DURING the bleak years of the Great Depression, millions of U.S. families learned to rule their lives by the household budget, religiously parceling out set amounts for all needs, from mortgage payments to shoe-shines. Many families divided their income into envelopes firmly labeled Rent, Food, Electricity, etc.; others made ends meet by keeping a strict household ledger of every penny earned, every penny spent. But as the U.S. economy burgeoned, the rigid family budget began to die out. In the midst of prosperous 1955, a manager of Home Life Insurance Co. estimates...
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