SAVE WEAR AND TEAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18459, 28 December 1929, Page 13

SAVE WEAR AND TEAR.

The telephone—that much-maligned accessory of modern life —can be of tremendous value to the housewife if she knows how to use it properly. Elizabeth Craig gives a few tips for obtaining the utmost service. How do you do your housekeeping? Do you sally forth every morning, come sun, come rain, come wind, and tramp to the shops or stores where you generally shop? How do you shop? Personally, or by telephone? If time is no object, it is best to shop in person, pay cash, and take the goods away wth you. If you select goods and pay, and leave it to the salesmen to put your order through, you have no guarantee that you will always get what you paid for. Only if you take what you paid for away with you can you be certain of getting what you bought.

If you have to depend on the tradesmen calling for orders, or on giving orders by letter, you would do more justice to your housekeeping if you used the telephone. For then you can discuss with the shopkeeper or assistant what you want, ordering a substitute if he doesn’t have what you like, getting information about what is cheap and plentiful. In a word, with the help of the telephone you can arrange better and more varied menus, take advantage of cheap lines, and receive better value for your housekeeping money than you get when you order by letter or at the door. I insist that shopping by telephone is next best to following the American “Cash-an-Carry” system, which is the cheapest way of shopping. To pay cash and take the goods away with you is ideal and possible unless you are shopping for a large household. Given a telephone, you save not only your own energy, but the wear and tear shopping entails on your clothes and the time usually taken shopping. But, you may say, as others have said to me before, “Shopping by telephone is more expensive than shopping in person.” Sometimes it is, especially if you don’t take the trouble to discuss prices with the order department before ordering. But, though sometimes you will find yourself paying a little more over the telephone than you would if you went shopping, you have saved time that may be devoted to making money, you have saved your energy and your clothes. “Now this coat J. will let you have at half the catalogue price.” “And what is the price of the catalogue?”