51 + 2 = 53... and Clothes

Take that, holidays! I lost 2 lbs. last week and weighed in this morning at 141. It's been awhile since I tried setting a mini-goal for myself, but I'm going to try one now. I want to weigh in at 139 by Friday, January 22. Boy, would it be swell to see a 3 on that scale!!!

Clothes - 15 per cent of income

At first glance, the authors of The Manual appear to be mighty generous in the allowance allotted for clothing in the "pattern" household budget. When I added up my spending on clothes for the last 90 days ($420) and divided it by three, I find that I'm spending on average $140 per month on new clothing and shoes. That's 4% of my gross monthly income of $3666.67.

Wait a minute, though. I bet that 15% figure applies to the amount ideally spend on clothing for an entire family. And the average family in 1945 was a family of six. If you split 15% six ways --- well, I probably ought only to be spending about 2.5% of my income on clothes - or $91.67 per month. If I wasn't dropping clothes sizes at the rate I've been dropping 'em, 2.5% would probably be just right. These are unusual times, however, and I have to take into account the fact that during the last nine months I've dropped from a size 18W to an almost-maybe-super snug size 8. I've had to replace my wardrobe four times!

The authors of The Manual also acknowledge that various members of the family would ideally spend differing amounts on clothes. The figures in the passage below are annual expenditures. I've included its equivalent in 2008 dollars in brackets after each figure:

In a wage-earner's family, the wife's clothing may cost about $70 [$829]; the husband's nearer $100 [$1184], and the children's from $25 to $60 each [$296-$711]; but older-teen and working young people's more of course than their parents'. On a $2400 [$28419] family income the mother's and the father's clothing may each be about $100 [$1184], hers perhaps a little more than his; on a $3600 [$42629] income they will each have $150 [$1776] or more and hers will be definitely the larger. Yet every wife knows the importance of her husband's appearance being suitable to his vocational position; and every mother knows that children involve sacrifice of parental outlays in dress or other items.

My income is closer to the $3600 figure (in 1945 dollars) than either of the others, so I guess I might reasonably allot myself $1776 or more per year (in 2008 dollars) for clothes - or $148 per month. That's just about what I've been spending. I don't have a husband whose vocational position relies on his appearance being "suitable," but my own vocational position sure does! The lines they draw in that last passage are interesting. Older teenagers and "working young people" are expected to spend more for clothing than either their parents or younger siblings. I guess the authors of The Manual recognize that a polished appearance is vital when you're of marriageable age. Wives of wage-earners are expected to sacrifice what they'd like to spend on new clothing (or fabric and other supplies to fashion new clothing at home) so their husbands and children will have all the clothes they need. Wives in the middle class have a little more leeway and are expected to spend as much or more than their husbands spend on clothing. After all, they've got a social ladder to climb.

However, many factors affect the amount that must be spent for clothing - climate, activities, interests and social or business obligations, all are involved. A list of the year's needs should be made for each member of the family, and the items on hand checked off. It is often necessary to look ahead two or three years in order to plan wisely for a major purchase such as a winter coat. An estimate of the cost of items to be purchased can then be made. Actual expenditures depend upon your ability to compare quality and price, to watch for sales at reliable stores, to read labels and to follow directions for care. If you know the best methods for laundering, mending and pressing, you can prolong the useful life of clothes.

Some very sensible tips, these. Planning far ahead of major purchases would come in particularly handy for mothers of several children. (Especially when they're at that age where they're in a new shoe size and new dress size every year!) The last two tips remind me that the budget worksheet in The Manual includes a category under clothes for "clothing upkeep." They don't seem to count laundry costs in this category - these fall under "operating expenses" - but I imagine this would include things like tailor's bills, sending clothes out for special care, supplies used at home for mending, the purchase of new ironing or pressing equipment, shoe polish, and so forth. Can you think of anything else that might apply? I haven't made any purchases yet this year that seem to fall into this category, but I'll keep my eyes open. Next up: Operating Expenses.

Dorothy Dix Says...

Dorothy Dix's column on February 17, 1949 featured a short, but sweet letter from a delegation. In a world where divorce still carried great social stigma, their question was of vital import to young women with marriage on the mind.

Dear Miss Dix: How can a girl tell whether or not a man will make a good husband?

TWO GIRLS.

Answer - Unless she is a seer with second sight and has the gift of prophecy, there is no way by which a girl can absolutely foretell what sort of husband a man will make. She has to take his word for it that he will be as good a lover after marriage as he is before, and that he will never criticize her cooking, or ask her whether that thing she has on her head is a hat or last year’s bird’s nest.

But while picking out a husband is always more or less of a guessing game, there are certain signs and portents that will give a girl a few good tips on what sort of husband a man will make. For instance, the bad risks are: Mama’s baby boy, the man with a Yale lock on his pocketbook, the gourmet who thinks he knows how to cook, the man who passes into silence if he can’t have the floor, or else breaks up the party with his monologues. And, most of all, beware of the man who begins bossing you even before the marriage.

A Long Couple Days

Just a quick one this evening...

It's been a long couple days at work. Catching up after 10 days vacation and filling in for my supervisor - who's out sick. I haven't had a chance to finish reading The Family so will have to reschedule the first meeting of our book of the month club for this coming Sunday, January 10. 'Bout all I've got the energy for this evening is my exercise routine and bed.

More soon!

Shelter

Rent (if heat is included) - *25 per cent of income

Rent (if heat must be supplied) - *20 per cent of income

(If you are buying your home, or already own it, the "rent" is the total of interest on mortgage, taxes, interest, upkeep and repairs which should not ordinarily exceed 1/8 to 1/10 of income. If payments on principal are included it may reach 1/4 to 1/5 of income.)

*Provided that in your community it is possible to provide safe shelter for your family for this amount.

One of the things I really like about The Manual's budget advice when it comes to rent/mortgage is how inclusive it is. Their attitude seems almost modern - it's so green. And yet in that day it was just considered good old fashioned logic. Gathered in with all the other things you might normally consider housing-related costs is "Transportation to Business." Take a look:

Shelter
1. Rent or Mortgage Interest
2. Taxes
3. Insurance
4. Improvements
5. Repairs
6. Transportation to Business
7. Other

When deciding whether what we're spending on our rent or mortgage is in a financially healthy proportion to our income, we must take into account how much where we live impacts what it costs us to get to our place of business. After all, if you think you're saving money on housing in a metropolitan area by living far out in the suburbs and commuting one hour each way every working day, isn't it fair to include the costs related to that two-hour commute with the money you spend on housing? Only then can you get a true picture of what you're spending on shelter. If you had opted for more expensive housing in the city but your "transportation to business" expenses were the cost of a subway token, you might find things come out quite even in the end. Financially, that is. (Your carbon footprint is another picture entirely.)

I rent what my landlord calls a junior one-bedroom apartment for $425 per month. My rent does not include heat, but it does include water and garbage collection --- though not recycling collection. (There are some advantages to living in a dump of a city. Cheap apartments is one of 'em!) I don't now - but ought to - have renter's insurance. If I did, the premium would fall into this category.

For "transportation to business" expenses, I'm going to include gas and parking. As crazy as it sounds to have to pay for parking at your place of business, the university I work for requires that employees pay for annual parking passes in their garage or lot of preference. (I bristle at this sometimes, but I know it makes good environmental sense. They're trying to encourage as wide a use as possible of public transit and other means of transportation to campus.) I pay $29.42 per month for parking. I drive a 12.76-mile round trip to work each weekday. That's 255.2 miles per month x my 2001 Toyota Corolla is supposed to get about 26 miles per gallon with city driving x $2.53 per gallon for gas (running price around town this morning) = $24.83 per month for gas to commute to work. These are very rough figures, of course, but they should give me some idea to start with what I'm spending on shelter. I'd probably own a car whether or not I used it to commute to work or not, so I'm not going to include any other car expenses in this category.

My total spending per month for shelter then is approximately $479.25. That's 13% of my gross monthly income of $3666.67. I fall quite safely within The Manual's recommendation that no more than 20% of your income should be spent on rent "if heat must be supplied." So far, so good!

In addition to kind of guessing where I stand now in relation to the The Manual's "pattern" household budget, I'd like to track all my expenses - at least for the next month - to see if there are any leaks in my spending that I'm completely unaware of. I've uploaded images of the Suggested Budget Form included in The Manual that I'll be using to record my expenses every day. Maybe it'll come in handy for some of you as well! If you click on each page, you should be able to open an extra large printable version. Tomorrow: Clothes.

Week Fifty-Nine: The Mission

Who keeps the budget? Some authorities say the man of the house should accept this responsibility. Other believe that the homemaker, who spends 85 cents out of every dollar, is the logical person to record expenditures. We believe that the choice should be made by the family, and that the one who takes most naturally to figures and records should keep the budget.

America's Housekeeping Book (1945)

I slept restlessly last night and woke early this morning wondering why my New Year was off to such a restless start. I've spent the last week recovering from a bad cold and - still feeling weak as a kitten - gave up my plans for a New Year's Eve out on the town with friends to spend the evening at home with a cup of herbal tea. I had a hard time falling asleep, though, and got up early this morning after tossing and turning all night long.

At first, I wondered if this was an ill omen for the year ahead, but now I think it's just a sign of a woman itching to get started. That's why I'm restless. It's been kind of a crummy autumn. Between changes at work, the lump in my breast, and my grandmother's death, it's been hard to get any real traction for awhile now. But they say bad things come in threes, right? Something about this new page on the calendar makes me feel like I've got a chance to gain some real momentum again in transforming my life.

After all, this is the first New Year in as long as I can remember that my resolutions do not involve radical new hoped-for changes in my lifestyle. This year, in 2010, my resolutions are continuations of progress I've already made in the last year: 1) I resolve to lose 26 more pounds - and continue making my body more strong and flexible. 2) I resolve to pay off my car, finish paying off the last of my credit cards - and continue paying down my student loans and building my savings. 3) I resolve to take better care of my skin, my hair, my nails, and my teeth - and continue taking better care of my insides, including regular self-breast exams! 4) I resolve to re-furnish and redecorate my apartment - and continue learning how to become a better housekeeper so that I can take care of my new things. 5) I resolve to date - and continue putting myself out there to make new friends and feel more settled here in this new city which has become my home.

Nope, nothing radically new this time 'round. I think it's a good sign that my New Year's resolutions for 2010 are all works in progress. And there's no time like this morning to get started. First order of business is a weigh-in. I've put off doing so for the last few days because my cold made me feel like I was retaining water, but that feeling has started to pass. My net damage for the holidays = 1 lb. I weighed in at 143 this morning. Well, I guess that's not too bad in the grand scheme of things --- but the season for indulging is over, so that's as far as I'm going to allow that damage to go. It's time to move that scale in the right direction again. And I know exactly what I need to do - and need not to do - in order to make that happen!

For centuries, a New Year's tradition for heads of families was to get the year off to a fresh start by settling accounts. Paying debts, entering new contracts with employees, and taking a hard look at the household's assets and liabilities. How better for me to begin my year than to do the same for my own small household... The authors of The Manual dedicated one of their earliest chapters to "Money Management." Before they even get started on housekeeping methods, laundering, or home decoration, they focus on one of the most important issues facing the 1940s housewife: how to make ends meet. That's no easy task during the Great Recession, but aren't we incredibly lucky we don't have rations, shortages, and skyrocketing postwar inflation to deal with? So many of our own financial troubles today are entirely under our own control - in our spending habits, our savings plans, and our lifestyles. Here's a rough "pattern" The Manual's authors set forth for the healthy household budget:

Rent (if heat is included) - *25 per cent of income

Rent (if heat must be supplied) - *20 per cent of income

(If you are buying your home, or already own it, the "rent" is the total of interest on mortgage, taxes, interest, upkeep and repairs which should not ordinarily exceed 1/8 to 1/10 of income. If payments on principal are included it may reach 1/4 to 1/5 of income.)

Clothes - 15 per cent of income

Operating expenses - 10-15 per cent of income

Food - 20-35 per cent of income (the smaller the income, the larger the percentage that must be spent for food)

Advancement - 15-20 per cent of income.

Savings (other than life insurance) - 10 per cent of income

Life insurance - the face of your policies should amount to 2 or more years' income

*Provided that in your community it is possible to provide safe shelter for your family for this amount.

If you're scratching your head about the category titled "Advancement," you're not alone! The Manual goes into further detail about each of these budget categories, and my mission for the week ahead is to share these details with you as I examine my own household budget. How does it compare to the pattern? How 'bout yours? Where can I make changes in my own spending habits to help speed my way toward the second of my New Year's resolutions?

A Happy New Year to you all! Wishing you each the greatest success with your own resolutions for 2010.

Dorothy Dix Says...

In a column which dates to January 31, 1940, a young wife and mother writes about the tug she feels between her duty to her husband and her duty to her child. Which duty wins out with Dorothy Dix?

Dear Dorothy Dix - I have been married eleven years and have one daughter. My husband makes a small salary and in order to help meet expenses I, too, work. After being away from my little girl all day I feel my place is at home with her at night. My husband, however, has friends who have poker games at their homes several times a week. These include drinking and much familiarity between the men and women, and my husband comes home from them between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning drunk. These people insist that I, too, should play poker with them, visit beer joints and gambling houses, but I refuse to do so, not only on my own account, but because of the influence it would have on my little girl. Am I right in devoting myself to her and maintaining my own self-respect? Should I go with my husband or simply let him go his way and stick to mine?

W. B. C.

Answer - Stick to your own way. Your first duty to your child. You can do nothing to stop your husband. If he likes drinking and carousing and loose company your paling up with him would only encourage him in his evil ways. But you can do everything for your little girl by your example and teaching. You could not expect her to grow up into being a decent woman if she had both a father and mother who rolled home drunk from poker parties.

"How to Decorate Your Small Bath"

One of the lovely gifts that Santa left here when he called on his way back to the North Pole the other night is a set of bath linens for two in a shade that could probably best be described as a deep robin's egg blue. Happily, it matches the blue in my shower curtain to a tee. (Good job, Santa!) This is the first time in the three years that I've lived in this apartment that my bathroom has actually sported some hand towels. Let's hear it for meeting the very bottom-most standards of etiquette - no more asking my guests to dry their hands on a bath towel or wash cloth! So it's a start. And since I've been trapped at home nursing this cold for the last couple days I've had lots of time to look 'round and take stock of my bathroom decor. I clearly need some additional bath linens, but what more can I do to improve the look of my bathroom...

Where better to find some inspiration than the past? Here's an article called "How to Decorate Your Small Bath" which appeared in Wilmington, Delaware's Sunday Morning Star on September 5, 1948:

Small spaces require more care in their planning and decoration than large, and the bathroom is no exception to that rule.

Plenty of color may be fine in the rest of the home, but the bath should be kept simple and done in one or two carefully selected shades, says a Tile Council report.

Best idea, it suggests, is to plan the bathroom walls and floor as a background rather than as the dominant room element. Major color interest can come from towels, shower curtain and bath mat. A change of shade in these will give the effect of a redecorating job.

Gray-blues and blue-greens add to the apparent size of a room and are therefore particularly suited to the small bath. Red, red-orange and yellow-green are too intense and seem to hem in the room. Bathroom design can be kept simple by finishing the ceramic tile wainscot with a cap of the same color rather than black or a contrasting shade. This plan helps make the room appear larger and more restful, says the report.

Woodwork in the small bath should be painted the same color as the walls. If there is a window over the tub, its sill can be finished in the same color tile as the wainscot, thus fitting it into the color scheme and waterproofing it at the same time.

When two colors are used in the bath, the lighter should be for the walls and the darker for the floor. A dark floor seems more restful underfoot.

My bathroom at present is finished in three shades of what I like to call Apartment Beige. The paint on the walls and the tub/shower surround are finished in Apartment Beige No. 1 - a creamy, off-white color. The mottled beige vinyl flooring is accompanied by a vinyl toe kick in Apartment Beige No. 2 - a tan. The bathroom sink is laid in a countertop in Apartment Beige No. 3 - a grainy tan with a yellow undertone. (Those of you who have lived in rentals can probably relate to the feeling of being surrounded by beige!) There's not a whole lot I can do to remedy the beige situation, but it certainly works with the article's recommendation that I treat the bathroom walls and floor as a "background" rather than as a "dominant element." What woodwork there is in the bathroom is indeed painted the same beige as the walls, and the flooring is ever so slightly darker in color than the walls.



So I guess I'll need to rely on bath towels, shower curtain, and bath mat to supply my small bathroom with any "color interest." Popular towel colors during the 1940s were dusty rose, seafoam green, maize, wedgwood blue, coral, navy, white, yellow, peach, and jade green. Patterned towels were hot, as were striped towels, plaid towels, gingham towels, and towels finished with a different color hem. The towels Santa gave me are in just the kind of shade that is supposed to "add to the apparent size of a room" according to this article. My shower curtain is in good shape. It's an opaque white curtain covered with rows and rows of tiny ovals in robin's egg blue and pistachio green. (I have a small plastic wastebasket in that shade of green on the floor beside the sink.) If I could find more of these bath linens in the green shade or even in another contrasting color - maybe a raspberry or a rosy peach? --- all that's left would be a bathmat. I've avoided bathmats for years because they always seem to pick up every piece of hair or lint in the house, but it is awfully nice when I'm visiting someone else's house to step out of the shower onto a warm bathmat. Have any of you had luck with a particular type of bathmat that easy to keep vacuumed and hair-free?

I've also noticed that there are houseplants in most of the bathrooms featured in vintage ads. This may be just a whim of the part of the illustrator, but plants would probably give a bit of life to a bathroom without any windows. I'll have to find a variety that does well with humid air and no natural light. Any ideas?

Slow Boat to China

Keeping this blog makes it possible for me to go back and figure out that it's been ten months since I was last under the weather. So I guess I'm overdue. I woke up the day after Christmas with a sore-ish throat and things have gone downhill ever since.

Well, I'm glad at least that the germs held off until after the holiday. I needed every last minute this year. One of these years - when my home and life are more fully organized - that organization and structure is going to be reflected in my holiday preparations. I am determined that at some point in my life I will know what it feels like not to be a harried, last-minute Betty during the days before Christmas! I dream of being the kind of person who takes steps throughout the year to prepare for Christmas so she has the time during the holidays to really pause and enjoy the fun stuff. The little things that can't be done in advance... Maybe the work I do on myself in 2010 will bring me another long step closer to being that kind of person.



Our book club will be meeting just one week from tomorrow, so I'm going to use this downtime to get some reading done! When I'm reading something set in a place I've never visited before, I like to do a little digging to get a better idea of the setting for the story. At some point, your imagination has to take over --- but I've always liked getting my bearings. Have any of you ever visited this part of China?

Mother kept a boardinghouse in the least fashionable and, therefore, the cheapest corner of the British Concession, which is situated along the Hei-ho River. In appearance the concession is quite European, and the white people immediately feel at home in its broad, well-paved, tree-bordered streets, among buildings of modern architecture. Yet, at intervals, one comes to high gray walls intersecting the row of buildings - a Chinese abode, belonging to some rich citizen, which towers like a fortress over the rest of the street... The farther one gets from the center of the concession the less English it seems; for the people of other nations are massed on its borders under the protection of the mighty British Empire. Often these folk cannot afford separate houses, and are obliged to live crowded in boardinghouses. The Family kept one such establishment on Long Street, Number 11, which scarcely paid, so each one of the Family tried to contribute his mite to the expenses.

Nina Fedorova's The Family (1940) is set in Tientsin, China when the scene opens in May 1937. Tientsin - today known as Tianjin - is a walled port city on the Peiho and Haihe rivers. Located at the head of navigation on these rivers, Tientsin was also the hub of several rail lines and a major canal. It was one of five Chinese cities declared an "open trading port" during the mid-19th century. Several powerful nations leased districts in Tientsin that were populated by merchants, bankers, diplomatic officials, and missionaries: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia. The presence of these "concessions" lent an exotic architectural flavor to the city. Somebody touring the city might come away with a feeling they had just visited a world's fair! The 992-acre British Concession - located about two miles from old Tientsin - included Victoria Park, the Astor House Hotel, Gordon Hall (the seat of the British consul), and all of Tientsin's major banks. By 1928, some 2,045 "foreigners" and more than 33,000 Chinese called the British Concession home.

How the Housewife Stole Christmas

My inner vintage housewife went toe to toe with my former self two days ago in the kitchen.

You see, my ol' reliable holiday gift for coworkers has always been quick breads. Wrapped with the most festive of trimmings, but always baked from a mix. I guess I just never trusted myself to bake anything better! Last year, I found a gingerbread mix that I really liked the looks of and it seemed to get good reviews from the folks I gave it to --- so as the holidays rolled 'round again this year, I thought I was all set. I stocked up on several boxes of the same mix along with the right size tins and an extra box of eggs. Even found a mix for spiced apple bread made by the same manufacturer, so picked up a couple boxes of that as well.

My first batch of breads on Sunday evening came out looking - and smelling - just as good as they usually do. I wrapped 'em up and handed 'em out. Not feeling a lick of guilt that they weren't homemade. I'd never have confessed the truth to the people I gave them to, but then again they never asked.

Monday evening, I went back to work on a second batch of breads. This time, I was curious. The gingerbread was yummy. The spiced apple bread --- well, it was okay, but nothing to write home about. Kind of dry, actually. And there was no mistaking from the texture that this was not homemade. I couldn't give any more of these spiced apple breads away! And just then - standing in the middle of my kitchen with all the remnants of "baking" surrounding me - my inner vintage housewife took over. Do you know the scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas where the Grinch's heart grows three sizes at once? That was my inner vintage housewife three nights ago, coaching me through this domestic crisis.

"You can do better than this," she told me. "Come on. Think back. You've baked some great things over the past year. The Dried Apricot Cake, the Blueberry Pudding. You know how to do this." I leafed through my vintage cookbooks, looking for just the right recipe. The breads needed to be ready on Tuesday, so I was restricted to just the ingredients I had in the house. This in and of itself would have meant disaster one year ago when I didn't have anything in the house! This year, my pantry was stocked with all the baking essentials and my fridge was full of fruit. I finally settled on the Blueberry Pudding recipe from The American Woman's Cook Book (1941). It's a Cottage Pudding - cake, really - with fresh blueberries in the batter. (I added a streusel topping.) I washed up the dishes I'd need to bake with in the morning and went to bed.

Early Tuesday morning, the battle began. Adrenaline was coursing through my body as I sifted the dry ingredients, creamed the shortening and sugar, measured out the vanilla, and washed the berries. Was I actually going to give people something I'd baked from scratch? Better make enough to sample it before I gave any of it away. I petitioned the Range Gods for mercy: "Oven, don't fail me now." Much to my surprise - but probably not to my inner vintage housewife's --- the Blueberry Puddings were ready in plenty of time. And tasted very good if I do say so myself! I felt an unusual sense of pride as I gave this batch of goodies away. Even tried to homemade up the gingerbreads by adding some cinnamon icing I whipped together while the Puddings were in the oven.

If y'all could sit down and visit with me this afternoon, I'd cut you a slice. Merry Christmas, dear readers! Best wishes to you all for a wondrous, joyful holiday.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling:
"How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
He puzzled and puzzed, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before:
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store--
Maybe Christmas--perhaps--means a little bit more."

And what happened then--well, in Whoville they say
That the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.
And then the true meaning of Christmas came through,
And the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches--plus two.

And now that his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light.
With a smile in his soul, he descended Mount Crumpet,
Cheerily blowing Who! Who! on his trumpet.