This week's 'What's in your hand' is a bit of old wisdom from an 1896 book called House and Home. There is some Victorian nonsense in here, but there's much good sound wisdom, too.:
The first essential of the perfect home is its adaptation to the family. It is this adaptation to the the financial or social stand of the family makes its harmony. If its cost exceeds the financial freedom of the family; if it is a house that expresses what the family are reaching after, not what they; are there can be no harmony, for there is no rest. Rest, repose is the foundation of peace, and peace is the angel that guards every true home. It is not the amount of money spent in a week, a month, or a year, in maintaining the home that determines its character. It is the results obtained by the expenditure, whether the amount be large or small. If the home maker has placed at her disposal the sum of twelve thousand dollars a year and through ignorance or indifference is not able to secure the best possible results from this amount, she is as culpable, as much to be condemned, as the home maker who fails to produce the best possible results from the expenditure of three hundred and sixty five dollars per year. The happiness of the family depends on the purchasing power of the money expended by the home maker. If her ignorance reduces its purchasing power the family must suffer.
Emphasis mine. What do we have in our hands? The ability to learn to work withint our purchasing power, among other things.
No law can be laid down for the expending of a family income. The needs, the tastes, the conditions of no two families are the same, while the incomes of thousands of families are identical. We cannot proceed upon the principle that the division of expenditures being identical the results would be equally good"for all. It were easy to make a law were this true. It is this diversity of life that is at once its beauty and its difficulty. Each family must be a law unto itself. The wisdom of the controller is shown in the adapting of income and expenses whether for necessities or luxuries.
The home maker equals her opportunity as she is able to use the income placed in her hands so that it secures the greatest freedom for each member of the family to grow in health, morals, and spiritual grace. The foundation then of the family life is the income plus the intelligence of the heads of the family.
I am not sure I would say 'intelligence' per se, but it does take a certain kind of flexibility in thinking about things.
No related posts.
2 Responses to “”
January 11th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Wow!
I actually just resolved to live on and *thrive* on the spending plan that my dh and I recently established – all the while not complaining.
This further strengthens my resolve to provide well for my family with what resources I have been given. What an inspiration – and it was written over 100 years ago!
January 11th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I love the quote from The Principles of Housekeeping which I read recently on your blog, too. It’s not explicitly tied to frugality, but I think the principle of thriftiness is inextricably tied to housekeeping.
Leave a Comment