Guide cards are furnished in several colors to indicate divisions of the file, and these are plain, or with printed numbers and letters. The record cards also are made of several colors, to indicate different uses. The suggestions here cover only a few of the possibilities. Visit some office furnishing department or shop to see what an array of conveniences has been devised for the dispatch of business. If you once form the habit, you will find new uses for the card file almost daily, and will keep on the cards, addresses, engagements, cash accounts, shopping lists, inventories of
clothing and furnishings, menus and recipes. A loose-leaf book is preferred by some people for inventories and accounts.
A letter file shaped like a pocketbook can be purchased for only twenty-five cents, and will serve the purpose for a small correspondence. Large files with guide cards are made for a larger correspondence.
The small file will answer for filing bills and is useful also for clippings. Some desks have bill files in the pigeonholes, and a letter file in one of the large drawers.
Have regular hours daily for attending to work at the desk, stated times for planning menus, making shopping lists, looking over the inventories, recording expenditures, and balancing accounts.
Order in time and place are studied further in the chapter on Housewifery.
Keeping of accounts.—This has been called by many, drudgery and tedious routine. Many business men go through much such drudgery to attain their goals, why should not the housewife be willing to make a similar sacrifice in her home for the sake of the service she is rendering the members of her household? The aim in keeping the accounts is to register the amounts spent for various purposes so that all phases of life will be considered and so that the manager will be able to profit the second year because of the experience of the first year. This makes housekeeping interesting and businesslike. The expenditure is made to produce the maximum of value received and is accompanied by the greatest possible pleasure.
In keeping accounts there should be some method of showing the receipts and expenses, the income and the outgo, so that a balance can be made at any time. The items should be so listed, too, that it is possible to tell what expenditure has been made for any one item, as rent, or food, or other
necessities. It is only in this way that the accounts become of value for future use.
There are many ways of keeping such accounts. The simplest one for the housewife is the best if it shows the points mentioned above. The envelope system is used by some when the income is small, and a certain amount of money according to budget plan is put in labeled envelopes for various purposes, as rent, food, operating expenses, etc. As sums are drawn from the various envelopes, a slip of paper put in the particular envelope registers the amount drawn. It is easy at the end of the month to balance the accounts. This system necessitates the presence of a good deal of money on hand, and sometimes of confusion of accounts, if money is borrowed from one envelope for use in another.