818. Of Economy in Expenditure.—Economy should be the first point in all families, whatever be their circumstances. A prudent housekeeper will regulate the ordinary expenses of a family, according to the annual sum allowed for housekeeping. By this means, the provision will be uniformly good, and it will not be requisite to practise meanness on many occasions, for the sake of meeting extra expense on one.
The best check upon outrunning an income is to pay bills weekly, for you may then retrench in time. This practice is likewise a salutary check upon the correctness of the accounts themselves.
To young beginners in housekeeping, the following brief hints on domestic economy, in the management of a moderate income, may perhaps not prove unacceptable.
A bill of parcels and receipt should be required, even if the money be paid at the time of purchase; and, to avoid mistakes, let the goods be compared with these when brought home; or, if paid or at future periods, a bill should be sent with the article, and regularly filed on separate files for each tradesman.
An inventory of furniture, linen, and china should be kept, and the things examined by it twice a-year, or oftener if there be a change of servants; the articles used by servants should be intrusted to their care, with a list, as is done with the plate. In articles not in common use, such as spare bedding, tickets of parchment, numbered and specifying to what they belong, should be sewed on each; and minor articles in daily use, such as household cloths and kitchen requisites, should be occasionally looked to.
819. Books and Accounts.—Housekeeping books, with printed forms for the various heads of expenditure, and the several articles, are used in many families; but accounts may be kept with as much certainty in plain books.
820. Servants.—In the hiring of Servants, it is an excellent plan to agree to increase their wages annually to a fixed sum, where it should stop, and to recommend that a portion of it should be regularly placed in a savings-bank. An incentive will thus be offered to good conduct; and when the hoard saved up amounts to any considerable sum, the possessor will generally feel more inclined to enlarge than to expend it.
A kindly feeling of indulgence on the part of the mistress towards her servants, in the matter of petty faults, coupled with good-natured attention to their daily comforts, and occasional permission to visit and receive a few of their near friends, would go far to create a cordial degree of attachment, which must be ever desirable to a respectable family, and cheaply purchased by such consideration. Mildness of language will generally be met by respectful language on the part of a servant, and of itself will produce a saving of temper at least to the master or mistress. Due praise will mostly be found a powerful stimulus to good, and in some measure a preventive to bad conduct, on the part of a servant.