Save one-fourth of all you earn.

Page 4 of the American Frugal Housewife

“It is wise to keep an exact account of all you expend—even of a paper of pins. This answers two purposes; it makes you more careful in spending money, and it enables your husband to judge precisely whether his family live within his income. No false pride, or foolish ambition to appear as well as others, should ever induce a person to live one cent beyond the income of which he is certain. If you have two dollars a day, let nothing but sickness induce you to spend more than nine shillings; if you have one dollar a day, do not spend but seventy-five cents; if you have half a dollar a day, be satisfied to spend forty cents.”

Does it frighten you when you go shopping and see that you have spent $100 without really noticing it? Groceries, drug store items, pet supplies, laundry detergent, paper supplies…they add up so very fast. I once had a little clicker-dealie that would keep track of how much I had in my grocery cart. It was really low-tech, but it worked fine…as long as I didn’t get distracted and forget whether I had entered something or not. The same problem occurs with calculators. I suppose some people have little computers that will tell them what they’ve entered, but I don’t. I sometimes try to keep a mental rough tally. None of these things, however, keep me from buying things I don’t really need.

I think frugality in spending is a mind-set. If you feel well-off, you don’t need to keep track of things or say “no” to things. On the other hand, if you know that your financial situation is precarious, you’re more likely to think before you buy. I’m told that this kind of thinking becomes a habit. Living through the Great Depression certainly impressed this mind-set on my mother! She’d pick something up and look and the price, then put it back and say, “I don’t need that.” I don’t want to be as penny-pinching as she was, but I can certainly do better than I do.

Save one-fourth of our income? Whew! That’s asking a lot. I’ll have to do some powerful thinking on this item of Mrs. Child’s Frugal Housewife advice.