THE EXPENDITURE OF MIDDLE CLASS WORKING WOMEN.

December, 1898.

In making an appeal to middle class working women to keep and utilise their accounts of expenditure, some little explanation is necessary of the ends to be furthered by such tedious labour. For the keeping of such accounts is to most people a weariness and a vexation. One friend of mine declines to make the attempt because it makes her miserable to have the smallness of her income and the gloominess of the future brought before her mind with such regularity. Another after six months’ trial has suffered a relapse because keeping the account spoilt all the pleasure of spending. Many are afraid that moralists will denounce their expenditure as misdirected and extravagant, and, although living within their income, prefer to remain uncertain as to the amount they spend on what others may regard as mere vanities.

There are two questions which every woman who may have to be self-supporting should ask herself:—

(1) Is the salary which I am efficient enough to earn sufficient to maintain that efficiency for a considerable number of years?

(2) In middle age, when I may be entirely dependent on my own exertions, shall I be more, or shall I be less, competent to earn a salary sufficient to maintain the standard of living to which I have been accustomed?

The cost of efficiency is higher than the cost of living, a fact which is not sufficiently recognised by the middle class working woman or by her employers. The habits of domestic life which make it incumbent on women to make the best of a fixed income cling to them as wage-earners. They do not sufficiently realise that the drain on their vitality, effected by their daily routine of continuous and often monotonous exertion, must be met by fresh streams of energy which can only be produced under present conditions by deliberate search for recreation and by a greater expenditure of money than a purely domestic life demands.

Some curious results of the movement in favour of securing economic independence for women may be observed at the present time. The theory has of course in many cases been reduced in its application to an absurdity. Parents who thirty years ago would have expected all their daughters to stay at home until they were married, now with equal unwisdom wish them to pass from the school to the office, regardless of their natural bent, and as careless of their future prospects as before. Girls fitted by Nature for a home life, and for nothing else, lose their brightness and vitality in sedentary drudgery, losing at the same time all prospect of an escape from it.

So also from a system under which the womenkind were expected to devote their evenings entirely to smoothing away the wrinkles and dispelling the bad tempers of their fathers and brothers after their harassing day’s work, we have suddenly passed to one under which all the daughters may come home equally cross and equally tired, with no hope that others will do their repairs for them, whether of temper or of clothes.

But there are well-to-do families where the competent mother has no desire to hand over her duties to her daughters, and where their happiness is still the chief consideration. Here girls are allowed to earn—not their living—but an income by which they may relieve their parents of some of their cost of living and at the same time live at a greater cost. From both a social and an economic point of view there is much to be said for this plan, provided both parents and daughters realise that the latter have not, under this system, achieved economic independence, or the power to be economically independent. The girl who earns £100 a year by her work and receives another £100 a year in one form or another from her father is in all probability underselling no one; and indeed, in the consciousness that she is only being paid half her cost of living, may even, by her liberal views of what is a good salary, be inciting her less luxurious colleagues to raise their standard of living and remuneration. But if her work is not of a kind that gives training and power to pass on to higher paid posts, the woman worker in middle life will be in almost as unhappy a position if obliged to be self-supporting as the helpless women who thirty years ago used to advertise for posts as companions or governesses, stating as their only recommendation that they had never expected to have to perform the duties of either situation.

Women never will and never can become highly efficient and continue so for any long period on the salaries which they at present receive, or even on the salaries with which, as a rule, they would be contented if they could get them. Vitality and freshness of mind, when youth is gone, cannot be maintained within the four walls of the class room or office, on incomes too small to admit of varied social intercourse, or of practical beneficence. Without the latter power the middle-aged unmarried woman can feel that she has small claim to live, and, in such a case, if her daily work does not in itself call for its exercise, she has little desire to.

What is our standard of living, then? and how much more will it cost us to maintain that standard when the whole effort to maintain it falls upon ourselves? To answer these questions we must have definite accounts of expenditure.

The samples that I have to give are all more or less imperfect as regards their form of presentation. The teaching profession is the one from which naturally it will be easiest to obtain returns. Recruited as it is from every rank of life except the aristocracy, and charged with the training for every rank of life—except, again, the aristocracy, who owe little of their education to their governesses—it should present to us through its accounts a corresponding variety of standard of living. It should do so; but I venture to predict that it will not.

My first three budgets were given to me several years ago. They give the expenditure of three assistant mistresses teaching in high schools and boarding during term time in private houses. No. 1 gives the expenditure for one year; No. 2 the expenditure for two successive years; No. 3 the average expenditure for six years. Side by side with them I place the budget for one year of another high school mistress (No. 4) living in lodgings—which I give afterwards in greater detail.

Table I.

Accounts of Expenditure of three High School Mistresses boarding in Private Houses, and of one High School Mistress in Furnished Lodgings.

Amount Spent on

	1.	2 A.	2 B.	3.	4.
	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.
Lodging and board	41 0 0	41 6 0	40 4 0	50 17 11	54 9 3
Washing	[5]	2 7 6	2 4 0	3 0 7	3 7 11³⁄₄
Dress	10 10 0	16 0 0	16 0 0	12 14 1¹⁄₂	16 0 5¹⁄₂
Books,newspapers, &c.	0 7 9	4 1 8	3 8 0	3 16 8	2 15 4¹⁄₂
Travelling	3 18 0	4 15 6	4 16 0	17 4 2¹⁄₂	12 0 5¹⁄₂
Holidays	9 10 10	4 5 0	5 4 3	17 4 2¹⁄₂	—
Amusements	[5]	1 6 8	0 17 6	[5]	3 11 5
Subscriptions, donations, &c.	[5]	[5]	[5]	4 4 5¹⁄₄	1 17 11
Presents	[5]	[5]	[5]	9 15 7	5 18 3³⁄₄
Postage and stationery	[5]	[5]	[5]	1 15 2	4 15 1¹⁄₂
Miscellaneous	7 0 0	7 3 0	9 0 0	3 16 3	3 11 11
Doctor and medicine	2 0 0	0 6 0	1 1 0	3 2 1	0 19 5
Insurance	—	—	—	23 10 10	—
Savings	—	—	—	1 13 4	—
Not spent	25 13 5	18 8 8	23 18 7	—	20 12 4¹⁄₂
Total	100 0 0	100 0 0	106 13 4	135 11 2¹⁄₄	130 0 0

[5] Included in “Miscellaneous.”

These tables are not so readily comparable as they should be for scientific exactness. The items included under “Travelling” and “Holidays” need to be enumerated. Under the latter head, for instance, are board and lodging included and are railway fares subtracted and placed under “Travelling”? As a fact No. 1 and No. 2 include under “Board and Lodging” only the cost incurred during the school terms; under the head of “Travelling” is only counted the cost of going to school from home and their daily travelling expenses during the school term. The money put down under “Holidays” includes their expenses for the part of their holidays during which they were not at home. The same is, I believe, true in the case of No. 3, but I do not know for what length of time any of them were subsidised by this free board and lodging at home.

On the other hand, No. 4’s accounts are so summarised that the cost of “Holidays” disappears altogether, being broken up into its constituents of board, lodging, travelling fares and amusements. The confusion in this case is remedied in the following detailed table supplied by No. 4.

Table II.

Accounts of Expenditure of a High School Mistress (No. 4) in Furnished Lodgings.

Amount Spent on

	During School Year (39 weeks).	During Holidays (13 weeks).	Total during year.
	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.
Lodgings	13 7 6	0 8 6	17 13 0
	3 7 0
	to be reserved in holidays.
Board	34 11 3	2 5 0	36 16 3
Lunches, teas, &c.		0 16 8	0 16 8
Furniture	1 5 6		1 5 6
Washing	3 7 11³⁄₄		3 7 11³⁄₄
Dress	16 0 5¹⁄₂		16 0 5¹⁄₂
Books	2 15 4¹⁄₂		2 15 4¹⁄₂
Fares	3 16 6¹⁄₂	8 3 11	12 0 5¹⁄₂
Amusements	2 18 6	0 12 11	3 11 5
Subscriptions, donations, &c.	1 17 11		1 17 11
Presents	5 18 3³⁄₄		5 18 3³⁄₄
Postage and stationery	4 15 1¹⁄₂		4 15 1¹⁄₂
Miscellaneous	1 9 9		1 9 9
Doctor and medicine	0 19 5		0 19 5
Not spent	20 12 4¹⁄₂		20 12 4¹⁄₂
	Total		130 0 0

The social outlook of a working woman is very largely determined by the amount she can afford to spend on dress, and her view of life is perhaps most clearly indicated in the consideration of this item of expenditure. And no accounts of expenditure are of much value without some accompanying expression of the spender’s contentment or dissatisfaction with the results of her expenditure. In reply to my question on the subject of dress, No. 2 informs me that £16 a year was quite enough for her dress:—

“My dresses were always made by a dressmaker, not at home; as we lived in a country town, her charges for making were inexpensive as such things go; I don’t think that with linings and small etceteras (not of course trimmings) they ever exceeded 15s. I cannot say that I was well dressed, but I don’t think that I was exactly badly dressed. I am sure that any one with more judicious taste than I had could have done better on the same money; I myself could do better now, for I certainly several times made mistakes of the kind that writers on dress warn us against, that of buying things, say at sales, which were not really suitable for any likely purpose. I always made a plan of buying my winter dress at the summer sales, which in our country town came in early August, and my summer dress at their winter sale (things really were reduced). Though I did no dressmaking I made my own underclothing.

“I am afraid I don’t quite see the application of the words ‘prettily,’ and ‘admiration’ to the school dress of a high school teacher. I should rather consider neatness as one’s aim in school dressing, but then some people have a talent for dressing for which they very properly receive their reward: I am afraid I don’t possess it.”

No. 3 writes:

“I still keep to about £12 a year for my dress, and I think there are many teachers, if not most, who spend about that amount. Miss B——, who was for some years head mistress at C——, tells me that she never spent more than £12 a year while there, and she visited a good deal and certainly always looked very nice. Miss D——, head mistress at E——, tells me that before she came here she spent £10 a year for about ten years while teaching in London. As to being well dressed, that is always comparative. I have my clothes made at very good shops, not the most fashionable, and always of the best materials, as I think it is most economical in the end; but I spend very little on trimmings, and nothing on fripperies, such as beads and feathers. I generally have two new dresses a year. I make my own blouses because the ready-made ones are too cheap and poor. If I had time, I think I should enjoy making other things, but I have too much to do. I generally do my own mending, but sometimes lately I have had a woman in to do it. Children certainly prefer a well-dressed teacher; I do not think my dress is either so dowdy or so shabby as to displease their taste; to look fresh and clean is my aim for school clothes, and plainly made things seem to me most suitable for our work. As to evening dress, I generally have one dress that will do for a concert, and I very seldom go to any other evening entertainment. I think it distinctly an advantage to a teacher to have as many quiet evenings at home as possible, and I find so many occasions present themselves of attending meetings and lectures that if I were to go into society as well, I should have very little time to give to study and the quiet rest which is so refreshing after the day’s work.”

The details of No. 4’s expenditure are given later on.

No. 3 and No. 4 were both considerably older than No. 1 and No. 2, and had both learnt that the one absolutely necessary indulgence for a high school mistress is a good holiday in new scenes. No. 4 says in a note that the cost of her holidays during this year were lower than usual, as she did not go abroad. No. 2 strikes the usual note of warning on this point:—

“I spent very little in my holidays; for my father was much averse to his only daughter spending any of her free time away from home; but you will also notice that there is a distinctly large proportion of my salary unappropriated or reserved, and a certain proportion of this ought to have been spent in holidays. I enjoy excellent health usually, and my nerves seem the only vulnerable point, but after teaching more than three years at W——, a term in X—— brought me to the brink of a regular nervous breakdown: this I imagine might have been avoided if I had really had a good holiday every year.”

The moral of this to young teachers would seem to be: Do not try to save out of £100 a year at the expense of your health. Better keep fresh and strong without saving and rise to £120 as quickly as possible, than break down and exhaust your savings in a long illness which may reduce your salary to £90.

The conditions and cost of living of women clerks vary in many and important respects from those of women teachers. Their work is less exhausting on the whole and less trying to the nerves. But, on the other hand, their holidays are generally very short; except for a few brief months in the year, they must work while it is day, and seek for their amusements when the night comes; they are doing sedentary work in office hours, and yet only by a strong determination can they find any recreation except in the further sedentary occupations of reading and sewing, or in poisonous lecture halls, concert rooms, or theatres. They cannot easily do their shopping, and have no opportunity of wearing out their shabby dresses in private; they must feed themselves unwholesomely at tea-rooms, or extravagantly and monotonously at restaurants. Above all, whereas teaching may be regarded as a life work well worth the doing for its own sake, clerical work can hardly be soul-satisfying to any intelligent human being. It is not living, but merely a means of living.

Dress is necessarily much more expensive in the case of the clerk than in the case of the high school mistress. Circumstances and temperament work together in producing this result. Were it possible—as I hope it may be—to secure accounts of clerks and typists living at home and working for about £40 to £60 a year, it would, I believe, frequently be found that their expenditure on this item was double that of the high school mistress earning £130 a year. On the other hand, the high school teacher knows that she must preserve physical health, and that she cannot afford to economise in food. The clerk too often lives on tea and roll until the evening, and for want of physical exercise, has little appetite even then.

The clerk’s budget (No. 5) that I present here gives a year’s expenditure of an income of £227. It has to be noted that, apart from the food and rent, most of the items were largely supplemented in kind. The expenditure does not at all represent the standard of living in things not strictly necessaries. The sum put down for holiday expenditure includes the expense of five days’ holiday only, the remainder being for railway fares, no other expense whatever being incurred during the remainder of the holidays.

Table III.

Accounts of Expenditure of a Clerk (No. 5) renting Unfurnished Lodgings.

Amount spent on

	£	s.
Rent of two unfurnished rooms, kitchen fire, and attendance	40	0
Coals, wood, and lights	5	0
Miscellaneous housekeeping expenses (including additions to furniture)	4	0
Food	43	0
Washing (household and personal)	4	10
Dress	41	0
Library subscription, books, newspapers, etc.	3	0
Travelling and holiday	8	0
Amusements	2	0
Clubs and societies	2	10
Presents and charities	12	10
Doctor	2	10
Small expenses	19	0
Not spent	40	0
Total	£227	0

Notes.—About £14 included under “Food” was spent on lunch and tea, which had to be taken out every day. The amount under “Washing” does not represent the true expense; many things were sent regularly to a country laundry, and were not paid for by their owner. The expenditure on “Dress” is £10 in excess of what produced a better effect when living at home as a “lady of leisure.” Practically, all mending (except stockings) and renovating were paid for. The amount spent in books by no means represents the value received. The heading “Small Expenses” includes cabs, omnibuses, and incidental travelling expenses, stationery, postage, extra newspapers, and oddments not amounting to more than a few pence each.

The last complete budget placed at my disposal is that of a journalist (No. 6), a joint occupier of a house, spending £338 in the year, for which the accounts are given. The income tax and total income are not stated. No. 6 writes:—

“My work is mainly office work, and I have nothing to do with society journalism, so that I do not have to be well dressed. In giving my travelling expenses I have of course omitted all travelling expenses refunded to me by my employers, but I have included fares spent in taking my bicycle out of London, although they should perhaps come under the head of holiday expenses. Then, of course, as, except the theatre, my amusements are nearly all outdoor, the expenses are really divided between food and dress and lodging, and it looks as though I spent very little on recreation.”

Table IV.

Accounts of a Journalist (No. 6), Joint Occupier of a House.

Amount spent on

	£	s.	d.
Rent (share of)	22	10	0
Rates ”	7	4	3
Water ”	1	6	0
Gas ”	3	13	0¹⁄₂
Coal ”	4	1	0
Service ”	6	17	6
“Housekeeping”[6]	44	3	4¹⁄₄
Luncheons, teas, and dinners away from home[7]	31	1	10¹⁄₂
Furniture	2	13	3
Flowers	1	2	3
Dress	42	1	4³⁄₄
Books	14	1	2
Newspapers	2	3	9¹⁄₂
Fares	13	8	5
Holiday[8]	7	18	8
Amusements	4	19	6
Clubs	3	1	0
Subscriptions, donations	27	15	4
Presents[9]	18	17	0
Postage and stationery	3	2	10¹⁄₂
Miscellaneous	5	0	10
Doctor and medicine	0	0	0
Insurance	31	2	10
Savings	40	0	0
Total expenditure	£338	5	4
Income tax	Not stated
Balance	Not stated

[6] The housekeeping done by the other occupier, and separate account of each item not kept. Under this head are included half the cost of food for household of three people and servant, and of laundry, garden, kitchen requisites, house repairs, &c.

[7] This includes daily lunches and teas, and lunches and dinners to guests at clubs, restaurants, &c.

[8] Spent unusually little on holidays this year.

[9] Includes five months’ contribution towards payment of one relative to live with and take care of another.

Details of dress expenditure for one year have been given me by Nos. 5 and 6, as well as by No. 4. In addition, I have received the dress accounts for one year of a clerk living at home and receiving board and lodging free, and those for nine years of a lady receiving an allowance for her personal expenditure. I give the accounts of the wage-earning women first.

Table V.

Accounts of Expenditure on Dress of No. 4 (a High School Mistress), Nos. 5 and 7 (Clerks), and No. 6 (a Journalist).

Amount spent on

	4.	5.	7.	6.
	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.
Dresses	3 16 1	16 10 0	23 2 11	19 1 9
Coats, cloaks, umbrellas, &c.	2 7 11	8 10 0	2 16 0	2 4 0
Millinery	1 11 1	4 10 0	5 5 9	3 11 7
Underclothing and handkerchiefs	3 9 11	6 0 0	5 2 1	6 17 8
Boots and shoes	2 15 11¹⁄₄	3 0 0	3 4 2	6 5 8
Gloves	0 15 8	1 15 0	1 13 6	2 0 0
Ties, collars, &c.	0 15 11³⁄₄	0 15 0	1 6 5	0 19 9
Miscellaneous	0 8 11	——[10]	——[11]	1 0 11³⁄₄
Total	16 1 6	41 0 0	42 10 10	42 1 4³⁄₄

[10] Included in “petty cash” and not separable from other items.

[11] Sponges, toilet soaps, brushes, &c., should have been included under this head.

No. 5 (a clerk) adds the following note to her dress account:—

“To give a true impression I think detailed dress accounts should cover three years’ expenditure; things like, e.g., winter coats and best evening dresses cannot come out of the same year’s income on a £40 dress allowance. In considering the effect produced for the money, people should certainly state whether they are a ‘stock’ size. I can wear nothing ready made. People who can may reduce the cost of all their outer garments by about half.”

No. 7 (a clerk), who is perhaps more representative of the middle class working women of the future than the others whose accounts are given here, inasmuch as she appears to regard bicycling, tennis, hockey, society, and pretty dresses as being as much the right of the girl wage-earner as of her stay-at-home cousins, has given me the list of additions to her wardrobe made by her family during the year, the items being: one pair of good evening slippers, one blouse, one dozen handkerchiefs, one lace collar, a total value of £2 4s.; and sundry veils, ribbons, and belts, value not known.

She writes:—

“What comes so expensive when one has to go to work straight on, say for the first six months of the year, is the having to keep up the same standard of respectability in the ‘between season’ time as at other times. The holidays always come between the seasons at school or college, and it does not matter much what one wears. But at the office by April I felt that I had simply ‘nothing to wear,’ and yet I hardly knew what to buy, as it was too early to get summer things. If one once got into the way of getting inter-season clothes as well, the expenditure would be enormous.”

No. 6 writes:—

“I walk a great deal in all weathers, and boots and walking dresses are subjected to hard wear. I generally have about three new walking dresses a year, at about 4¹⁄₂ guineas each on the average. My boot-bill is extra heavy, because my boots have to be made to order.”

And in answer to further questions on this latter point:—

“I find that my average expenditure on boots and shoes for the year I gave you and for the year just ended (September 30) is £4 14s. 9d.; I never kept my accounts before, so that I cannot be sure about my permanent average, but I should say it was generally about 5 guineas. This year was a very dry year, and not so ruinous as usual, and I cycled more and walked less.”

It should be noted that the three office workers who spend over £40 on dress are all dissatisfied with the result, and consider that they have to exercise rigid economy to keep their expenditure down to that limit. At the same time, all three are a little ashamed to find that they spend so much. This arises from the fact that the expenditure is always compared with that of the girl living at home on an allowance. The comparison is not justifiable. The office worker wears out more clothes and has no time for making or mending.

I lay stress on this because one difficulty in the way of obtaining accounts is a fear of incurring the disapprobation of the censors who think that to devote half one’s time to managing to dress well on £30 a year earned by some one else is less extravagant than to earn £300 a year and spend £50 of it on dress. I asked a journalist, one of the very few working women of my acquaintance always suitably and prettily dressed, if she would let me have her accounts. She owned she had not the courage to confess what a large proportion of her income had to go for clothes. Later on, after reading the journalistic comments on the expenditure tables submitted to the British Association, she told me how thankful she was she had withheld hers—“They call £40 a lavish expenditure!” And yet I have little doubt that few people could under the same circumstances produce so good a result at the same expense; while at the same time from a business point of view such an outlay in my friend’s branch of journalism repays itself with high interest.

Table VI.

Accounts of Expenditure on Dress of No. 8, living at Home, and receiving an Allowance.

Average Amount spent during the Three Years.

	1883-85.	1889-91.	1894-96.
	£ s. d.	£ s. d.	£ s. d.
Dresses	13 9 8	17 15 6	22 1 0
Coats, cloaks, umbrellas	3 16 11	6 5 0	5 12 9
Millinery	2 14 4	3 3 6	4 10 3
Underclothing, handkerchiefs	3 0 8	3 7 6	5 13 10
Boots and Shoes	3 13 5	2 19 2	3 9 2
Gloves	2 2 8	1 18 1	1 16 11
Ties, collars, &c.	0 13 1	0 17 8	0 18 4
Miscellaneous	0 8 6	0 9 0	0 19 9
Total	29 19 3	36 15 5	45 2 0
Personal allowance	£30	£40	£50-£60

My last set of tables, as I have already said, are not those of a wage-earner. The average expenditure is here given for three sets of three years, the personal allowance being £30, £40 and £50 for the successive periods (rising to £60 during the last year of the third period). Books and subscriptions and presents are the other items of expenditure not given here.

No. 8 writes:—

“In addition to the allowance I had various presents of money. While receiving £30 I had evening dresses given me. My mending and altering are done by a maid at home. Up to 1888 I occasionally had dressmaking done at home, but now put it all out. Being so busy a person and not caring for dressmaking or millinery, I have done none myself for the last seven years or more. The average yearly glove expenditure of the three periods is less now than in 1885. This is probably accounted for by the fact that I don’t require so many white evening gloves as when I had many dances.”

The accounts I have presented here have no claim to be regarded as typical. They are merely samples of the kind of material needed to enable us to discover the type.