five and diamond

03:02 pm: time capsule exhibit B:diary of a mad housewife
What: 1970s scrapbook of an obsessively frugal Albany NY Housewife

Where acquired: In the vast $1-per-item junk field of the Brimfield Flea Market, sept 2006

This thick ledger book was used as a household scrapbook/shopping log by a woman named Ivis; it is filled with advertisements clipped from newspapers and magazines, detailed handwritten lists of items purchased, and copious self-congratulatory "notes-to-self" about the savings reaped by shopping at garage sales and church thrift shops:


"Billy Beer Can Trophy $1.97" Ivis writes, "Was $5.00. Just needed to be tightened".

Entry for May 7 1973, with picture of a curtain rod: "I paid only 35 cents for this traverse rod at a rummage sale-corner of Western and Main St. Perfect condition."
"meatball press. 25 ¢"
"enamel vomit dish 5 ¢"

Ivis took a lot of pride in her bargain shopping. Was she on a strict budget?. Was she childless with too much time on her hands?

Did she ever actually buy one of these exercise-cycles-- or did she just keep cutting the picture out of magazines over and over and over with the good intent of pedaling her inches away?

I don't know. The only remotely personal note I can find in this book is at the end of huge list of household cleaning tasks to do for May 10 1979:
The last line reads " Shave my legs --Change my handbag from Brown to White".


I guess summer had arrived.
Please feel free to send any interesting 20th century ephemera to: Lisa's Time Capsule Project, c/o Five and DIamond Vintage Clothing, 502 Columbia St, Hudson NY 12534