Economics of Home

This weekend, a dear friend of mine brought over a dress to show me. She had made it for her baby girl, and it was one of the most beautiful baby dresses I’ve seen in a long time. I asked her how much she thought it cost her to make, and she estimated between four and five dollars. This is a great price for a dress, especially a high-quality dress. I have paid slightly more than this for a high-quality second-hand dress for one of the girls.

And let me assure you that this dress, if being sold commercially, would most likely retail between twenty and thirty dollars.

Being a woman at home carries with it an economy that is upside-down compared to the business world. In the business world, time is money. In other words, time that is spent without making a sale of some product or service is wasted, or even puts a person into debt, while time that maximizes sales is spent wisely.

But when a woman is at home, there is usually a lot more time than money. Some women do start at-home businesses, and then their time actually turns into money in a way that is similar to the business world. However, I have found that there are so many legal restrictions out there that sometimes it is almost impossible for a woman at home to turn time into money, especially if her time is spent in a kitchen that isn’t certified by the government.

However, producing our own goods, whether they be a beautiful dress for a special occasion or a loaf of zucchini bread using zucchini fresh from the garden, saves the family money. In other words, instead of

Money might make the modern world go around, but effort and time spent wisely can make a family less dependent on money in the first place.