Decide what is most important to you about where you live. Grade the list of items that follow (from 1 to 14). Explain your motives

- being able to walk to a grocery store or market,

- having one bedroom for each person or couple,

- having a yard,

- having domestic appliances (dishwasher, washing machine, dryer),

- being on the ground floor, so there are no stairs to climb,

- being able to have parties or play loud music without bothering your neighbours,

- having a quiet atmosphere, with no loud noise from neighbours,

- not having to do outside work (for example, yard work or painting),

- knowing people who live near you,

- owning the property where you live,

- living in an area where there is not much crime,

- living near relatives, friends or close to where you work,

- having recreational facilities (a swimming pool, tennis courts).

Discuss the following

1) What is your idea of a proper allocation of household chores in the family?

2) How will you describe a cosy home? What can be done in a flat to make it more comfortable and spacious?

3) Can you imagine a home of the future? What do you think it will be like? Will there be any elbow grease and drudgery left in housekeeping or will labour-saving devices replace man?

4) How do you think the “mechanical progress” influences the domestic sphere? Is the change always for the better?

5) While discussing “the woman of the future”, Thomas Edison claimed that, she “will give less attention to the home because the home will need less; she will be rather a domestic engineer than a domestic labourer.” Do you think that labour-saving devices will ever relieve the woman of housekeeping? What about homemaking?

6) What is your idea of an ideal housewife?

7) Women have always been considered “home makers”. Is housekeeping a woman’s domain or a woman’s lot?

8) Who is supposed to be the breadwinner in today’s family? Is it still the preserve of men?

9) “Kinder, Kirche, Kuche” (German for children, church, kitchen) is a slogan, dating from the early 20^th century, in regard to the place of women in Germany. The phrase was adopted by the Nazis, who emphasized the role of women as home-makers and breeders of little Aryans and actively discouraged them from going to university or taking employment. Later the word “Kleider” (dress) was added to this combination. Do you agree that these notions are or should be basic in every woman’s life? How has life changed since the time when this slogan appeared?

10) How will you account for gender roles reversal common in modern society? How does it affect the family?

Text 5

FAMILY BUDGET

For many families, one of the biggest sources of disagreement is the subject of family finances. For many of us, the money coming in never seems to match the money going out. Then of course, there always follows the stress of what to spend the money on, and when and how much, and where, and so on. Any financial advisor will tell you to spend less than you make. In order to accomplish this, many of us need a way to track and record our expenses. This simple budget program is ideal for a household. Benefits of having a budget are that bills and future expenses are no longer a surprise. However, just the idea of a budget makes a lot of families shudder. Many feel that it will be too restrictive and limiting. They assume that they will lose too much of their spending freedom, taking away some of the pleasures in their lives. In reality, an effective budget does the opposite: by keeping track of your expenditure, it allows you to balance your checkbook and concentrate on those items that bring the highest reward, both financially and personally. An effective budget puts YOU in control of your finances, rather than letting the control slip into the hands of chance. YOU plan for upcoming bills, save for property tax, save for Christmas or a new car.

That means a lot more than just getting control of your money. That means getting a handle on your habits – both thinking and spending. What is more, getting control will not only decrease your stress, it can also help you efficiently prepare for the future (saving for a rainy day or even for a more leisurely life as the family matures).

The process of developing and maintaining your budget is much simpler if you have the records of your current spending on hand. Rather than saying: “I think we spend about $300 a month on groceries,” you will have the exact average monthly expenses for various items. Track utility expenses, keep receipts, bills from physicians and service stations – any expenses that vary from month to month. Once you have a running total for several months you can develop an average and adjust your budget up or down accordingly. Then you can, with all concerned members of the family contributing, start to determine which budget items are necessities, which are “luxuries” and where expenses can be reduced.

Family budgets that include established short- or long-term goals are always the most effective. For example, you may decide that “we want to trim enough from our current spending so that we can buy a $2500 Certificate of Deposit within 6 months to begin a college fund.” Or, “the savings from our budget will pay for our entire vacation next August so that nothing will be added to the credit cards.” Discussion is important here so that everyone focuses on the same goal or goals. Start slowly with a fairly easily attainable goal and then “test” yourself with a more difficult (and rewarding) goal as you get more proficient at your budgeting process.

As you begin to focus on your budget, we have a few hints on some efficientpurchasingtactics,as well as saving money on those items that you must buy.

Nearly every family in the world wants to be wise purchasers, but few are able to achieve this goal. Instead, we look around our homes and take inventory of items that we paid too much for, things we didn’t really need, and non-functioning items that we may have saved on when purchasing but which now cost us money in repairs or upkeep. In addition, our accumulation of things not only “eats” into our family budget, it clutters our life with junk we really don’t need.