The expense of the menus given will vary somewhat with the locality and the existing market prices. The following analysis of several similar bills of fare used in widely different localities will serve to show something of the average cost. The first of these were taken at random from the daily menus, during the month of January, of a Michigan family of seventeen persons, grown persons and hearty, growing children, none younger than six years. In the estimates made of the cost of material, wherever fractions occurred, the next higher whole number was taken. No butter was used, a small pitcher of cream for each individual supplying its place. The milk used for cooking was not counted, since in this case most of the cream had been removed, and its cost reckoned at the entire cost of the milk itself, or twenty cents a quart, allowing four quarts of milk at five cents a quart for one quart of cream.
The following bills of fare were used by an Iowa family of six persons. The prices given were those current in that locality in the month of March.
The material for the bills of fare given on the next page was reckoned at prices current in a city in northern West Virginia, in the autumn, and was for a family of six persons.
The following four days' bills of fare,—the first two served by a Michigan lady to her family of four persons, the second used by an Illinois family of eight,—although made up of much less variety, serve to show how one may live substantially even at a very small cost.