llars a year. If she spends between one
hundred and twenty-five dollars and one hundred and fifty dollars for her
clothes in the year, she will have about two hundred dollars for other
needs.

What she uses her money for gives to the girl the real meaning of her wages.
Her income means food, clothing, and a house to live in. Besides that her
income means many small expenses, a little holiday and recreation, a little
kindness to someone, church collection, a gift to someone who is in need,
some small pleasure for the girl herself. It should also mean a savings
account. Something will be said about saving in the next chapter. But here
it may be said that if we spend everything we have from day to day, we are
left with little choice in spending. Choice in spending is a test of the
girl's character. We may choose to spend our spare money for candy. But if
we do we shall probably not be able to buy a volume of poetry which we
should love to keep and treasure. We may need a warm coat, but the money
we might have had for it we spent for a second expensive blouse when we
had one pretty blouse already. It was money we had saved which helped us
to go to a course of lessons in gymnastics, and that course may have cured
a tendency to headache.

The average girl hopes that her wages will increase, and this is right.
An employer once said of the amount that he was willing to pay his most
useful employees: "I feel that if a girl is not able to make a good
bargain with me for her work, she will not be able to make a good bargain
for me with others." The best and surest way for the girl to increase her
wages is to think out some plan for increasing the value of her work, and
then if necessary to say to her employer that she has been able to make
her work more valuable.

A word of warning about wages may not come amiss here. If our wages are
too low, the best way to go about raising them is to act ourselves, not
to expect others to act for us. The best results are likely to be obtained
by giving your employer some increased advantage, and by seeing at the
same time that he gives you an equal advantage in your income. But never
feel ill-used, because that lessens your happiness and your power to help
yourself. Remember it is your own difficulty and you are the person to
find the way out.

CHAPTER XXIV

SPENDING. SAVING. INVESTING

There is only one way by means of which we may know accurately how we are
spending our wages.