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By Harriet Goode
(Home Agent's Note:) Here is one in a series of releases on consumer education by Don Long of the agricultural economics department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Occasionally someone comes up to me and says, "Look at so and so! He should be rolling in money! After all, his wife works!” It doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes, it’s a real revelation for a family to sit down and figure out just how much the wife’s working actually brings in. For example, (and it's always dangerous to use just one example) a neighbor of mine recently did just this. His wife worked outside the home. She had a good job for the area, making about $100 a week. They should have been rolling in money, shouldn't they? For some reason, though, they weren't, and they wondered why. They begin to do some figuring. As they did, they came up with some unexpected and interesting facts. First of all, they found that state and federal income taxes immediately took one fourth of that $100. Social security and miscellaneous deductions another five percent, making 30 percent of that $100 she never saw. The $100 was down to $70 before she got a cent she could call her own. This family happened to have two pre-school children, so they had to have someone to take care of them. They were among the fortunate ones; they had found someone to come in and stay with them for $10.00 a week (plus food, plus soft drinks, plus other fringes Take $10 a week from the $70 and then she had $60.00 per week. Nor did the costs end here. She drove back and forth to work, a distance of 15 miles a day or 75 miles a week. It cost at least 7 cents a mile or about $7 a week to run the
car. Her clothing costs were |
higher; the family food bill] was higher because they ate out more often and they ate more prepared foods at home; they had a woman in i to help clean house each week. After all the figuring, this particular family found the wife, out of a $100 a week Income, actually made a net contribution to the family income of about $42 a week. The discover wa6 quite a shocker. They had figured it was much higher than that and had been spending on that basis. They had learned that, while a wife working may add to the family, the added amount may very well be less than believed. Now, the question arose: Was this much lower income than believed worth the time, effort, and loss of family ties and flexibility involved in getting this income? This meant more pencil work and a good look at the family goals and values* Homemaking Hints
A Blue Cake
For her tenth birthday, the young lady of the house announced she wanted a blue
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