Gilded Age Frugality Encouraged

“And let me furthermore mention two ways which eat out the annual income in a more sure and telling way than the corruption of moth and rust; extravagance in dress on the part of women, and tobacco on the part of men. Nothing can be said on these subjects that has not already been said, but I often think that the one sex winks at the extravagances of the other, on the principle that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and vice versa.” — Above, a Gilded Age, ornate sterling check-cutter by George Shiebler. Before checks were perforated, they came in large sheets, usually 3 at a time. Check cutters on desks became very helpful to businessmen. Oftentimes, they came in backs were marked with inches, meaning they doubled as rulers. From the Etiquipedia private collection.

How to Reduce Household Expenses

To the Editor of the New-York Times:Having read an article under this head in today's (Jan. 19) TIMES, I am anxious to state some other methods whereby to lessen the extravagances of living. In the first place, the wasteful ways of housekeepers and servants might be avoided, for as we learned in our first efforts at ‘Tis willful waste makes woeful want.” A large proportion of our people throw away what is left from one meal to another, from one day to an other, from one season to another; or if not at the moment willfully thrown away, the fragments are left so unprotected from dust and insects as to be utterly worthless when called for.

The same waste extends through out many households, from waste of food and clothing, to a careless treatment of all the articles required in housekeeping, so that what should last any family a lifetime needs to be replenished every year. The best carpets are swept with the street brooms, the lace and damask are left unprotected from dust, the little articles of vertu are knocked about by ruthless hands, the soft blankets, which every one must know are apt to be ruined in washing, are thrown upon the floor; the metal-ware is left wet, and the wooden-ware is left dry; the oil-cloths and painted wood-work are everlastingly scoured with soap, though this latter device for throwing money into the fire is supposed to be owing to a secret understanding with the house-painters.

I might prolong these enumerations, as it is not only when china breaks that the housekeeper feels undone, but I will pass to the remedy. Let every one understand what are the real needs of a household, put their own shoulder to the wheel as an assistant before ever dreaming of directing others; learn by actual experience the very best way of doing every kind of house-work, and at once some progress is made toward improving the state of affairs. Where every one is in a phlegmatic state of content, what need of change? 

It is a dissatisfaction with the present way that paves a new way. And let me furthermore mention two ways which eat out the annual income in a more sure and telling way than the corruption of moth and rust; extravagance in dress on the part of women, and tobacco on the part of men. Nothing can be said on these subjects that has not already been said, but I often think that the one sex winks at the extravagances of the other, on the principle that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and vice versa. 

It is not the taxation alone which makes it so difficult to live. Rents are somewhat reduced, bread and milk are less in price, meat is very much cheaper, butter is cheaper than during the war, tea and coffee are twenty percent, all cotton and worsted goods are cheaper, all cotton cheaper. Shoes would be cheaper if people would be content to cover the foot, but it the shoemaker must furnish enough extra leather to cover the leg also, should we wonder if he charges extra? Almost every shoe-store offers of good shoes of an old style at a low price.

I do not ask that our people should make dawdies of themselves, but that they should throw the blame at the right place-not at the country, not at the Government, but at that little altar of laziness and vanity in their own breasts. As to the tobacco drain, let any one notice the prices affixed to the cigars in the cases at the stores, then remark the number of those consumed in one day by the individual, and remember that in the year there are 365 days; let him notice these straws, and he will see why his money blows away, and why he has nothing to lay up against a rainy day.

I very much fear that when some of the weightier taxes are removed, our people will feel they have means to soar into still greater extravagance than ever. Ours is a soaring nation, its wings never having been clipped by such limitations as rule England and Germany, and it is only that rare quality, common sense, which can teach us to soar in the right direction. – A “Reader” in the New York Times, January 21, 1872

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