olasses and sugar and cornstarch went
towards reducing the total of the month following.

This left say a dollar and seventy-five cents a week for such small
incidentals as are not accounted for here but chiefly for sewing
material, bargains in cloth remnants and such things as were needed
towards the repair of our clothes as well as for such new clothes as
we had to buy from time to time. I think we spent more on shoes than
we did clothes but Ruth by patronizing the sample shoe shops always
came home with a three or four dollar pair for which she never paid
over two dollars and sometimes as low as a dollar and a half. The boy
and I bought our shoes at the same reduction at bankrupt sales. We
gave our neighbors this tip and saw them save a good many dollars in
this way.

On the whole these people were not good buyers; they never looked
ahead but bought only when they were in urgent need and then bought at
the cheapest price regardless of quality. They would pay two and two
and a half for shoes that wouldn't last them any time at all. Whatever
Ruth bought she considered the quality first and the price afterwards.
Then, too, she often ran across something she didn't need at the time
but which was a good bargain; she would buy this and put it away. She
was able to buy many things which were out of season for half what the
same things would cost six months later. It was very difficult to make
our neighbors see the advantage of this practice and their blindness
cost them many a good dollar.

We also had the advantage of our neighbors in knowing how to take good
care of our clothes. The average man was careless and slovenly. In a
week a new suit would be spotted with grease, wrinkled, and all out of
shape. He never thought of pressing it, cleaning it or of putting it
away carefully when through wearing it. The women were no better about
their own clothes. This was also true of their shoes. They might
shine them once a month but generally they let them go until they
dried up and cracked. In this way their new clothes soon became
workday clothes, their new shoes, old shoes, and as such they lasted a
very few months.

Dick and I might have done a little better than our neighbors even
without Ruth to watch us, but we certainly would not have had the
training we did have. Shoes had to be cleaned and either oiled or
shined before going to bed. If it rained we wore our old pairs whether
it was Sunday or not or else we stayed at