2.00 
 
 •75 
 
 •95 
 
 8.00 
 3-50 
 
 40.00 
 10.80 
 
 3^50 
 1.50 
 
 DAILY 
 TOTALS 
 
 2.00 
 
 4.35 
 
 3-50 
 
 3-70 
 
 67.30 
 
 $80.85 
 
 CREDIT EXPENSES 
 
 GROCER 
 
 DR. 
 
 CR. 
 
 $6.50 
 
 10.80 
 
 BUTCHER 
 
 DR. 
 
 3-50 
 
 ,80 
 
 $10.80 
 
 $10.80 
 
 • « • • • 
 
 S3. 50 
 
 S3. 50 
 
 CR. 
 
 $1.00 
 
 .35 
 
 5 
 
 3.50 
 
 Q 
 O 
 O 
 
 PC4 
 
 $1.00 
 
 .80 
 
 6. 50 
 
 .80 
 
 1.35 
 2.00 
 
 •65 
 
 3-5° 
 
 1-15 
 •95 
 
 .80 
 
 19-50 
 
 o 
 
 »— t 
 
 H 
 O 
 
 O 
 
 • • < • 
 
 $ .90 
 
 3-5° 
 
 8.00 
 3-50 
 
 $1590 
 
 H ^ "^ 
 
 E < W 
 
 ^7 ►^ h-t 
 
 o ^ <^ 
 
 $1.20 
 
 2.00 
 
 •75 
 
 3-95 
 
 AND 
 EOUS 
 
 tn 
 
 W 
 
 X 
 
 W ^ 
 
 < 
 
 ';^ < 
 
 H 
 
 D -^ 
 
 »>- 
 
 C/5 '-' 
 
 H 
 
 < r" 
 
 'A 
 
 w ^ 
 
 U 
 
 J ^ 
 
 « 
 
 (X, ^ 
 
 
 <A 
 
 
 $1.50 
 
 1.50 
 
 $40.00 
 
 $40.00 
 
 I 
 
 :: w w 
 
 S " ^ 
 
 t^ •-' I-. 
 
 
 w w 
 
 < r^ f^ 
 
 •^ O 
 
 $9.50 
 
 5.7Q 
 3.5Q 
 3.50 
 
 4.8s 
 
 53.80 
 
 $80.85 
 
 MODEL OF THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
I 
 
 r 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 be explicit, so as to furnish the informa- 
 tion required for the statistical columns 
 which follow on the ledger side; but to 
 avoid the multiplication of detail, the 
 entries here may be under somewhat 
 general heads, and the particulars may be 
 kept in the butcher's and grocer's pass- 
 books or in a rough memorandum-book 
 of daily expenses. The two following 
 columns carry, in the one the detailed 
 figures of the cash expenses, and in the 
 other the daily totals of the same ex- 
 penses. At least once a week the cash 
 outlay should be totalled up and com- 
 pared with the total receipts, and the 
 balance, as found by the book and veri- 
 fied by actual count of money in hand, 
 may be set down within brackets in the 
 fourth column, as shown in the model. 
 It will be better still if this balance in 
 hand be figured up and verified daily. 
 4 49 
 
I 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Credit purchases as well as cash pur- 
 chases are described in the fourth col- 
 umn, but their figures are carried forward 
 to the credit columns of the dealers — 
 that is to say, to the columns in which are 
 placed all amounts due the dealers; and 
 thus the housewife has, day by day, a 
 view of her entire cash and credit ex- 
 penses. The number of credit accounts, 
 of course, is optional. Each dealer has 
 a debit and a credit column. When the 
 payment, or a part payment, is made, it 
 is described in the fourth and the amount 
 is entered in the fifth column as a cash 
 expense, and the amount of payment is 
 also entered in the debit column of the 
 dealer — that is to say, in the column 
 which records the amounts paid the deal- 
 er. When the columns of the dealers are 
 footed up, if a debit column does not 
 amount to as much as the adjoining 
 
 50 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 credit column, the difference is the 
 amotmt due the dealer. 
 
 Following the accounts of the dealers 
 on the ledger page are several columns 
 exhibiting together a daily statistical 
 abstract of all expenses. This abstract 
 is merely a classified repetition of the 
 entries already made, and must agree in 
 its collective total with the combined 
 totals of the cash and credit expense 
 columns on the journal, or left-hand, 
 page. It must be remembered, how- 
 ever, that as credit expenses have been 
 carried into these statistical columns 
 from the credit columns of the dealers, 
 they must not be again brought forward 
 from the debit columns of the dealers, or 
 from the cash column on the journal 
 page, when the payments are made. 
 
 The statistical columns enable the 
 housewife to make constant comparison 
 
 51 
 
 
 

 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 of the cost of the living departments with 
 one another and with her income; to 
 make necessary modifications ; and to reg- 
 ulate, at the end of any period, her bud- 
 get for the ensuing period. The number 
 of these columns is optional, depending 
 upon the variety of statistical informa- 
 tion desired. 
 
 Mrs. Ellen Richards, an American au- 
 thority on the cost of living, has suggest- 
 ed a number of budgets under the follow- 
 ing five general heads : first, food ; second, 
 rent; third, operating expenses, wages, 
 fuel, light, and so on; fourth, clothes; 
 fifth, higher life, books, travel, church, 
 charity, savings, insurance. On the other 
 hand, in a table of actual family ex- 
 penses, the same lady uses twenty-eight 
 general heads of outlay. The simple dis- 
 tribution adopted in the model will be 
 sufficiently elaborate for a modest be- 
 
 52 
 
 \ 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 ginning; and the housewife may set off 
 other columns, as desired, at the begin- 
 ning of any new period. 
 
 When, by industry and economy, and 
 by order therein, a capital shall have 
 been saved that may be invested in any- 
 thing of permanent value, such as furni- 
 ture, pictures, books, etc., a column may 
 be set apart from the miscellaneous col- 
 umn for the record of such transactions. 
 This will lead, by an easy gradation, to 
 the establishment of a capitalistic ac- 
 coimtancy ; an accountancy of the second 
 degree, whose twofold mission is, first, to 
 render account of current receipts and 
 expenses ; and, second, of a capital amass- 
 ed and successively modified. At first, 
 however, it will be well to become thor- 
 oughly familiar with the simpler form by 
 carrying all unusual items into the mis- 
 cellaneous column. 
 
 53 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 The final column receives the entire 
 daily total of cash and credit expenses. 
 It should be footed up weekly. It must 
 always agree with the sums shown by the 
 statistical columns. It must also agree 
 with the combined sums of the credit 
 columns of the dealers and the cash 
 column of expenses, minus the pay- 
 ments to dealers, as already explained. 
 It will agree with the cash expense 
 column alone, if the dealers have been 
 fully paid ; if not, the difference will show 
 the entire amount remaining unpaid. 
 
 Thus we see that the administrator of 
 the household affairs, by means of this 
 simple series of concurrent columns, may 
 know from day to day: first, from the 
 cash balance, her pecuniary situation 
 with reference to herself; second, from 
 the accounts of the dealers, her pecuniary 
 situation with reference to her creditors ; 
 
 54 
 
 ^ 
 
 THE HOME ACCOUNT-BOOK 
 
 third, her daily cash expense ; fourth, her 
 total current cash and credit expense; 
 fifth, from the statistical columns, the 
 current cost of each department. The 
 columns should be totalled each week. 
 
 The entries for each week follow with- 
 out break the totals as shown under the 
 preceding week, so as not to interrupt the 
 addition of the columns. On the last day 
 of December the total of the cash ex- 
 pense column indicates the annual cash 
 outlay; the columns of the dealers show 
 the full yearly amount of debt incurred 
 and the full amount paid in settlement; 
 and the final column presents the grand 
 total of the cost of the household, cash 
 and credit, for the year. On the first 
 of January, or the day following the 
 close of the old period, the journal-ledger 
 is again opened, for the ensuing period, 
 with the cash in hand entered as before, 
 
 55 
 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 and with any balance that may still be 
 due to a dealer entered in his credit 
 column. 
 
 All these financial details the house- 
 wife must know, in order that she may 
 regulate her administration intelligently, 
 that she may economize methodically, 
 and that she may constitute a savings 
 fund and direct that fund in the way of 
 increase. 
 
 K 
 
 f 
 
 IV 
 
 THE BALANCE-SHEET 
 
 IT is at this point, when the accounts 
 of a period are closed and those of 
 the following period are opened, that the 
 financial condition of the household is 
 recorded on the balance-sheet. This 
 closing and opening of the accounts in 
 no wise interferes with the movement of 
 affairs; and the balance-sheet is but a 
 kind of instantaneous photograph of the 
 status of the business at the chosen mo- 
 ment, showing how the situation com- 
 pares, on the one hand, with a former 
 condition, and, on the other, with the 
 ideal in the mind of the administrator. 
 In form, a balance-sheet, as its name 
 
 57 
 
 f 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 implies, is a sheet of balances. In the 
 complicated accountancy of modem com- 
 merce and finance, it is the result of much 
 labor expended in centralizing the figures 
 of a more or less extensive system of 
 books of account. Its appearance is 
 often awaited with anxiety, and its con- 
 tents are studied with care by the stock- 
 holder, the bondholder, the manager, the 
 competitor, and the political economist. 
 
 In the accountancy of the household, 
 however, the balance-sheet is a much 
 simpler affair. The journal-ledger here 
 recommended affords a ready view of the 
 situation from day to day; while the 
 weekly or monthly balancings, appearing 
 at a glance in one short, horizontal row 
 of figures, are a kind of periodical review ; 
 and thus, in this progression of the 
 whole record together, the housewife has 
 a complete history of her conduct of 
 
 58 
 
 THE BALANCE-SHEET 
 
 affairs. But for permanent comparison 
 of the results of her administration, it 
 is convenient to make a division of time 
 into periods of uniform length and 
 character, and to sum up the results of 
 each period and record them by them- 
 selves. The natural uniform period is 
 the year; and the form in which the re- 
 sults of the period are brought together 
 for convenient reference and comparison 
 is the balance-sheet. 
 
 Three kinds of result, as already noted, 
 are possible: the income may have been 
 insufficient, or just enough, or more than 
 enough, to meet the expense. We may 
 apply these three results to the ac- 
 countancy of a young couple who, let us 
 say, open their book of financial record 
 on January i, 1902, with $80 cash in 
 hand. The first year, besides the $80 
 entered on the ist of January, there is 
 
 59 
 
ii 
 
 ■■ i 
 
 1 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 an income of $40 a week for fifty weeks- 
 two weeks having been lost in one way 
 and another— being a total of receipts of 
 $2,000 + $80 = $2,080. Their expenses, 
 by reason of their want of experience in 
 the practice of economy, and because of 
 their early need of household effects, 
 have reached the sum of $2,300, leaving 
 a deficit of $220, of which $70 are due 
 to the butcher and $150 to the grocer. 
 To express, at the close of the year, this 
 result in a methodical manner, they pre- 
 pare their simple household balance-sheet, 
 dated December 31, 1902, based upon the 
 following facts as shown by their jour- 
 nal-ledger : 
 
 Their cash income, including the cash 
 in hand at the beginning of the period, 
 has given them $2,080, and the grocer 
 has loaned them $150 and the butcher 
 $70 worth of goods, making in all $2,300 
 
 60 
 
 THE Balance-sheet 
 
 to meet a total expense of $2,300, $220 of 
 which is an indebtedness which they will 
 carry over to the credit of the grocer and 
 butcher when the accounts are reopened. 
 This situation is expressed in tabular 
 form as follows : 
 
 DECEMBER 3I, I902 
 
 DR. 
 
 CR. 
 
 Cash resources 
 
 Balance due on credit pur- 
 chases : 
 
 Grocer 
 
 
 $2,080 
 
 ISO 
 70 
 
 Butcher 
 
 Expenses for the year 
 
 Totals 
 
 $2,300 
 
 $2,300 
 
 $2,300 
 
 HOUSEHOLD BALANCE-SHEET EXPRESSING A 
 
 DEFICIT. 
 
 The table given above may be in- 
 scribed in any convenient place, say 
 near the end of the journal-ledger; and 
 on the first day of January, 1903, the 
 
 61 
 
 I 
 
 « 
 
ll 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 journal-ledger is reopened with the $70 
 carried to the credit of the butcher and 
 the $150 carried to the credit of the 
 grocer. 
 
 The second year a total of $2,080, 
 being $40 a week for the full fifty-two 
 weeks, is earned and entered in the cash 
 receipts. An examination of the statis- 
 tical columns has shown the young house- 
 wife that money has been spent in one or 
 two of the departments which might have 
 been saved ; and this second year she has 
 not only paid off the debt of $220 to the 
 butcher and grocer, but has kept her 
 running expenses down to the $1,860 
 remaining of the $2,080, thus equaliz- 
 ing the receipts and expenses. At the 
 close of the second year, therefore, she 
 is in a position to prepare a balance- 
 sheet expressive of freedom from obliga- 
 tion: 
 
 62 
 
 THE BALANCE-SHEET 
 
 y.,d 
 
 
 DECEMBER 3I, 1903 
 
 Cash resources 
 
 Balance paid on credit pur- 
 chases : 
 
 Grocer 
 
 Butcher 
 
 Expenses for the year 
 
 Totals... 
 
 DR. 
 
 CR, 
 
 
 $2,080 
 
 $150 
 
 
 70 
 
 
 1,860 
 
 
 $2,080 
 
 $2,080 
 
 - 
 
 HOUSEHOLD BALANCE - SHEET EXPRESSING 
 FREEDOM FROM OBLIGATION. 
 
 On the I St of January, 1904, the house- 
 wife, upon a serious consideration of this 
 second result, resolves to bring her affairs 
 to the close of another year with a still 
 better balance-sheet, and to this end they 
 endeavor together to decide upon a min- 
 imum outlay upon which they may live 
 comfortably. Upon the same day the 
 young man learns that his salary is raised 
 to $50 a week, and this good news con- 
 
 63 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 firms them in their projects of economy. 
 The income during this third year is 
 $50 X 52 = $2,600, while the expenses are 
 $2,025. Thus there is a cash balance at 
 the end of the year of $575, and the new 
 balance-sheet shows the young domestic 
 economist is now prepared to add to her 
 household accountancy the further feat- 
 ure of capitalistic accountancy: 
 
 DECEMBER 31, I904 
 
 DR. 
 
 CR. 
 
 Cash resources 
 
 Cash balance in hand 
 
 Expenses for the year 
 
 $575 
 2,025 
 
 $2,600 
 
 Totals 
 
 $2,600 
 
 $2,600 
 
 HOUSEHOLD BALANCE - SHEET EXPRESSING 
 POSSESSION OF CAPITAL. 
 
 It ought here to be again noted that 
 the simple journal-ledger contains in it- 
 self all the accounts of the household. 
 
 64 
 
 THE BALANCE-SHEET 
 
 The balance-sheet, valuable for purposes 
 of administration and the full expression 
 of the financial situation, can be made up 
 at any time for any past period or series 
 of periods, and need not give the house- 
 wife any concern for at least a year after 
 the first opening of her journal-ledger. 
 
 This journal-ledger may be any wide- 
 paged blank-book, in which she may rule 
 off her columns a couple of pages at a 
 time as wanted; and the ruling, it need 
 hardly be said, may be with pencil or with 
 pen and ink, and with or without all the 
 captions fully expressed as in the model. 
 
 It cannot be too strongly emphasized 
 that the entire value of the book rests 
 upon a recognition of the absolute need 
 of order and method in the financial 
 administration of the modem household ; 
 that is, that the whole question is first 
 and last a matter of business. 
 
 5 65 
 
 ) 
 
H 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 THE budget, though one of the most 
 important features of the matron's 
 administration, and the twin -sister, we 
 may say, of her accoimtancy, is not to be 
 considered as in any way affecting the 
 completeness of the subject as already 
 viewed. And so with the voucher ; and 
 so, also, with the inventory. All these 
 are of greater or less importance; but, 
 with or without them, the journal-ledger 
 embraces the entire movement, the bal- 
 ance-sheet records the exact situation, 
 and whatever is more is, at most, only 
 of correlative value to accountancy. 
 
 66 
 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 THE BUDGET 
 
 The budget has been often called ''the 
 prospective balance-sheet.'' We have 
 seen that the statistical columns of the 
 journal-ledger are for the purpose of 
 distributing or classifying the household 
 purchases according to the nature of the 
 articles bought, and that the number and 
 headings of these columns are dependent 
 upon the variety of information the 
 matron may desire thus to preserve. She 
 may have a special reason for wishing to 
 know just how much money she is spend- 
 ing on some particular object in which 
 another household might not be interest- 
 ed, and to this end she can mark off a 
 column in which to carry the cost of each 
 purchase of this article; and so on. 
 
 But the principal use of this informa- 
 tion is to furnish a basis for estimating 
 
 67 
 
 ! 
 
 j > 
 
If* 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 the cost of maintaining the household in 
 the immediate future. This estimate is 
 known as the budget, so called from the 
 bag or budget of financial estimates laid 
 before the British House of Commons by 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 *'And let us not deceive ourselves/* 
 says Louise d'Alq, in La Mattresse de 
 Maison ; "many a household has quite 
 as much trouble as certain ministers, and 
 much more, to attain this object of es- 
 tablishing its budget of receipts and ex- 
 penses; for it cannot have recourse, as 
 they can, to forced loans and other ar- 
 bitrary sources of income." 
 
 The household budget, or statement of 
 the probable revenue and expenditure of 
 the establishment for the ensuing period, 
 is the result of a careful comparison of 
 what is wanted or desired with what can 
 be attained. '' The budget is bom," said 
 
 68 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 a noted French journalist, ''of the im- 
 perious necessity for an equilibrium of 
 receipts and expenses." There must be, 
 first of all, an approximately correct 
 notion of the amount of income from 
 which the expenditure may be drawn; 
 and within this limit — ^by reason, indeed, 
 of the limitation itself — there is ample 
 room for the fullest exercise of woman's 
 ingenuity and judgment in arriving at a 
 well-proportioned estimate of expenses. 
 In this work, the one indispensable ally 
 of the matron will be the statistical 
 department of her journal-ledger. Her 
 accoimtancy will unite the past to the 
 future of her finances, and her household 
 budget will be the connecting link be- 
 tween this accountancy and her active 
 administration. 
 
 A few general considerations, founded 
 upon a study of many budgets, will not, 
 
 69 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 it is hoped, be out of place. This study, 
 it must be admitted, Hke that of the more 
 elementary household accounting upon 
 which it is fotmded, has not, in our 
 modem civilization, gone very deep or 
 very far. The commissioner of labor of 
 the United States has tabulated the 
 average percentages of various expenses 
 to income of a number of families en- 
 gaged in the iron, coal, glass, cotton, and 
 woollen industries. Dr. Engels, head of 
 the Prussian royal bureau of statistics, 
 has published a series of studies on fam- 
 ily budgets; Ellen Richards, to whom 
 reference has already been made, has 
 instituted inquiry in the same line of re- 
 search ; and a number of valuable articles 
 have been contributed to various peri- 
 odicals on the same subject. And thus 
 it will be seen that a beginning has been 
 made, and that ''it is for those educated 
 
 70 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 persons with one thousand to three 
 thousand dollars annual income to lead 
 the way in the studies necessary to be un- 
 dertaken before any authoritative state- 
 ments can be made.'' 
 
 The Bulletin of the International Insti- 
 tute of Statistics has printed a formula- 
 tion of four laws by Dr. Engels, which 
 have been pronounced by other statis- 
 ticians to be ''absolutely exact." These 
 laws, the result of observation, are ex- 
 pressed in the language of mathematics; 
 the drift of them is : first, that as income 
 increases, the smaller is the relative 
 percentage of outlay for food; second, 
 that the outlay for clothing maintains a 
 constant proportion to the whole; third, 
 that the percentage of the outlay for 
 shelter, and for heat and light, is the 
 same, whatever the income; and fourth, 
 that the percentage of outlay for sim- 
 
 71 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 dries (expressing the degree of prosper- 
 ity) increases as income advances. A 
 concluding observation is, that the less 
 a household earns the greater is the pro- 
 portion expended for nutriment, what- 
 ever else may have to be renounced. 
 
 The Prussian statistician estimates 
 that, taking one country with another, a 
 poor family, with an income of a dollar 
 a day for the working year of three 
 hundred days, will expend on an aver- 
 age $i86 for food, $36 for rent, $15 for 
 light and heat, $48 for raiment, and $15 
 on the higher life. A modest household, 
 dependent upon one of the industries se- 
 lected by the commissioner of labor for 
 comparison, and having a total of receipts 
 of $Ij5oo_ a year, lays out $343.40 for 
 food, $149.60 for rent, $40 for fuel, 
 $7.40 for light, $168.40 for clothing, and 
 $291.20 for all other purposes. 
 
 72 
 
 t\ 
 
 '/ 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 A very common American budget is 
 that of a household of four adults and 
 two children, who, with an income of 
 $2^000^ spend $726 for nutriment, $484 
 for shelter and car-fares to and from place 
 of business, $418 for light, heat, service, 
 and other operating items, and $372 for 
 clothing, education, amusements, benevo- 
 lence, savings, and the higher life general- 
 ly ; in contrast with which Mrs. Richards 
 has suggested, for the same income, a dis- 
 tribution of $500 for food, about $400 
 for rent, about $300 for service, light, fuel, 
 and other operating expenses, about 
 $400 for raiment, and $400 for the higher 
 life, books, travel, church, charity, sav- 
 ings, and insurance; while Miss Florence 
 Stacpoole, an English lecturer and writer 
 on domestic economy, recommends to her 
 countrywomen, for the same total outlay, 
 $300 for rent, $835 for housekeeping, 
 
 73 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 $200 for service, $80 for heat and light, 
 $225 for dress, and $360 for education, 
 amusements, sickness, and incidentals. 
 It will be remarked that if these amounts 
 are reduced to percentages, a very wide 
 latitude is seen in the proportioning of 
 expenses; food, for example, ranging all 
 the way from 62 down to 25 per cent. 
 This may be partially attributed to eco- 
 nomic differences between Great Britain 
 and America. 
 
 The following interesting budget, the 
 original of which is preserved at Osmas- 
 ton Hall, Derbyshire, England, will show 
 that the latter percentage for food was 
 considered fair in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century; though to produce 
 this proportion we must leave out of 
 the 25 per cent, the beer and liquors, 
 the cows, and the board of the boys at 
 school : 
 
 74 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 Computation for M^ Yeardley 19 May 1753 
 
 ;^485 a year at Osmaston. 
 Upon a plan of living altogether at Osmaston. 
 2 M"" and Sister Wilmot 
 
 2 Marow and Betsey 
 
 3 Maids 
 3 Men 
 
 10 in Family 
 
 I constant in addition 
 
 11 to be provided for 
 
 Sunday 
 
 Monday 
 
 Roast or boiled fowls 
 Roast and boiled beef & 
 Pudding Pye or Pancake. 
 
 Boiled or Fry^ Cow heel 
 Roast Mutton & Do. 
 
 Tuesday Veal & Bacon, Mutton & Stakes 
 
 Wednesday Herbs & Bacon, Roast veal 
 
 Thursday 
 
 Friday 
 
 Boiled Mutton Roast Pork 
 Rabbits Fowls & Pudding Pye 
 
 Fish Boiled or Roast Beef and do 
 
 75 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Saturday Marrow Bones, a fry of liver 
 
 heart, etc. 
 
 The above to be varied just as most agree- 
 able or convenient according to the season 
 and cheapness or goodness of things. 
 
 Sunday 2 fowls o i 3 
 
 II lbs of beef 
 
 at 2% o 2 6% 
 
 a lb of bacon at 
 
 6^ o o 6 
 
 Pudding or Pye o o 3% 
 
 047 
 
 Monday Cow heal o o 6 
 
 Pudding o o 3 % 
 
 II lbs of Mut- 
 ton at 2 % . . . o 2 654 
 
 034 
 Tuesday 11 lbs of Veal 
 
 & Mutton 
 
 at 2^ o 2 6% 
 
 Pudding o o 3 % 
 
 Bacon o o 6 
 
 034 
 76 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 Wednesday Bacon o o 6 
 
 II lbs of Veal o 2 6% 
 
 Pudding o o sH 
 
 034 
 
 Thursday 11 lbs of mut- 
 ton or pork o 2 6% 
 
 Pudding o o 3 % 
 
 Rabbits 010 
 
 o 3 10 
 
 Friday Fish removed 
 
 with chickens 026 
 II lbs of Beef o 2 6% 
 
 Pudding o o 3% 
 
 054 
 
 Saturday Marrow Bones. 006 
 
 Fry o I 6 
 
 Pudding 006 
 
 026 
 
 163 
 
 1 1 lbs of butter a week at 6^ o 5 6 
 
 Bread and Muffins o 7 o 
 
 Salt Vinegar & pepper oyl ... o 2 3 
 
 Cheese 010 
 
 220 
 
 77 
 
 It 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Two guineas a week amount 
 
 to 109 4 o 
 
 Strong beer, small beer, or ale . . 30 o o 
 
 Wine IS o o 
 
 Spirits 10 o o 
 
 Coals 12 o o 
 
 Soap, candles, blacking 12 o o 
 
 Tea, chocolate, coffee, rice 6 o o 
 
 Sugar for tea and house 7 o o 
 
 3 maids wages 10 o o 
 
 3 mens wages and liveries 25 o o 
 
 Sister Wilmots Cloathes and pin 
 
 money 20 o o 
 
 Marow Do 10 o o 
 
 Betty 10 o o 
 
 Gardeners [2] 13 o ^ 
 
 3 Boys at School £30 90 ^ o 
 
 M^ Yeardley 50 o ^ 
 
 4 horses £40 coach tax and re- 
 pairs 10 o o 
 
 2 Cows etc 5 ^^ Q 
 
 ;£445 o o 
 Balance over 
 £40. 
 
 78 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 These budgets emphasize the perma- 
 nence of certain wants, and indicate the 
 few statistical columns to which the in- 
 experienced housewife may confine her 
 distribution of expenses. A matron who 
 should begin with a record of outlay 
 for shelter, for general operation of the 
 house, for nourishment, for dress, and 
 for sundries, might have occasion, in the 
 course of years, to set oflE particular col- 
 umns for board, meat, groceries, medi- 
 cine, the doctor, the lawyer, servants, 
 travelling, local car -fares, amusements, 
 books, periodicals, papers, furniture, 
 taxes, interest, insurance, stable, charity, 
 education, laundry, music, water, repairs, 
 milk, ice, and the private expenses of 
 the sons, of the daughters, and of mon- 
 sieur and madame. 
 
 But, in the main, the reasoning of the 
 domestic economist will be that we must 
 
 79 
 
 I J 
 
 K 
 
 II 
 
ill 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 eat and drink, wear clothes, have a roof 
 over our heads, pay for service, edu- 
 cate the young, look after the general 
 comfort and well-being of the household, 
 and save what we may, conveniently, out 
 of our income. And nothing, it may be 
 said, will require more careful considera- 
 tion — will more clearly reveal the charac- 
 ter of the mistress of the home, or repay 
 her with greater results — than the pro- 
 duction of a well-balanced and economi- 
 cal budget founded upon well-kept ac- 
 counts. 
 
 THE VOUCHER 
 
 The voucher is a written evidence of 
 payment, and, as we have seen in the 
 administration of the chatelaine and the 
 recommendation of modem writers, it 
 ought as such to be preserved. 
 
 The voucher is of threefold value — ac- 
 
 80 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 counting, administrative, and legal. A 
 complete series of vouchers would alone 
 constitute a reliable though clumsy rec- 
 ord of expenses. But, as in the case of 
 the check -book used for a cash-book, 
 this is not the primary object of the 
 voucher; nor does accountancy depend 
 upon any such secondary employment 
 of borrowed appliances. 
 
 In the organization of extensive en- 
 terprises, the idea of the voucher in- 
 cludes all kinds of interior documentary 
 authority for payment, as well as ex- 
 terior evidence of it; and as labor is 
 more and more divided in these vast con- 
 cerns, the voucher becomes of greater 
 importance and variety. But, as Eu- 
 gene Leautey, author of La Science des 
 Comptes, has said, '*we must admit that 
 in the accountancy of simple individuals 
 the need of classifying all vouchers as 
 
 6 81 
 
 L Jt_ 
 
1 
 
 ! 1 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 supports for the movements of money is 
 much less rigorous than in mercantile 
 and industrial accounting/' The matron 
 of the household will find her receipts, 
 receipted bills, dealers' passbooks, letters 
 of acknowledgment, and the like, useful 
 as memoranda when making up her ac- 
 counts, and legally valuable as vouchers 
 in case of dispute, and may be content 
 merely to keep them for a reasonable 
 while in some handy way of reference, 
 and then either to get rid of them or store 
 them away in packages. 
 
 THE INVENTORY 
 
 The inventory, if kept at all, will take 
 form according to its intended use. It 
 may be a simple list of household goods, 
 made up either with or without order; 
 it may be either without valuation, or 
 priced according to cost, or according to 
 
 82 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 some notion of present worth ; and it may 
 be kept entirely apart by itself, or the 
 money value may be entered, either as 
 a total or as several sub - totals, in the 
 accounts. Such entry, to keep the ac- 
 counts in balance, can be made, with 
 accompanying explanation, as cash re- 
 ceived and cash expended for the goods, 
 and thus the household effects will obtain 
 representation. 
 
 But as no practical purpose is served 
 by the introduction of this element into 
 the book, and as all articles bought since 
 the opening of the book are already ac- 
 counted for, the inventory will better be 
 kept out of the account-book tmtil the 
 housewife shall have studied the mys- 
 teries of fluctuating values in connection 
 with capitalistic accountancy. 
 
 Small articles of value, if not kept in a 
 safe-deposit vault or under lock and key, 
 
 83 
 
i 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 especially silverware, ought to be care- 
 fully noted in such a list and compared 
 with the list frequently, as one of the 
 principal uses of a methodically arranged 
 and conservatively priced inventory of 
 household effects is as an insurance record 
 in case of loss by fire. 
 
 How a catalogue of household goods 
 appeared in the olden time may be seen 
 from a few conservative lines in a long 
 * ' Inventory of the Goodes belongyng to 
 the Kynges Grace by the forfettoure of 
 the Lady Hungerford,'* who was attaint- 
 ed in the fourteenth year of the reign of 
 Henry VHI. : 
 
 Item, a flowre of golde, fulle of 
 sparkes of dyamondes set abowte 
 with perles, and the Holy Gost in 
 the mydste of yt. 
 
 Item, a table of golde with the 
 pyktor of Seynt Cristofer in hym. 
 
 84 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 Item, a harte of golde inhand with 
 a wyd chene, inameled with white and 
 
 blewe. 
 
 Item, a gret broiche of golde with a 
 man and a woman in hym, the valure 
 iiij pounde iiij ^^. 
 
 Item, ij broches of golde with the 
 pykter of Seynt Kateren in them, the 
 value of them v marcs v marc. 
 
 Item, XXXV payre of aglettes of 
 golde, which coste iiij^' xiij^ iiij^. 
 
 The following inventory of the house- 
 hold effects of a young couple living in 
 comfort in one of the suburbs of New 
 York is fairly representative. The fur- 
 nace and ranges are fixtures ; therefore no 
 account is taken of heating apparatus. 
 Wearing apparel, books, pictures, a sew- 
 ing-machine, and the parlor organ are 
 also excluded, in order that the list may 
 be suggestive merely of what is usually re- 
 quired for the furnishing of the house : 
 
 85 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
II 
 
 n 
 
 ft 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Sitting - room or parlor. — Carpet, in- 
 grain, thirty yards, say $45 ; two roller 
 shades, $4 ; two cornices, $8 ; lace curtains 
 for two windows, $30; rep-covered sofa 
 and two chairs, $80 ; two reception-chairs, 
 $8; fancy chair, $10; sewing-chair, $4; 
 marble-top table, $15. Total, $204. 
 
 Dining-room. — Carpet, ingrain, thirty 
 yards, say $30; two roller shades, $3; 
 cornices, $5 ; curtains, $7 ; extension-table, 
 $12; six cane-bottom chairs, $15; side- 
 board, $30; cooler, $2.50; two trays, $2; 
 coffee-pot, $2.50; egg-boiler, 50c.; three 
 dozen spoons, three sizes, $20 ; two dozen 
 forks, two sizes, $15; dinner caster, $8; 
 one dozen knives, $5 ; carving-knife, with 
 steel sharpener, $3 ; mats, $1 ; two bells, 
 $1.50; dinner-set, china, 134 pieces, 
 $27; tea-set, china, forty -four pieces, 
 $7 ; one dozen cut-glass goblets, $3 ; one 
 dozen tumblers, $1; two cut-glass pre- 
 
 86 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 serve-dishes, $3 ; china fruit-basket, $1 ; 
 glass, $1 ; celery -glass, 50c. ; pitcher, 50c. ; 
 molasses-jug, 50c. ; one dozen salts, 50c. 
 Total, $208. 
 
 Bedroom. — Carpet, thirty yards, say 
 $30; two shades, cornice, and curtains, 
 $12; furniture, ten piece;, $55; springs, 
 $5; mattress, hair, $26; pillows and 
 bolster, $12; pair blankets, $12; two 
 spreads, $6 ; sheets and pillow - cases, 
 three sets, $10; china toilet-set, $7. 
 Total, $175. 
 
 Bedroom, or servant's room. — Carpet 
 twenty-five yards, $25; window - shade, 
 $1; table, $1.50; bureau and glass, $8; 
 wash-stand, $2; two chairs and rocker, 
 $4; bedstead and springs, $9; mattress, 
 $15; pair blankets, $6; spread and com- 
 fortable, $4; pillows and bolster, $8; 
 sheets and pillow-cases, three sets, $6; 
 toilet-set, $4. Total, $93.50. 
 
 87 
 
f 
 
 II 
 
 it! 
 
 i 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Hall and stairs. — Hall carpet, $12; 
 stair carpet, $10 ; padding, $3.50 ; eighteen 
 rods, $6 ; hat - stand and umbrella - rack, 
 $9. Total, $40.50. 
 
 Linen. — Table - cloths, eight yards 
 damask, $5 ; five yards fine damask, bor- 
 dered, $7.50; two plain table-cloths, $2; 
 three dozen napkins, two qualities, $7.50; 
 three dozen common towels, $1.50; one 
 dozen dish-towels, $1. Total, $32.50. 
 
 Kitchen. — Large and small table, $7; 
 five chairs, $2.50; refrigerator, $12 ; clock, 
 $2.50; ladder, $ 2 ; hammer and tack- 
 hammer, 50C. ; scales, $1.25; clothes- 
 basket and market-basket, $2 ; scuttle, 
 $1 ; covered slop-pail, $1 ; hatchet and 
 screw-driver, $1 ; knife-board, knife-box, 
 spoon -basket, and can-opener, $2; pint 
 and quart measure, 25c.; canisters for 
 tea, coffee, and sugar, $1 ; nest of boxes, 
 75c. ; bread and cake boxes, $2.50 ; funnel, 
 
 88 
 
 BUDGET, VOUCHERS, AND INVENTORY 
 
 15c. ; wash-tubs, $3 ; ironing-boards, $1.25; 
 wash - board, 25c. ; clothes - pins, 25c. ; 
 boiler, $2 ; clothes-line, 50c. ; six irons and 
 two stands, $3.25; brooms and brushes, 
 $2; dust -pan, 25c.; tea-kettle, $1; two 
 iron pots, $3; preserve - kettle, $1.50; 
 saucepans, $2 ; frying-pans, $1 ; dish-pans, 
 $2; tin pans, various sizes, $3; earthen 
 pans, $1 ; bowls, $1 ; pudding-dishes, 50c. ; 
 griddle, soapstone, $1.50; chopping-knife 
 and board and bowl, $1.50; rolling-pin 
 and kneading board and bowl, $1.25; 
 cutters, 25c. ; coffee-pot, 75c. ; dipper and 
 skimmer, 40c.; two pails, 50c.; three 
 sieves, $1.25; masher, loc. ; dredgers, 
 40c.; egg-beater and cake -turner, 30c.; 
 pie-plates, 50c. ; patty-pans, 50c. ; lemon- 
 squeezer, 20c. ; graters, 50c. ; gridiron, 
 50c. ; colander, 50c. ; jelly - mould, 50c. ; 
 salt-box, 30c. ; feather duster, $1. Total, 
 $82.95. 
 
 89 
 
*i! 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Recapitulation. — Sitting - room, $204 ; 
 dining-room, $208; bedroom, $175; bed- 
 room or servant's room, $93.50; hall and 
 stairs, $40.50; linen, $32.50; kitchen, 
 $82.95. Total, $836.45. 
 
 ill! 
 
 VI 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 IT has been already remarked that if 
 all the household money were passed 
 through the bank, the bank check-book 
 might be used as a cash-book ; but such 
 a proceeding is neither desirable nor nec- 
 essary in view of the simple accountancy 
 of the journal-ledger, in which the cash- 
 book is a component part of a tabular 
 system fully controlling all the finances 
 of the matron. 
 
 To say that accountancy is able, upon 
 occasion, to adapt itself to all the circum- 
 stances and exigencies of place and time ; 
 that it can utilize, and has utilized, for 
 its own scientific ends, the check - book, 
 
 91 
 
ft 
 iiiii 
 
 II 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 the voucher, the wooden tally of the old 
 exchequer, the fringe - record of ancient 
 America, the terra-cotta book of the far- 
 thest antiquity of the Orient, and a thou- 
 sand other interesting appliances, is but 
 to emphasize the vitality, the wonderful 
 flexibility, and the vast importance of 
 the science of accotmtancy itself. 
 
 The modem bank, by means of the 
 check-book given to its depositors, will 
 act for them without salary, as a cashier. 
 That is to say, it will not only become the 
 depository of the money of the household, 
 but will, to whatever extent required, 
 make the payments of the establishment. 
 And these payments can all be made 
 direct to the creditors of the housewife, 
 or a part can be handed back to her by 
 the bank to be dealt out by herself as 
 petty cash. Thus it will be seen that 
 banking, for the requirements of any con- 
 
 92 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 siderable domestic establishment, is a con- 
 venient and very accommodating institu- 
 tion. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the frequent 
 inconvenience of this double handling of 
 petty cash will show that the turning of a 
 check-book into a cash-book, because of a 
 cast-iron rule that all money must go 
 through the bank, is an accotmting con- 
 trivance inferior in every way to an in- 
 dependent, comprehensive, and scientific 
 system of household accountancy. 
 
 The possession of a considerable 
 amoimt of cash imposes upon the house- 
 wife the consideration of two distinct 
 questions. If the money is a surplus 
 above the requirements of the household, 
 the question is one of investment. She 
 is a capitalist ; and the moment her cap- 
 ital is put in the way of becoming itself 
 productive, her accountancy takes on a 
 
 93 
 
 )i 
 
 ii 
 
 if^ 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 feature more than that of mere household 
 accounting. But the handhng of money 
 in the affairs of a more or less extensive 
 domestic establishment is a matter for 
 the consideration of the housewife as such ; 
 the question here is purely one of house- 
 hold administration. In any case, the 
 regular bank of deposit offers her its ser- 
 vices, exactly as it offers them to the man 
 of business. 
 
 The bank will pay any bill in answer to 
 her order by check, and will see that the 
 amount paid is exact and that it is paid 
 only to the proper party. Thus she will 
 avoid the inconvenience and risk attend- 
 ing the possession of a large amoimt of 
 loose cash. She cannot be robbed; she 
 need not run to the savings-bank for the 
 amount ; and she is not afraid that she has 
 miscounted, or that perhaps her money 
 is counterfeit. If she desires to send 
 
 94 
 
 I 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 money by mail, or by the hands of a 
 messenger, she may send a check so made 
 out that it is worthless without proper 
 indorsement. Her checks, also, after 
 payment, are returned to her by the 
 bank, and are perfect receipts. By 
 means of her bank, also, she may have 
 upon her person a check representing cash 
 to herself, but worthless to any other if 
 lost or stolen. Through her bank she also 
 collects the checks of others, and cashes 
 the coupons of such bonds as may be 
 in her possession. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that there is a 
 wide difference between a bank and a 
 savings - bank. The savings - bank is a 
 quasi-benevolent institution, existing for 
 the encouragement of the habit of sav- 
 ing. It pays interest on deposit, refunds 
 money only to depositors who present 
 their pass-books, and knows nothing of 
 
 95 
 
 I i* 
 
 V 
 
 ill 
 
 it 
 
I 
 
 ;f« 
 
 M 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 the check system. The deposit of money 
 in a savings-bank is therefore an invest- 
 ment, and its consideration does not He 
 within the field of household administra- 
 tion. 
 
 The bank, on the other hand, is a busi- 
 ness convenience; and it is because of 
 the value of the service rendered by it 
 in permitting the depositor to draw or 
 transfer her money by check at any time, 
 and in any amount within her existing 
 balance, that the money is left with the 
 bank for safe-keeping. Certain other in- 
 stitutions, known generally as loan and 
 trust companies, add to their other busi- 
 ness functions those of the bank, and 
 allow a conservative rate of interest on 
 deposits. But to the housewife, the dis- 
 tinction is very important between the 
 various enterprises which offer opportu- 
 nities for the investment of her surplus 
 
 96 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 capital and the bank which will act as her 
 cashier in handling the income and outgo 
 of her domestic establishment. 
 
 The bank finds a profit in rendering this 
 service and thus attracting deposits, be- 
 cause it has been found that the sum 
 total of the money of depositors on hand 
 from day to day will generally be about 
 twenty times the amount called for by 
 check; that is, that depositors, at any 
 one moment, are using only, say, about 
 five per cent, of their money, so that the 
 bank, by careful management, can itself 
 have the temporary use of nearly the 
 whole amount. 
 
 Other sources of profit to the bank are : 
 the use of its own capital, of its own ac- 
 cumulated profits, and of its own notes. 
 Its debts may be said to consist of what 
 it owes to the depositors who leave their 
 money in its keeping, to the stockholders 
 7 97 
 
 I i, 
 
 !*■ 
 
 H 
 
 *: ^■gt.'aLfrMii:Vij..> M3n>ii".it .8- 1-^ 
 
I 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 who furnish its capital, to the individual 
 creditors from whom it has borrowed as a 
 business organization, and to the mem- 
 bers of the general public who are us- 
 ing its circulating notes. To meet these 
 debts, it usually has outstanding loans 
 made on short time to the active busi- 
 ness men who are transacting their af- 
 fairs many miles apart on the credit sys- 
 tem; securities in the way of stock and 
 mortgage held as investments; real es- 
 tate that may have been acquired ; debts 
 due from other banks; and cash either 
 in hand or readily collectable by check. 
 Any surplus, of course, is the profit of the 
 bank; and it must be remembered, also, 
 that the known character of a bank for 
 careful, conservative, and upright dealing 
 constitutes in itself a moral security upon 
 which the housewife may safely rely for 
 assistance in her financial administration. 
 
 98 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 Banks in the United States are of three 
 general kinds : private. State, and nation- 
 al, organized respectively as firms or indi- 
 vidual dealers, as institutions doing busi- 
 ness under State authority, or under the 
 laws of the general government with ex- 
 clusive authority to issue bank-notes, the 
 notes being secured by national bonds de- 
 posited with the Treasurer of the United 
 States. These distinctions, however, are 
 not of as great weight as might be sup- 
 posed in deciding the selection of a bank 
 in which to deposit the money of the 
 household. What the matron of any con- 
 siderable establishment needs is banking 
 accommodation ; and this being available, 
 and the question of financial soundness 
 being disposed of, the rest will be settled 
 by local convenience and personal pref- 
 erence. 
 
 The bank, at first view, has the ap- 
 
 99 
 
 
 ■>— - •Me^-l 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 pearance of an extensive accounting in- 
 stitution ; and from this point the house- 
 wife begins to understand that the jour- 
 nal-ledger of her own establishment is 
 part of one universal system of financial 
 accountancy. All the money coming into 
 her household monthly or weekly has 
 been drawn, doubtless, in one way or an- 
 other, from this or other banks ; and all, 
 or nearly all, that she has laid out for 
 its support has found its way back into 
 some bank. And thus, time and again, 
 the books of the bank have already re- 
 corded the income and outgo of this 
 floating capital. Her business here will 
 be with a concern organized for profit, but 
 conducted, under severe legal restrictions, 
 in the interest of the entire world of af- 
 fairs. Her money will be in the hands 
 of a board of directors and of a staff of 
 officers and assistants consisting, with 
 
 ICO 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 more or less variation, of a president, a 
 vice-president, a cashier, an assistant- 
 cashier, a chief clerk, a country book- 
 keeper, a dealers' book-keeper, several 
 ledger-keepers, a discount clerk, a note 
 teller, a receiving teller, a paying teller, 
 and a general book - keeper. Her per- 
 sonal dealings, ordinarily, will be with 
 the president and cashier, or their im- 
 mediate representatives, and, in the 
 routine of business, with the receiving 
 and paying tellers and a certain book- 
 keeper. 
 
 Upon her first introduction, she will be 
 asked to sign her name in a special rec- 
 ord for identification; and having been 
 then supplied with a number of de- 
 posit tickets, a pass-book, and a book 
 of blank checks, she hands in her first 
 deposit to the receiving teller. There- 
 after, if she would rather transact her 
 
 lOI 
 
 m 
 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 business by messenger, she will have 
 little occasion to visit the bank in per- 
 son. 
 
 Her signature will be kept either in a 
 book of signatures or in a cabinet of 
 signature cards. It should contain her 
 first and last names in full. Prefixed or 
 suffixed words and abbreviations are gen- 
 erally objectionable, as well as the use of 
 the first name of the husband. Thus, her 
 signature should be *'Mary Smith," or 
 ** Mary A. Smith," not'' Mrs. Mary Smith," 
 or "Mrs. John Smith," or "Mary Smith, 
 M. D. " This rule, of course, is not absolute, 
 and is not without necessary exception. If 
 Mary A. Smith, for example, is acting for 
 another, she must add the distinguishing 
 title, as "Agent," "Attorney," "Treas- 
 urer," " Trustee," and the like, to her own 
 name. It is upon comparison with her 
 signature as kept upon record, and with 
 
 I02 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 which the paying teller quickly becomes 
 familiar, that her checks are honored by 
 the bank. If transactions are extensive, 
 or if the housewife has reason to believe 
 that her signature may be counterfeited, 
 she may follow the rule of certain finan- 
 ciers and adopt some slight peculiarity 
 in the bank signature, to be known only 
 to herself, and not used in general cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 The deposit ticket, which she herself 
 or her messenger fills out and hands in 
 with each deposit, is a small printed 
 blank form, ruled for dollars and cents, 
 and worded for amounts in " specie, bills, 
 checks," or, sometimes, ''gold, silver, 
 bills, checks," and often having also a 
 special column for out-of-town checks. 
 The following is the usual form of a de- 
 posit ticket, and shows how it should be 
 filled out: 
 
 103 
 
 ' •;-'l 
 
 fi -» 
 
 ^Hi 
 
 H 
 
 «.tf A ^. tJHUn,", 1. . — ---^ * ^^u'^iH^jjit.JttA.r.a.T . JMt" > 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 DEPOSITED BY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 JFrattklm ^quar? Natuinal Sank 
 
 New York,. . / 190 
 
 Specie 
 
 Bills 
 
 Checks 
 
 ■■ \ 
 
 25 
 
 15 
 
 40 
 
 104 
 
 
 :1 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 The depositor's name, with the date, is 
 written upon the ticket ; the coin is count- 
 ed and entered in the doUars-and-cents 
 columns ; then the bills ; then the amount 
 of each check, if any checks are to be de- 
 posited. The whole is then footed up, and 
 deposit, deposit ticket, and pass-book are 
 handed together to the receiving teller. 
 He counts the deposit, verifies the figures, 
 enters the total amount against the bank 
 in the pass-book, which he hands back to 
 the depositor, the money going into the 
 treasury and the deposit ticket into the 
 accounting department. It must be re- 
 membered that the name of the depositor 
 written on the deposit ticket is not nec- 
 essarily her signature; and, as already 
 noted, anybody whom she chooses to 
 send to the bank can make the deposit. 
 
 A check is any written order, dated 
 and bearing the signature of the de- 
 
 105 
 
 
 ■r..-jA«^.A'ta-' -KiSiai!.^ 
 
f 
 
 i 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 positor, directing the bank to pay on 
 demand a specified sum to the bearer of 
 the check, or to a person named, or to 
 that person's order. 
 
 A person to whose order a check is 
 made payable can collect the money 
 from the bank itself, or can deposit it in 
 another bank and have that bank collect 
 it from the first bank, or can sign it over 
 to another person, and that person can 
 collect it, or sign it over still further, and 
 so on. When the check reaches the de- 
 positor's own bank, and is paid, it is can- 
 celled and returned to the depositor when 
 her pass - book is balanced, and becomes 
 her voucher or receipt of payment. As 
 her check may pass through the hands of 
 others, so theirs may pass through hers, 
 and thus it is that at times her deposits 
 in the bank will consist of checks as well 
 as of cash. 
 
 1 06 
 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 She must, of course, have in bank the 
 amount called for when her check is pre- 
 sented for payment, otherwise the bank 
 must refuse to honor the check, or must 
 pay the amount out of its own funds, in 
 which latter case the bank would assume, 
 for the time, the character rather of a 
 charitable institution, or a chivalrous un- 
 dertaking, than a true business organiza- 
 tion. Depositors are creditors, to whom 
 the bank is debtor. 
 
 A check may be drawn payable to 
 '* bearer, '' in which case the paying teller 
 will pay it to the person presenting it, 
 unless some suspicious circumstance may 
 seem to warrant an inquiry into the 
 genuineness of the check. Or it may be 
 made payable to the depositor herself 
 by using the word ''cash'' or ''myself." 
 Or it may specify by name the person, 
 firm, or corporation to whom it is to be 
 
 107 
 
 > 
 
 I 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 paid. In all cases where the payee is 
 named, the words ''or order/* or ''to the 
 order of/' will make the check trans- 
 ferable by indorsement, and thus it may 
 finally reach the bank by some unexpect- 
 ed channel. 
 
 Indorsement is the writing by the 
 payee of his or her name across the back 
 of the check, either with or without di- 
 rection to pay it to, or to the order of, 
 another party. To indorse a check in 
 the conventional way, hold it by the 
 upper left-hand comer and turn it over 
 so that this will still be the upper left- 
 hand comer, and thus write across the 
 back of the check, beginning the first in- 
 dorsement about one-third the length of 
 the check below what is now the top. 
 Subsequent indorsements are written be- 
 low in chronological order. 
 
 To indorse a check in which the payee's 
 
 io8 
 
BACK OF CHECK SIIOWI.VO ENDORSEMENT 
 
I I 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 name is made to difiEer from the name 
 she uses at the bank, both names must 
 be signed — as, for example, a check made 
 out to " Mrs. John Smith " wovild be taken 
 to the bank with the indorsement "Mrs. 
 John Smith" followed by the proper in- 
 dorsement ' ' Mary A. Smith. ' ' When the 
 depositor has given her check to any 
 one, she may still, if there is reason for 
 so doing, instruct her bank not to pay it, 
 and the request will, as a rule, be respected. 
 
 A final safeguard in the interest of all 
 concerned is that any specified person 
 to whom a check ought to be paid must 
 be known to the bank or must be " iden- 
 tified" by somebody who is so known. 
 
 The check may be wholly in writing; 
 it is usually, however, made out on the 
 bank's own printed blank. These blanks 
 are furnished singly, or in packages 
 bound together into books with a very 
 
 109 
 
 V-:] 
 
 I 
 
 |i 
 
 1 -r 
 
 t : 
 
HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 wide inner margin. This margin, known 
 as the stub, and numbered to corre- 
 spond with the accompanying check, is 
 commonly ruled for dollars and cents, 
 and is filled out as a memorandum of 
 the date, amount, and purpose of the 
 check. The stubs, thus filled out, form 
 a record of money paid out through the 
 bank; and by using their backs as a 
 record also of money deposited in the 
 bank, a sort of cash-book is obtained, 
 which, in the absence of any proper 
 domestic accountancy, would be of some 
 assistance as a book of the household. 
 It is best to have a check-book with not 
 less than three checks to a page. The 
 words *'or order'' or *'to the order of," 
 appearing on the printed form, are 
 erased, when not required, by drawing 
 the pen through them. The accompany- 
 ing is the usual form of a blank check : 
 
 no 
 
 I 
 
o 
 
 o 
 m 
 
 ?o 
 
 n 
 

 ■if&ii 
 
 i^!§^S0iiM: 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 The pass - book is the depositor's 
 voucher; it serves as a receipt for her 
 deposit. In form it is a small and very 
 simple account-book, containing a copy 
 of her account as it stands in the bank's 
 own books. She should not make any 
 entries in the pass - book, but should 
 merely present it to the receiving teller 
 with each deposit, and should also send 
 it to the bank about the last day of each 
 month, or whenever requested to do so, 
 in order that it may be written up and 
 balanced to agree with the bank ledger. 
 
 When a deposit is made, the receiving 
 teller enters, on the left or debit side of 
 the pass - book, the date and the amount 
 of the deposit as by count he finds it to 
 agree with the deposit ticket, sets his 
 own initial to the entry, and hands back 
 the book to the depositor or her messen- 
 ger. When the book is left or sent in to 
 
 III 
 
 
 
 P^»w«ralj*s«. J»*»*(*«wi!SgS4i<-H#--**»** "^ ■>-*'* --^X ««%^%*»4.H ^ .f,^^f «5 t«,jj»i&« 
 
 >j*t ■mH-.-fi'li^i* 
 
I > 
 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 be balanced, all payments that have been 
 made by the bank for the depositor are 
 entered on the right or credit side, and 
 the book is returned. These payments, 
 as we have seen, have been made upon 
 presentation of the depositor's order in 
 the form of a check, and these checks are 
 now cancelled as paid and are returned 
 to the depositor with her pass-book. 
 
 From all this it will be seen that the 
 pass-book should be preserved as an im- 
 portant document, and that cancelled 
 and returned checks should be carefully 
 examined and compared with their stubs 
 in the check-book. 
 
 It will be found that the balance as 
 shown by the check-book and the balance 
 as shown by the pass-book will differ 
 by the amount of checks that may have 
 been issued by the depositor but not yet 
 received at the bank ; and the reconciling 
 
 112 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 of these will be an easy task if . she re- 
 members, in her calculation, that the 
 total amount of these outstanding or un- 
 paid checks, subtracted from the balance 
 as given by the bank pass-book, should 
 equal the balance as shown by her own 
 check-book. To arrive at this result, she 
 puts down, on the left-hand side of her 
 check -book, where the balance in bank 
 is shown, the balance as given by the 
 bank pass-book, and deducts from it the 
 amount of the outstanding checks, noting 
 the number and amount of each. This 
 should give the true balance of cash 
 available, and should agree with the 
 figures of the check -book. The out- 
 standing checks will have been found, 
 of course, by the comparison of the re- 
 turned checks with their stubs. 
 
 The following is the usual form of 
 pass-book : 
 
 8 113 
 
 
 •I 
 
 t 
 
 ) 
 
 --^^^^^„^^ %4rf^«^^is^is^fefe*^^«, .^^u. 
 
 < -y**'' li^M'^l*>«- Z' ?«^ 
 
 '«»'';«^=£^:^'@«se«^lils^MH>^ • 
 
 t ■■V.*^»*1(F*W»i'-«^le - * JJ*7-'; jt; 
 
 i 1 
 
 iL'^yj: '"■:'' '-y-'BFyy'tt'^'vi 
 
'4 
 1" 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 IFratiklm ^qmrt Nattntml Sank 
 
 »♦• in account with 
 
 LEFT-HAND PAGE OF BANK-BOOK 
 
 114 
 
 
 "i^^mim^m^&f^ 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 ^^Sm^ (2/. (^nOd 
 
 dr. 
 
 1" 
 
 
 t 
 
 RIGHT-HAND PAGE OF BANK-BOOK 
 
 "5 
 
IS-wd'--,'!' ^^V 
 
 H»i«^*i^w;S'igiF nw^.«^i 
 
 
 
 
 HOW TO KEEP HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS 
 
 Neither pass-book nor check-book in- 
 terferes in any way, as help or as hin- 
 derance, with a scientific system of domes- 
 tic accountancy. The pass - book shows 
 what was in the bank at the last date 
 of balancing. The check-book shows a 
 present safely dependable balance upon 
 which the depositor may draw. 
 
 Her bank account is but another form, 
 in part or in whole, of her cash account, 
 the bank itself being only, as it were, a 
 very convenient department of her cash- 
 drawer. Cash in hand and cash in bank 
 are, to her own domestic accountancy, 
 one and the same thing. 
 
 Her journal-ledger is a component part 
 of her own independent system of ad- 
 ministration. It utilizes, for purposes of 
 scientific interpretation, all that may be 
 read from such financial and commercial 
 books and papers as have come in its way, 
 
 ii6 
 
 ji 
 
 
 THE BANK ACCOUNT 
 
 and been incorporated day by day into 
 its columns. But the end of this inter- 
 pretation is domestic economy, and not 
 finance or commerce. While the journal- 
 ledger of the household is essentially a 
 conservator of the public welfare, its pri- 
 mary value, as a trusted domestic, is not 
 to those who ring the door-bell on outside 
 business, but to its owner, the matron of 
 the home, and, by reason of her faithful 
 domestic accountancy, true mistress of 
 the situation. 
 
 THE END 
 
 St?'!*''**'-" W" ■Wt Jli- ^V * s. , 
 

 By M. E. W. SHEEWOOD 
 
 AN EPISTLE TO POSTERITY. Being Rambling 
 Recollections of Many Years of My Life. With a 
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 vertiser. 
 
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 I^'Any of the above works will he sent by mail, postage prepaid, to 
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 WORKS 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION 
 
 This New and Revised Edition Comprises Additional Ma- 
 terial and Hitherto UnpublisTied Letters, Sketches, and 
 Drawings, Derived from the Author's Original Manu- 
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 daughter^ Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has supplied to the bio- 
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 sonalia fresh to most readers or not before collected, will to- 
 gether invest this edition with unique interest and give it a 
 value which will easily place it at the head of editions of the 
 great English novelist. — Literary World, Boston. 
 
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 'Any of the above works will he sent by mail, postage prepaid^ 
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 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
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