FROM OUR ARCHIVE
Welcome to our new back page, where we’re digging into the Good Housekeeping archive to uncover some wisdom, hilarity and good advice from years gone by. This month, we return to January 1929, and then, as now, GH was focusing on the family budget
Welcome to our new page! Look back at January 1929
FTHE HOUSEKEEPING BUDGET FOR 1929
rom time to time adjustments and a certain amount of reorganisation are required in every home if it is to be run efficiently. Conditions alter from year to year; in some households this will be the first year with educational expenses to be met, while in others these same expenses will have ceased. Then again, children may have gone to boarding school or possibly grown up and left home. The new year is an excellent opportunity for the housewife to consider the needs of the particular household for which she is responsible, and make any changes which she considers to be conducive to easier running and greater efficiency.
Without sufficient knowledge of food values and diet requirements most middle-class English people, for example, are apt to spend too much on meat and other protein foods, and too little on dairy produce, fruit and vegetables. Housewives, having the welfare of their family at heart, who lack this knowledge, should resolve either to attend suitable lectures or to study some simple book on the subject so as to become better qualified to apportion the housekeeping allowance.
Whilst Good Housekeeping Institute strongly disapproves of making a fetish of diet we do realise the importance of housewives having some elementary knowledge of dietetics and cannot agree with those who say in effect ‘eat when you like, drink what you like and when you like.’
Letters are received at the Institute asking for help in planning varied menus on very small sums. A difficult problem faced one of our readers who has to manage for herself and three little boys on a total income of £20 per month. At the other end of the scale is the housewife to whom economy is not of importance. Her task is a considerably easier one but where there are several maids there is often waste. The housewife in question had a household and staff of fifteen persons, including eight maids and two children. Her housekeeping bills averaged £20 per head. This must be regarded as unnecessarily high. When the mistress herself was away at one time the bills actually mounted to as high a figure as £37 weekly.
Although not directly included in the housekeeping allowance, the question of the amount to be spent on clothing is one of great concern to the housewife.
The mother of a large family where educational expenses are heavy is often obliged to dress for a very small sum. For £20 or £30 a year, however, it is possible with care to be well dressed, provided frocks, underclothes, etc., are as far as possible made at home. Other women, even those having only a very moderate income, are obliged to spend a larger proportion on dress. For example, the professional and business woman seldom has much time for home dressmaking and yet is obliged to keep up a good appearance. Her dress bill is therefore bound to be considerably heavier, for in addition to the fact that her time is limited, the constant travelling to and fro often in damp weather is very hard on the more expensive items of the wardrobe such as coats, shoes, gloves and hats.