Clothing:  design related to material, color, and becomingness; style, durability; adaptability to fine or rough wear, to repair and remaking; suitability to season, health, occupation, comfort; home-made versus ready-made; conditions of manufacture, use of child labor, the sweat shop, the living wage, health.

Make a study at the grocery of the relative prices of articles bought in small and large quantities:  for example, laundry soap by the bar, by the quarter’s worth, by the box; canned goods by the can, by the dozen, and by the case; flour by the pound, by the 25- pound sack, 50-pound sack, by the barrel; etc.

Make a study of the relative prices of articles in bulk and in package; for example, vinegar by the bottle and by the gallon; bacon in bulk and in jars, etc.

Why may it be economy to buy some food articles in packages rather than in bulk, even at a higher price?  Give examples.

Which is likely to be more economical, to buy groceries by telephone or in person?  To buy by mail order or at the store in town?  Why?

At Christmas time the Park View community center in Washington, D.C., ordered 140 turkeys from a rural neighborhood center in Maryland.  The turkeys were brought by the producers to the schoolhouse of the rural neighborhood, taken by a postal service motor-truck to the schoolhouse of the Park View center in Washington, and from there distributed to the 140 families.  The city buyers paid an average of 15 cents a pound less than the price prevailing in the Washington markets, and the producers received 6 cents a pound more than the Washington markets were paying.

Why was there a saving to both producer and consumer in the above case?  What costs of marketing were cut out or reduced?

What is the “middleman”?  Does he perform a real service to the community?  Should he be paid for his service?  Why?  Is it just that the middleman should be “eliminated” by cooperative marketing and buying organizations?  Why?

Is there any cooperative buying organization in your community?  If so, how has it benefited the community?  If not, why? (Consult your parents, your county agent, and others.)

Get publications from your state agricultural college relating to cooperative buying and selling.

THRIFT IN MANAGEMENT

Wise expenditures depend not only upon knowledge of prices and qualities, but also upon good management, as in planning ahead.  One plan that has been the means of lifting many individuals and families out of financial difficulties and of enabling them to lay by as savings a portion of their income, however small the latter may be, is the budget, which means the apportionment of expenditures according to a plan laid out in advance.  No budget can apply to all families alike, but the following illustrates the principle: