Solving the High Cost of Living by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 23, 1916

Solving the High Cost of Living

By F. M. W.

WE live in an expensive age. Conditions existing in the political, social, and industrial worlds have greatly increased the cost of life's commodities, and it is probable that these increased prices have come to stay. In many instances the price of labor is out of all proportion to the increase in the cost of living. It has become a study with a very large majority of families as to how they can meet expenses. Much suffering in the months to come will result to those who are unable to do so. Probably the coming winter will tax the streams of charity and benevolence as never before.

Much can be done to meet this situation by careful economy and simple living. Extravagance at the present time plays a large part in the living expenses of the ordinary family. A little forethought and reasoning will enable many families to devise ways and means whereby the family expense may be greatly reduced. By the use of plainer and simpler, but even more nutritious, food products, by cutting out money expended for pastries and confections; by stopping the drain which comes through patronage of the soda fountain and ice cream counter, by the wearing of clothes made of durable but cheaper material and in simpler style; by saving much that is spent for popular amusement, for travel, for picture taking, for storybooks and popular magazines; by economy in the use of fuel, and in utilizing for family needs much that is thrown into the garbage can; and in scores of other ways, many persons who are today eking out a hand-to-mouth existence or who are actually feeling the pinch of want, might conserve their income, and utilize it to much better advantage in meeting life's actual necessities.

The following excellent practical suggestions we clip from a recent number of the St. Paul Pioneer Press:—

1. Manage your household or personal affairs in a business-like way—pay cash and do not run bills.

2. Save a fixed sum every month and as much more as circumstances will permit.

3. Memorize this rule and use it to measure all purchases: “Never spend money for anything which does not add to physical health or mental health or moral health.”

4. Do your own buying and marketing. You alone know what should be

bought to do your family the most good.

5. Have simple meals, of good pure food, well cooked and served. Remember there is no economy in inferior quality, but that a reduction in quantity is often necessary for health.

6. Don’t indulge in foods and drinks between meals. Amusement at the expense of one’s own health is expensive indeed.

7. Buy only simple, well-made furnishings and furniture. They cost less to clean and last longer.

8. Do not buy an article for which you have no definite use. Once you are past the “bargain table” the desire for possession leaves you.

9. Don’t buy “faddy” clothes to be soon discarded. Think of price and wearing qualities as well as of style.

10. Run your expenditures on a strict budget plan, devised and revised until it fits your individual family needs.—Rules of the Housewives’ League.

In this age of luxurious living we unconsciously fall into ways of doing and into the making of purchases which seem really essential, and yet, after all, could be avoided without actual suffering, and, with a spirit of contentment, with quite as much pleasure and satisfaction in life. We need, in our spiritual life and in our temporal affairs, to place more emphasis upon the really essential things. We need, in the times before us, to learn the lesson of adaptation. Again and again have we been admonished to bind about our supposed wants, and this in these times is almost necessary in order that our actual necessities may be supplied, and that we may have means with which to support the work of the gospel.

Let us consider, as we are tempted to spend money for that which is not bread, the needs of the cause of Christ. A penny spent foolishly might, had it been invested in a tract or paper, have brought a soul to the Master. Money expended for lavish adornment of the person might have been used in alleviating the needs of those in actual want. It is not alone for our gratification in other avenues that we need to curtail our foolish expenditures. As we see others in actual want, our benevolences should be drawn out to supply their lack. We shall find that, even if we give of our penury, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” By simplicity of living, by denial of every hurtful or unnecessary indulgence, let us seek, by a judicious use of the means intrusted to us, to save that which, when passed on to those in greater need, may bring both them and us the blessing of true and genuine beneficence.

F. M. W.