Some husbands and wives make the financial plans of the family together. In other cases, the husband decides what amount of the income should be spent on the table, and the wife plans only the expenditure of that. The households in which the wife buys and the husband pays without consultation or agreement, exist, but let us hope they are few. Then, there is the household in which the woman is financier, and the man lives on an allowance. And, of course, there are a great number of households which are not complete families, but are groups of people, related or unrelated, who make their homes together, and in which the division of income is made by one person, or by the group, as they wish or are compelled by circumstances.
Plans for a whole income are considered here because they include the problems and details of less elaborate plans.
As has been said, the first thing for a family to do is to find out their definite income, irrespective of Aunt Maria. Incomes of all sizes are lived on in some way. The way which their income will cover, is the style of living suitable for a family. If the family income pinches, however, and there is some way of increasing it which does not destroy the home life, nor work some member of the family to death, then it is well to take that way. But only in cases verging on starvation, should an increase in income be made by the homemaker leaving her housekeeping, or the breadwinner working eighteen hours a day.
When the amount of the income is found out, the next thing is to divide it among the family needs in a reasonable proportion. This proportion is decided in the first place according to necessity, and in the second, according to taste.
Let us take for illustration a family with an income of $2,000 a year. And then let us take, from Mrs. Ellen H. Richards's book called "The Cost of Living," the following proportions for an income of that amount.
| ¼ | for | food. |
| 1/6 | " | rent. |
| 3/20 | " | running expenses. |
| 3/20 | " | clothes. |
| ¼ | " | miscellaneous expenses. |
Translated into dollars this is:
| $500 | for | food. |
| 400 | " | rent. |
| 300 | " | running expenses. |
| 300 | " | clothes. |
| 500 | " | miscellaneous expenses. |
The next thing is to find out whether this is a possible proportion for us, if this income is our own.