Evening star., 1945-03-13
BUDGETING;
CARROT RECIPE.
Thanks to Mrs. r. G. D.,
/<.Jiss ry@r>. 1

~ ~'~f ~ ~ A$v
Arlington, -
IN answer to the lady who asked
Tor Q budget for q family with two
children. I'm a great believer In
budgets, just so long as you control
the budget instead of letting the
ouoget control you. I only have a
2-month-old baby instead of two
children, but since one person can
not tell another how to spend his
money even in presumably identical
situations, I believe it would be more
help to you to have a plan to guide
you IN setting up your own budget.
can tell you he'system we use and
perhaps you can adjust 1t to suit
your needs.
Our budget is broken down into II
headings, one of which is further
divided into five items. Our head
tngs are cash, charity, my clothes,
my husbands clothes, emergency,
furniture, gifts, health, insurance,
milk, rent, savings, taxes, utilities,
vacation, War Bonds and baby. Cash
is the amount that my husband
draws from the bank each payday
and covers food, laundry and clean
Ing, sundrieS, my personal allow
ance and his personal allowance.
(Sundries are all those miscellaneous
articles that keep cropping up like
stamps, toothpaSte, newspapers, etc.
The others are self explanatory I'm
sure. I find that my food allowance
figures down to about ST so for two
adults day. Naturally the baby's
food doesn't amount to this as yet,
but we will increase that as she gets
older. I think most of the other
headings are obvious. Emergency"
is what is left over each payday from
all the other items and accumulates
until something comes up that can't
be taken care of under any other
heading. Furniture" includes any
purchases of new pieces or care of
present furnishings such as rug
cleaning and storage, cleaning of
draperies, slip covers and other such
items. Health" means medicine and
doctor bills and group hospitaliza-
ton payments. Milk Is separate
item from food because it is. deliv-
cred to the door and monthly bill
sent. Taxes" for some strange rea-
OIL, dloO 4liSludCo Cdl CAPSiioCo dAlNp
of course, the taxes are other than
Withholding. Baby" is all her ex-
penses other than food and doctors
bills. The amounts for these various
items were decided by first taking
out fixed expenditures, then esti-
mating necessities from the past
years bills or check stubs and plan
ming estimated needs for the present
year for such items as clothes, furni-
trre, health, etc. What was left was
divided among the more or less
luxury" items-gifts, vacation, saw
tngs-at present savings is synony-
NOUS with War Bonds. When my
husbands salary is increased we go
over the budget and decide where
the extra money is needed most or
wanted most and divide it accord
tngly.
After the orginial plan has been
set up, try it out for a few months
and then adjust it from that. Once
you get in the habit of budget it
really works out very easily and you
will find that the money stretches
much further. And it's such a salts
faction to know what you've spent it
for. When something special comes
up that we haven't got the money
for under that particular heading
we look around for some extra money
under some other heading or else
use good old emergency. Incidental