BUDGET

KEEP ABREAST OF THE FACTS

THE DAY BEV AND I went to see Jean Hitchcock’s parents, Frank and Vivian Webster, they were enjoying the visit of their youngest granddaughter, Heather.

As they watched her play, there was not even a hint of what they had gone through the previous year. For the Websters it had been a year of dramatic upheaval. Frank had suffered a stroke that paralysed his left side and caused him to lose his job.

They were forced to sell their cozy lakefront home and readjust to a much lower standard of living. The clean, neat apartment they now called home was sparsely furnished. It was apparent that they were going through hard times. Vivian explained their readjustment. “We have been amazed at what we can live without.

We have been forced to watch every penny and follow a strict budget.” Their backs were against a financial wall, and the Websters had responded by economising at every turn. They went without air Annual income twenty pounds, Annual expenditure nineteen six, Result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, Annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, Result misery.

CHARLES DICKENS conditioning, no longer ate at restaurants and limited the use of the hot water heater to 30 minutes a day—just enough for showers and the dishes. Their conservation was paying off. They were actually putting more money into savings than when they were living on Frank’s lucrative salary as an engineer. However, during those years of easy spending, they had lived without the restraints of a budget.

“The trauma of unemployment forced us to communicate in an area of our lives that had been ‘off limits’ during the ‘good old days,’” Vivian explained. “We have learned more about each other through this adversity than at any other time during our 37 years of marriage. As strange as this may sound, we are grateful that this hardship happened. There is more peace in our family now than during the years of prosperity.”

WHAT IS A BUDGET? The Websters are proof that when we plan where our money is to go, we can make the money go further. That’s what a budget is—a plan for spending money. WHY BUDGET? When the bank notified the depositor of his overdraft he replied in disbelief, “I must have more money left in my account.