S. W. BURROWS, Home Missionary and Sabbath School Secretary, New Jersey Conference
In these days when the dollar bill buys so little, it is inconceivable how many of us can operate our homes free from financial distresses without the protection of a family budget.
Not a few times has been heard the despairing cry of defense, "When we pay our bills each month there is nothing left to budget!" Actually, this is a testimony of the tragedy of having no budget! Paying one's bills and then searching for something to budget is a rather strange concept of the functioning of a budget. The bill collector's heartless scoop on each freshly signed pay check is the telltale evidence of the absence of the restraining, protecting influence of a family budget.
Needs Versus Wants
The first step in preparing a budget that will work is the ability, or shall we say more appropriately, the willingness to segregate our needs from our wants. Our income forms the foundation for the structure of our family budget. Remember, in most of our cases that foundation will not accommodate an Empire State Building! After having carefully blue printed our needs, we may happily find that our limited foundation is still strong enough to inject a few wants into the building plans.
The budget is not designed to eliminate the expense of living that idea is ridiculous. Its purpose is rather to curtail needless expense, to curb careless spending, to inspire discretion in the purchases of the household, to stimulate a perpetual consciousness of the effect on the dollar when the penny is saved, to educate a discerning eye for a bargain price without a bargain quality. In other words, a successful budget does not clog the lines; it merely closes up the leaks.
No attempt is being made in this presentation to construct a sample budget outline. Many of these are currently available. The purpose is to emphasize the value, the need, and the principles involved in a practical budget plan. To devise your own will afford greater satisfaction in its successful functioning, and you will be more pleased with your own creativeness.
Your budget may differ from mine and both be successful. My family needs may be quite diverse from yours. Yet basically we both should follow certain familiar pattern lines. Our responsibility to God comes first on your budget and on mine. Tithe, of course, needs no explanation or promotion. Your religious offering allotments may differ from mine, but by giving as God has blessed, let both our consciences be free from the charge of robbing God.
After cataloging our religious expenditures, we should then proceed in a careful, conservative estimation of anticipated expenses. One of our first considerations will naturally be our table and small current household needs. The family without budget experience will be amazed at the leaks that can be closed by wise food planning. The saving here embraces far more than the mere weekly trip to the grocery store; it means as well the storing, freezing, and canning of foods in season, the purchase of bulk and quantities, and so forth. Then clothing, replacement of furniture or the purchase of new, all form important items in the budget and should be governed by a long-range plan of systematic budget appropriations.
A surplus of unused funds in one category should not necessarily be transferred to enrich another. There is value in the accumulation of certain excess amounts that may appear from time to time. For instance, an accumulating surplus in the food category will provide a happy asset during canning season, when we may wish to buy in large quantities.
Long-Range Planning
The successful budgeter will recognize the value of long-range planning. For instance, I invest twenty-eight dollars every three years in fire insurance, and anticipate this expense by budgeting eighty cents a month in an accumulative fund. Eighty cents may seem ridiculously small and nonsensical, yet after five months I now have four dollars. At the end of three years I shall be able to draw my check for twentyeight dollars for insurance renewal an amount that is not always at one's finger tips upon a moment's notice.
Why should we struggle under a taxing sixmonth stretch of winter fuel costs? There are twelve months in each year. Why not budget our winter fuel costs over twelve lighter payments instead of six prostrating ones? A word about travel allowances. Here again we should reserve under its own label any surpluses that may accrue. One may object that he consumes his entire travel appropriation and more besides. Perhaps, then, there is need of learning the principles of budgeting in other fields than money. The worker who fails to budget both time and travel to accomplish the most with the least is certainly not planning wisely. Once this question of travel is carefully studied, the conviction grows that each of us is capable of exercising much greater economy in our wanderings to and fro. How frequently have we all been guilty of traveling many miles one day to make a call, and then returning to that same area during the next day or so to make another? This is no departure from our subject. Budget your travel and you budget your money. The worker who can accumulate a fund in the travel section of his family budget is most fortunate. There comes a time when new tags must be bought or the license renewed or a new battery is needed. How unfortunate if, by careless manipulation, his miles and his money have been irresponsibly squandered!
Various moneys should be kept in appropriately labeled envelopes or in the bank, and need not be dictatorially controlled by either husband or wife. If there is sensible cooperation in the budget and a trusting mutual owner ship, any couple will find greater joy in living and a satisfaction in nonwastefulness. They will have more to show for their money, and peace of heart in knowing that they have been con scientious and faithful stewards over the sacred funds that have been provided by God's people for their livelihood.
Wanted-a Woman!
MARY STOVER JAECKEL Reprinted by permission from The Watchman-Examiner, May 22, 1952
"Wanted-a Woman," was a boxed advertisement, set up in large letters in one of our religious papers recently. "Wanted a Woman," is still the cry which echoes from the radio, from the press, from the platform, from the courtrooms and from every walk of life today.
Articles in our daily papers telling of the sin and debauchery of our higher class women fill us with remorse and shame. These stories tell of drinking sprees and cocktail parties. They tell of drunken women with all defenses and inhibitions removed by the filthy stuff. We read of broken homes, triangles, unfaithfulness, suicides, homicides, murders, revelations that crush and break the home ties, that bewilder and frighten children, and cause untold anguish and suffering on the part of all concerned and society in general.
The Frenchman, who in the earlier days of America's greatness, said, after visiting her churches, schools, courtrooms and her homes, "America is great because America is good. If she ever ceases to be good, she will no longer be great," spoke words of wisdom far greater than he knew.
Womanhood and National Greatness
America today is still great. She still has much of the good, but by all standards, America is rapidly slipping from those high levels which made her great, to those reached by other nations just before their downfall and destruction.
All history bears testimony to the fact that no nation rises higher, endures longer, or goes farther than the Christian character of its womanhood. The home is seldom better than the wife and mother in it. Men born in poverty and obscurity, sometimes with a stigma on their birth, become world-famous leaders, great statesmen, scholars, preachers and teachers, all because of the queenly Christian qualities of the mothers who reared them.
While the newspapers bear glaring headlines about women's crimes, and make us blush with shame and rage when we see the pictures of nude young women spread all over the pages, in our hearts we know that there are yet thou sands of good women. But the sin-sick world is not looking now for just "good women." It needs, and must have, the best. It needs women who face issues as they are, and with high courage and aggressiveness, with determination to re-create high moral and spiritual standards for our homes, to establish an influence against the easy sins of the day that will deter other women, that will check the lewdness so rampant in this age. These women will not only dress properly themselves, but will dress their children as they should be dressed, and will make those who go around in the nude and in other forms of improper apparel feel keenly conspicuous and out of place in their presence. This change can be made. It will be made only when Christian women insist that the lost graces of modesty, self-restraint and virtue shall once more be come a part of American womanhood. Then, and not till then, will the tide turn toward righteousness, peace, and godly happiness. Then we shall find better men in our legislative halls, and in every place where strong men are needed, for it is true that all down the ages, men and children have depended upon their women to send them out into the world prepared to face it with courage, integrity and poise.
Stemming Delinquency
Reams of paper have been used across this nation during the past few years publishing the articles written about juvenile delinquency, about their escapades. Staggering amounts of time have been used in plans and programs designed to take care of situations, while almost nothing has been written about the real cause of the trouble, or of who is responsible for curing it. The poultryman sees hundreds of his chicks streaming out in forbidden territory. He knows immediately there is a hole in the fence that must be mended before he can control his chicks and stop others from following the same path. The remedy is simple and easy, the results sure. Why are we not as wise as the poultryman? Who is more responsible for the moral holes in the fences through which a great deal of youth is pouring headlong to death and destruction today than our women?
I challenge you to dress yourselves and your husbands as a great many boys and girls are dressed today and keep your self-esteem and respect. Try it, men, you, who day after day go to your places of business clean shaven, well-dressed, in pressed suits, clean shirts, appropriate ties, modest hose, shined shoes and well-combed hair, try it, will you? Find a tight pair of dirty, rusty trousers, or faded blue denim pants with white seat and knees; take the loud est yellow shirt, or a plaid, or a pink, or a green, or a purple, leave the front wide open, roll up one sleeve and let the other dangle, keep the tail on the outside; roll up the right trouser leg to display barber pole socks drooping over the top of shoes that never knew a shine, and leave one leg flapping lower than the other; rumple your hair until it looks like a rat's nest, round your shoulders, bend in your middle, put a wad of chewing gum as big as your fist in your cheek, and issue forth to business, and then frankly tell us how that sort of getup affects your being. Do you have the courage to try it in order to find out firsthand what is being done to your and your neighbor's children by the kind of clothes they are permitted to wear? Try it, well-dressed women, if it is necessary, and then get busy where it will do the most good.
Christian women, America is calling you, your families and your neighbors are calling you, the whole world is calling to you, and, above all, God is calling for you to arise and adorn yourselves in garments of righteousness and truth, with faith and courage and a unity of purpose and prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit to lift America back to God. 'Tis not enough that we be good; God needs our very best.
'Twas a sheep, not a lamb, that strayed away In a parable Jesus told; A grown-up sheep that had gone astray From ninety-nine in the fold. Out on the hillside, out in the cold, 'Twas a sheep the Good Shepherd sought, And back to the flock, safe in the fold, 'Twas a sheep the Good Shepherd brought. And why for the sheep should we earnestly long, And as earnestly hope and pray? Because there is danger. If they go wrong They will lead the lambs astray. For the lambs will follow the sheep, you know, Wherever the sheep may stray; When the sheep go wrong it will not be long Till the lambs are as wrong as they. And so with the sheep we earnestly plead, For the sake of the lambs today; If the lambs are lost, what terrible cost Some sheep will have to pay.