New Britain herald., 1929-04-12

lar and then sorting out the whole business every week or every month.
 With this system, we found that our account keeping re- quired surprisingly little time and trouble. Five or ten minutes a day, plus a couple of hours once 8 month, proved ample. In fact, the monthly summarizing de- veloped into kind of game with Beat last months record" the goal.
 We made no attempt to lay out regular budget until our ac- counts were year old. Our working principal was, Find the facts first; then budget" Of course, we made certain redis- tribution of our income as the story told by our account sheets began to take shape; that is, we actually-though not on paper drew up three or four rough budgets before the year was over.
 When the time came for max ing our first real budget, we had for tolls our last years accounts, our next years estimated income, and-we hoped-a fair and open minded attitude.
 We first put down what we had come to call our overhead" insurance, rent, taxes. These were, we considered, unalterable items. Our rent was bit high for our total income, but it rep resented 6 comfortable, health ful, home for ourselves and our child, and we decided that what ever cutting of expense was done must be done elsewhere.
 Next we established . sinking fund" and deliberately assigned to it five per cent of our ex- pected income. This was to take care of emergencies and over optimism in the cuts we planned to make in certain branches of our years expenditure.
 Then, guided by our accounts, we distributed the balance over the other headings, always with the thought in mind before put ting down a set of figures. "Is it worth the money" Finally, we wrote Cash Savings" on our budget sheet, and built up this new item by careful slashes in our proposed living costs. The resulting sum wasn't overpower- ing, but we felt that we had at least made . start in the right direction.
 Of course. our budget didn't work out exactly as we planned it. We had no expectation that it would. We stuck to our esti- mates as closely as possible, but we had no intention of becoming slaves to them. A budget should be plan of action-not g set of rules and regulations that must be followed to the letter, come what may.
 l believe that it is a good idea, when laying out a budget, for you and your husband to decide if you can, what the chief thing is that you want your money to do for you not only now but in the future, and then build your budget around that one thing.
 As to your future plans, 1t may be an old-age fund, house, . better education for your chill dren, a trip to Europe, . new car. Whatever it is, keep working toward it in your financial plans, and eventually you will have something worth while.
 Remember, finally that all the accounts and budgets in the United States will not keep you from spending beyond your means if your scale of living is more expensive than your in- come justifes.
 GeneraIly - very generally speaking, on . rather moderate income, about a quarter of one s total income can be spent for housing, from a fifth to an eighth for food. depending on the size of the income and the number of people in the family. and slightly less for clothes. Most so-called standard budgets" demand a savings account amounting to at least one-tenth of the income. As the income drops below s2,50o or $3,O00 . year, these proportions tend to rise. As it approaches the Sl0,000 mark, the percent ages for food, shelter and clothes tend to fall, while savings may shoot up to . fifth or more of tha fota1 ;poo-.