Be Temperate Toward Material Things ~ Catholic Family Handbook

21 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook - Fr. Lovasik, Finances, Marriage

by Father Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook

Be temperate toward material things

Ill-regulated love of material things can be the cause of much trouble, unhappiness, and downright misery in the home. Your attitude toward money can be a source of great friction if it is not well ordered.

Two extremes are to be avoided: miserliness and prodigality.

A miser lives in some comfort, but has to struggle mightily with himself to give away even a small sum. A spendthrift is one who foolishly, wastefully, and usually selfishly squanders money, whether he happens to possess little or much.

Today there is a craze for buying on credit. A wife who cannot not see an expensive item for household use in a store without buying it can keep a man so loaded down with debt that he will find no joy in the use of these unpaid-for luxuries.

When a wife is foolish and childish in handling money, it would be prudent for a husband not to let her have any money at all. But such cases are rare.

The other extreme is intolerable miserliness. The principle is: “I pay as I go.” Some men not only refuse to incur debts, but strive for a bank account ten times greater than the cost of anything their wives want to buy.

A little debt can be a good thing: it keeps both spouses striving and working together; whereas, without it, there is less incentive to cooperate and sacrifice. But that means a reasonable amount of debt.

A sensible wife will accept limitations on her desire for new things, and at the same time a sensible husband will be willing to incur a reasonable debt.

Miserliness is not in accord with the honesty and sincerity you owe your family. If you are the father of a family, your first obligation is to provide the economic necessities for your wife and children. You are to be the breadwinner of the family, and you should not expect your wife to neglect your home and children for the sake of extra income unless extraordinary circumstances indicate a real need.

A mother’s job is to keep up a good home and raise her children properly. Greed or selfishness should not induce her to neglect these tasks for the sake of the additional income she can earn from a job outside the home.

In marriage you entered into the closest possible partnership with each other. The result of this partnership is that you are bound to share not only those faculties that are involved in the procreation of children, but other things as well, such as material possessions.

The free use of material things is one of the greatest joys of ownership. If you, as a husband, deprive your wife of that joy, you are not sharing in the full sense of the word. The fact that you pay the bills does not mean that you are sharing these things completely.

Do not be a party to some of the abuses practiced by some “money-pinching” husbands. Do not keep from your wife the actual amount of your income or refuse to let her have a word to say about money matters, with the result that she has no idea how to buy for the present or to plan for the future.

She has a right to know exactly how much you are earning, and she should be taken into your counsels on the economic planning for the home. Business dealings and other arrangements that affect the welfare of your home should be common knowledge.

Neither of you should ever contract a personal debt without first talking it over with the other and reaching an agreement.

A wise wife is satisfied with giving her honest opinion. The final decision rests with her husband, who is the head of the home, even as Christ is the head of the Church.

Do not imitate the practice of some husbands who give their wives just barely enough to provide necessities for the home, for herself, and for the children.

Your wife should be a sharer of your income, not an unsalaried servant, held to account count for every penny she spends. Some husbands spend freely on their own amusements but cannot afford recreation money for their wives and children.

Your wife has a right to spend just as much of your money for her personal pleasure as you do for your own. The ideal arrangement is that both of you share in whatever pleasures money can buy.

As the educator and trainer of the immature minds and wills entrusted to you by God, your vocation is difficult. It calls for many qualities that are virtues in themselves: zeal, painstaking effort, patience in weariness, and the humility that joyfully stoops to the level of the child. It is hard work, and the temptation must come at times to abandon the effort and take life easy. Only the seriousness of the undertaking and the knowledge that it is done for God can sustain the untiring effort demanded. – Father Lawrence Lovasik

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A Wise Woman’s Economy

18 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Finances, True Womanhood, A book of Instruction for Women of the World, Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, L.D., 1893

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From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1893

We must not, especially in an age which tends daily more and more to deny that man owes any account to God for the use of the wealth he chances to possess — whether that be inherited from his ancestors, or obtained by his own thrift and industry — be carried away by the torrent of error.

No matter whence derived, all that man has as well as all that he is belongs to God — his Creator and Lord and Judge; and to Him must he return to give an account of the use which he will have made of his being, his life, his time, his property.

Reason, even without the light of supernatural revelation, teaches this truth as fundamental and unquestionable.

The great and the rich will have to account for their stewardship, —for the uses to which they have put their time, their riches, their power, their influence, their opportunities, just as the laboring poor will have to account for their thrift, and the awful uses to which one may see, day by day, our hard-working heads of families put their earnings in drunkenness, gambling, and all manner of vice.

But, as we have said, it is the province of the housewife to be at home a wise steward in the use of her husband’s means, while his chief business is, outside of the home, to procure these means by honorable industry. Both are responsible to God.

The wife’s immediate responsibility however is toward her husband. She is his minister, his eye, his hand, his head and heart, in applying his wealth or the produce of his industry to the ends for which God wills it to be employed.

Of persons of royal, princely, or noble rank, we do not think it necessary to treat in this place. We speak of wealth wheresoever it exists, and of the duties and responsibilities of the wife in its home-uses.

Hers should be a wise economy. Wisdom consists in a clear perception of the ends or uses for which money is to serve, and in the careful adaptation of one’s means to one’s expenditure.

You have so much and no more to spend each week, or each month, or each year; you have so many wants to provide for: let your wisdom be proved by always restraining your outlay so as to have a little balance left in your favor.

We know of a wife,—a young wife too,—who after her bridals was made the mistress of a luxurious home, in which her fond husband allowed her unlimited control. They were more than wealthy, and his business relations and prospects were such as to promise certain and steady increase for the future.

Still the young wife did not allow herself to be lavish or extravagant. She provided generously for the comforts of her home, for the happiness of her servants, for the duties of a generous hospitality; she had an open hand for all charities and good works.

But she was also, young as she was, mindful of the future; and this wise forethought is eminently the characteristic of women.

Without ever whispering a word of her purpose to her husband, she resolved from the beginning of their housekeeping that she would lay by in a safe bank her weekly economies.

The husband, in all likelihood, would have deemed this saving an ill omen, pointing to future calamity. It was, however, only the prophetic instinct of the wise woman, who, in the heat of summer and the overflowing plenty of autumn, looked forward to “the cold of snow,” and made store for the need and warmth and comfort of her household.

The “calamity” came after a good many years ; it came by a fatal chain of circumstances in which the misfortunes or dishonesty of others brought ruin on the upright and prudent and undeserving.

One day the husband came home with heavy heart, and tried in vain to hide his care from the penetrating eyes of love. He had to break to his wife the dreadful news of their utter ruin.

She listened unmoved to his story: “All is not lost, my dear husband,” she said; “I have been long preparing for this. If you will go to such a bank, you will find enough laid up there to secure us either against want or poverty.”

In order to secure this wise and provident economy, even in the midst of wealth, two extremes must be avoided, parsimony, which destroys domestic comfort and makes the mistress of the proudest house despicable in the eyes of her cook, her butcher, and her grocer,—and waste or extravagance, which is ruinous to the largest fortunes and most criminal in the sight of God.

“Waste not—want not,” used to be inscribed on the huge bread-platters of our fathers, both in the servants’ hall and the family dining-room.

“Waste not—want not,” ought to be the rule of every housewife in all departments of household economy.

Waste is always a sin against God, against your husband and children, as well as against the poor, who have a right to what is thus thrown away: and, forget it not,—waste never fails to lead to want, as surely as stripping a tree of its bark is followed by its pining away and withering.

Another rule, which a wise woman will never violate, is to tell her husband when she exceeds her means or allowance.

It is fatal concealment to allow debts to accumulate without one’s husband’s knowledge; it tempts the woman weak enough to do so to have recourse to most unworthy and most dangerous expedients, which are sure to be known in the end, and to lower the culprit or ruin her forever in her husband’s esteem.

The equivocations and the downright falsehoods which are often used as means of concealment, cannot but be considered by every right-minded man as a greater calamity than the accumulation of the largest debt or the loss of an entire fortune.

In this respect, as indeed in every other, no concealment will be found to be the wife’s only true policy; and to secure this policy of no concealment let her make it the study of her life to have nothing to conceal.

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Budget – The Wife Desired, Fr. Leo Kinsella

18 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by Leanevdp in Finances, The Wife Desired - Father Kinsella

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Fr. Kinsella’s take on Budgeting From The Wife Desired, 1950’s

While no system of caring for family finances will work unless husband and wife unselfishly are looking out for each other’s welfare and that of the whole family, yet some sensible method of handling money is necessary. Thus, the subject of a family budget must be considered. No matter how high the husband’s income may be, some attention must be given to a budget, lest their finances end in chaos.

An individual may live a happy-go-lucky existence and get away with it, but not a husband and wife with responsibilities to each other and to their children.

There are all sorts of methods of keeping a budget. No hard and fast rules can be given. Personalities differ. What has been found successful for one couple might bring disaster to another.

In all cases it is essential that there exist between husband and wife absolute trust and confidence in each other. How many couples live with little or no trust and no habit of sitting down and frankly and intimately discussing their finances has been one of the greatest revelations to me.

The first requisite is that husband and wife come to frank understanding and mutual agreement as to what they are going to do with their income.

For the vast majority a high percentage will have to go for current household expenses. Because they are no longer children, they will want to save some for the future, for their own home, the children’s education, contingencies of sickness, and so on.

Their earnestness in this direction will be indicated, if they remove a pre-determined amount from the weekly check and bank it before they begin spending for their current need and expenses.

Incidentally, it is interesting to observe what are considered needs and what are thought to be luxuries by different couples. Those who confuse luxuries for needs usually are drumming along no farther ahead economically years after their marriage.

Foolishly some parents will squander amazing amounts of money on, for example, toys for their little children. As often as not a big spoon would keep a little child as contented as some intricate and expensive toy. It lasts longer, too.

A doting parent accedes to the myriad requests of his little children. Besides spoiling them this weak-kneed and misdirected affection looks not to the future.

Money kept from them, when they could not possibly appreciate it, is saved by intelligent parents for them for the time when they will be able to understand the advantages of a fine home, an education, and vacations.

In this difficult task of saving for the future, it is a great help to a couple to have a definite goal, such as a new home of their own. I do not know whether or not there are any statistics on the percentage of divorced couples who rented or owned their own homes. I have a strong suspicion, though, which way the wind blows.

Once the couple understands what they want to do with their money, another question comes up as to who will handle the finances. Since the husband is the breadwinner and head of the family, the ultimate responsibility would seem to rest ordinarily with him.

Of course, if he is wise, he will work out with his wife a weekly or monthly budget for the daily household expenses.

The big item here will be the purchase of the food. The wife is by far the more competent to do the ordinary shopping. She should have a set and agreed upon amount of cash for this purpose. From time to time adjustments as to the amount will have to be made to keep at the level or standard of living upon which they have agreed.

The husband does the banking. He takes care of the other expenses such as rent, mortgage payments, phone bills, and the like.

This system of caring for family finances seems in theory to be the most sensible. In actual practice the procedure seems to be the one most successfully followed by the great majority of happy couples.

Some husbands with little background of true sportsmanship will expect, apparently, in their own peculiar, dumb way that the wife should be able to take care of her personal expenses out of a limited budget for food. It would be just as unreasonable for her to expect him to be able to take his personal expenses out of the phone bill or the rent money.

She should have some leeway in her budget, so that she does not have to skimp on food or does not have to come to him and beg him for a dollar for some personal item or other. Within their income, of course, both should have a little personal expense account as part of their over-all budget.

Another method of caring for family finances is for the husband to hand over his check to his wife. She returns him an amount necessary for his daily expenses such as carfare, lunch money, and cigarettes. She does the banking and takes care of all the family expenses and sees to the regular saving of some money.

This system has many successful adherents. However, it has several latent dangers which must be pointed out.

Even though they have come to an accord on the above mentioned system, too many husbands lose a big part of their responsibility.

They develop a lazy sort of “let the little lady take care of it” attitude. Also, some husbands who are met at the door on pay day with an out stretched hand of an efficient wife begin to feel just a little henpecked.

There is another weakness in this method which has caused all sorts of mischief. Many husbands who hand over their checks and then do not bother their heads over the family finances have a tendency to think that their wives are spendthrifts or at least rather wasteful. Otherwise, why does she not have any money saved up at the end of the month? Where did it all go?

All sorts of wild ideas enter their minds. Is she buying groceries for that no good brother of hers? In some cases they even become pantry detectives. They keep secret count on the canned goods.

The wise wife will begin her married life by keeping an itemized account of absolutely every purchase, even if she is taking care of expenses only for food. If she spends five cents, she lists it. After several months of this it becomes obvious where the money is going. A good deal of it is going right down his gullet.

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Be Temperate Toward Material Things – Catholic Family Handbook

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook - Fr. Lovasik, Finances, Marriage

≈ 2 Comments

by Father Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook

Be temperate toward material things

Two extremes are to be avoided: miserliness and prodigality. Continue reading →

Budget – The Wife Desired, Fr. Leo Kinsella

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by Leanevdp in Finances, The Wife Desired - Father Kinsella

≈ 2 Comments

From The Wife Desired by Fr. Leo Kinsella, 1950’s