than she would if she, too, went to business. Notwithstanding these
individual variations, the foregoing rules of thumb will be helpful in
keeping you within safe bounds.

But the proportion of your income to be spent for various purposes is
only a small part of your problem. Don't be surprised if your budget
fails to balance. Probably 95 percent of those who attempt to budget
their family expenses have this experience. The primary reason is that
few persons really know what it costs to live. This is due, in part, to
the fact that we often confuse _total_ expenses with _day-to-day_
expenses. Most people think of living costs as the immediate outlay for
food, clothing, and shelter, disregarding the important item of
depreciation.

The average housewife understands depreciation as it applies to food in
a refrigerator, but gives very little thought to the same process as it
applies to furniture, appliances, motorcar, clothing, and the house she
lives in--if she and her husband own it. When replacement or repair of
these more durable goods becomes necessary, there often is no fund
available for the purpose. If replacement or repair is made, the budget
is thrown out of balance. If neither is undertaken, depreciation sets
in all the faster.

In order to catch up at this point, many couples take what seems at the
time to be the easiest way out--they borrow money. This may appear to
solve the problem, but actually the repayment of the loan throws the
budget farther out of balance. Not only that, but a substantial interest
charge must be met. To cover such obligations, you will have to curtail
your living expenses, and you will find this much harder to do than to
save for these emergencies in the first place.

One of the greatest financial difficulties encountered by young people
(and many older ones, too, for that matter) is that of making an
intelligent decision in the purchase of such important and costly items
as a house, mechanical home appliances, furniture, and life insurance.
The reason why it is difficult to select these things is that we buy
them too seldom to acquire much experience with reference to them.

Life insurance is a subject on which very few of us have specific
information. It is as important as it is trite to point out that the
amount and the type of insurance should be governed by the kind of
hazards against which you should provide. Yet it is necessary to realize
that the need of protection changes