For cleaning have a vacuum cleaner, carpet sweeper, hair floor brush, dustless mop, dustless dusters or cheesecloth dampened with kerosene, wax oil or furniture polish. It takes an hour or two after sweeping for dust to settle; this interval should be allowed before dusting furniture.
If good laundries, guiltless of injurious chemicals and extravagant rates, are not available in the locality, a coöperative laundry providing these features may be organized and conducted by the women of the community, as in many places in Wisconsin. If laundry work must be done at home, an equipment of a good washing machine or even a hand vacuum washer, a wringer, stationary tubs, hose lines, running hot and cold water, with sewer connection for waste, greatly reduce the time and energy cost. A cold mangle or one heated by gas or charcoal costs but a few dollars and reduces by about seventy-five per cent. the labor of ironing flat work. Gas or electric irons are inexpensive and energy saving. Necessary laundry work may be greatly minimized by providing silk or cotton crepon for underwear and dresses, seersucker for children’s rompers, dresses, and aprons, with doilies or paper napkins in place of tablecloth, at least for breakfast and lunch, and paper towels for kitchen and bathroom.
The physical and mental condition of the worker is a very considerable factor in time and energy cost. Work attempted when one is fatigued, nervous, or tense consumes vastly more energy and time. Learn to relax at intervals; especially lie down for a few minutes about midday. “Never stand when you can sit; never sit when you can lie down.” If becoming nervous or tense, relax completely, and take long, slow, deep breaths of fresh air. Stand with the weight on the balls of the feet, head erect and chest expanded. Keep the house air in winter at efficiency point: between 65° F. and 68° F. in temperature, and sufficiently humid by well-filled water pans in furnace pipe or by large open dishes of water in room, and with a constant intake of fresh outside air.
Making the Most of the Family Income. Analyze the family income and spend it on paper many times before spending it over the counter. Train the family to spend less than is planned, rather than more Ordinarily, for incomes up to three thousand dollars, the following is considered by economists a wise distribution, in a family with three children:
| Rent | 20% |
| Food | 25% |
| Operating expenses (heat, light, repairs, labor, supplies) | 15% |
| Clothing | 20% |
| Education, recreation, health, saving | 15-20% |
Personal ordering and selection of supplies, paying cash and keeping accounts, will furnish the greatest values for expenditures. Accurate scales and measures in the kitchen, with occasional tests of supplies sent, will check errors or dishonesty of marketmen. Cost of supplies may be reduced by keeping posted on market prices; buying in wholesale quantities where possible, in coöperation with other housekeepers; buying directly from the producer wherever possible; knowing the reliable grades and brands of package goods. A knowledge of the values of common foods and their comparative cost for equivalent food value is indispensable for efficiency. A reasonable allowance is two dollars to two dollars and a half a week for food supplies for each person. An ample quantity (eighteen hundred to two thousand calories a day) of nourishing food of limited variety can be purchased for one dollar a week. Luxuries should be had on a four dollar weekly allowance per person
The following table can be expanded by any housekeeper. For other food stuffs: Note calories per pound. (Given in Government Bulletin Number 28 or Rose’s Laboratory Manual in Dietetics) To find the number of calories for one cent, divide calories per pound by cost per pound. Fruits and green vegetables, although furnishing few calories for one cent, are needed each day, for their vitamines, acids, and minerals.
Comparative Caloric Food Values and Cost
| Calories | Calories | |||
| Food | PER | Cost per | FOR | |
| Pound | Pound | One Cent | ||
| Oatmeal | 1803 | 4 | cents | 451 |
| Corn meal | 1613 | 4 | ” | 400 |
| Dried peas | 1612 | 8 | ” | 201 |
| White bread | 1174 | 6 | ” | 196 |
| Potatoes | 378 | 2 | ” | 189 |
| Milk, per qt | 675 | 9 | ” | 75 |
| Rice | 660 | 10 | ” | 66 |
| Flank steak | 1084 | 18 | ” | 60 |
| Shredded wheat | 1600 | 33 | ” | 48 |
| Salmon | 922 | 20 | ” | 46 |
| Sirloin | 957 | 28 | ” | 34 |
| Eggs (28 cents a doz ) | 672 | 21 | ” | 32 |
| Flounder | 128 | 7 | ” | 20 |
| Chicken | 289 | 25 | ” | 12 |
Locating the Home. Life in the open country, town, or suburb reduces the cost of living, as compared with the city, (a) by reducing the stimulation and excitement of daily life, and their energy cost; (b) reducing the temptations to extravagant and frivolous expenditure of money; (c) furnishing better air and more outdoor living, thus increasing the quality of life besides decreasing expenditures for illness; (d) providing a porch and yard where children may play in sight of mother at work, and where the family may find social life; (e) providing space for garden and poultry, whose care is healthful exercise, and whose products may reduce the expenditure for food. By purchasing staples at wholesale and organizing a coöperative marketing group for fruits and vegetables, as wide a variety and as low a cost of food is possible as under most favorable city conditions. The provision of rural traveling libraries, art exhibits, educational picture films, the use of the schoolhouse as a social center, the improvement of education in the rural and suburban school with its ideal natural environment, all are part of that larger home-making for which every mother and father should feel a responsibility.