After rent, which is covered separately in Chapter XI (The Best Insurance Policy), the great item to be considered is food. "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are." In these days of high prices the only way in which a housekeeper can set a good table at a low cost is by increased activity of her brain matter.

Remember that there is almost no article of food that has not a substitute that is almost equally nutritious. Cheese combined with macaroni, rice or potatoes is sufficiently nutritious for even a physical worker and can often take the place of meat. Cereals also should be used extensively, particularly the wheat cereals.

Search every cook book you can find for the best and most ingenious ways of cooking common foodstuffs. Buy common vegetables and dried peas, beans and lentils and always rice.

The cheapest foods are often the most nutritious and digestible, as well as palatable and appetizing, if the housekeeper is constantly alert and vigilant in her search for new methods of preparing them. "We squander money on fancy articles of low nutritive value, and we use little or no judgment in preparing what we eat with a view to obtaining all the energy there is in it," says 0. H. Benson of the Department of Agriculture. "The American people live largely upon a diet made up something as follows: Meat, coffee, bread, butter, eggs and supplemented daily by a liberal dose of patent medicines, while out in the back yards and orchards are millions of bushels of healthful vegetables and fruits, rotting for want of proper methods of caring for this surplus."

Waste of food is a great leakage in every man's income. Watch what leaves the table as well as what comes on to it. It was long a common saying that American housewives threw out of their kitchens enough to feed a French family. But that commonplace has a terrible amendment now, for it is said the average American family wastes enough in one week to support a needy Belgian or Pole two weeks. It is well known that the highly paid chefs waste nothing, because their ingenuity and ability use up everything. By planning meals several days ahead, not only may left-overs be used to greater advantage, and each meal planned with closer reference to the next, but marketing is effected more readily.

The marketing of food is fully as important as its choice and preparation. This does not mean haunting stores all day long, but it does mean the making of many inquiries, estimates and calculations. Perhaps it may prove wise to go to a general market, if there is one in your city, even though it is two miles away, for the saving may more than offset the car fare and time expended.

Study the seasons and buy when provisions are cheap. If you plan your expenditures ahead you can arrange to do it. April eggs should be laid down by methods understood by housekeepers, thus saving twenty or thirty cents a dozen next winter. The same is true of other articles in their season. Nor is this the case with food alone. Coal is much cheaper in the spring than in other seasons, at least in many localities.

Buying for cash often saves many a penny. It has been said that a family can live two days on cash purchases for the same cost that will carry them one and a half days on credit. As a general rule, you can get better prices by buying for cash because you are not paying for the bad debts of those who buy on credit and fail to pay their bills. Unrestricted credit always leads to extravagance. Avoid overdue accounts. Be quick to pay bills, for then you may often get a discount. Many business concerns make a large portion of their profits by taking cash discounts. In many towns and cities the prompt payment of gas bills means a ten per cent. discount. A word to the wise - .

One of the greatest evils of our time is the readiness with which retailers give credit. It is just as much a loss for the merchant as it is a temptation for the customer. It always seems easier to pay in the future than now. But there is no practise which so binds a man with unbreakable chains. Pay cash whenever you can, or if a running account is necessary to avoid great inconvenience, put aside part of your earnings every week to meet the bill when it comes in. No man is independent who is in debt, and there is no quicker way of getting there than to "charge it." Purchases which at the time seem trifling run up into appalling totals at the end of the month. It is like coasting down-hill on a sled and then painfully dragging it up again. Buying on the instalment plan is nothing but getting into debt to the least disinterested party - the merchant from whom you buy.

And don't forget that in many cases you can purchase at lower cost if you pay cash. Moreover you won't be tempted to buy so readily.

The money looks big when you take it out of your pocket, but small when the clerk says: "You can pay at the end of the month." It may take backbone and stamina to avoid the follies of unnecessary expenditure, but stamina and backbone are themselves qualities so well worth having that they are worth even more than the money itself.

Often it is possible to effect a saving by purchasing direct from farmers either by means of express or parcels post. This method of reducing the cost of living has not made much progress as yet, but is sure to be developed in the next few years. Watch its growth in your own community. Ask your neighbors what they know about it. Perhaps you will learn that there is some cooperative society in your own town by means of which you can save many dollars. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Often the largest savings are made by buying in large quantities. Some incomes are too small for that, but a little thought on the part of even the poorest will arrange matters so that the quantities purchased will be at least normal. Perhaps the greatest item in the high cost of living to the very poor is their practise of buying in small quantities. That is a fact within the experience of every one of us. Have you never seen a woman with a shawl around her head buying five or ten cents' worth of butter or meat, two quarts of potatoes and a pailful of coal?

A thrifty housewife in a well-managed home has an allowance and should keep within it. She will keep within her yearly allowance, but the monthly or weekly budget should be elastic. Here is where she must use judgment and common sense. If she studies the markets she may find it a much more thrifty plan to order fifty dollars' worth of winter staples when they are cheapest.

Your local merchant may perhaps do as well by you in the matter of large quantities as a mail-order house if you only broach the subject. Most of his customers are so in the habit of buying in small quantities that he rarely asks if you want a large quantity. But perhaps he, too, can make a profit on a large consignment and still sell at low prices. Ask him.