Nine standing formats
A publication of record needs forms that repeat, so that a reader knows what they are getting and can compare one month to the last. Each of these states how it is reported.
The Entry
Sundays1 published
The editor's weekly letter, dated like a journal entry.
Cat Lindgren writes The Entry every Sunday morning: one thing that happened in a household this week — usually hers — and what it says about the way the rest of us are running ours. It opens the Weekly Entry newsletter and it is the shortest thing we publish.
Read every The EntryThe Household Audit
Monthly1 published
One real household, examined in full: money, time, labour.
Once a month we take a single household apart with its consent and put the numbers on the page: what comes in, what goes out, who does which hours, and where the whole arrangement is carrying a load it cannot carry indefinitely. The household is real and anonymised. The figures are theirs, unrounded.
Read every The Household AuditMinutes
Fortnightly2 published
One family's negotiation, transcribed and annotated.
A household sits down to settle something — laundry, the car, Christmas, an aging parent's move — and we record it. The transcript runs as it happened, with annotations on where the argument turned, who conceded what, and which sentence did the work.
Read every MinutesLedger
Monthly2 published
An anonymous 30-day spending diary, kept by one household.
Thirty days, every dollar, written down by the household that spent it. No commentary from us about whether it was a good idea. The interest is in the shape of a month, which is nothing like the shape of a budget.
Read every LedgerStandard Operating Procedure
Weekly2 published
One routine, step by step, from a household that has it working.
Ezra Lindqvist spends a day inside somebody else's routine — the 6:40 a.m. exit, the Sunday reset, the medication round — and writes it down as a procedure another household could actually run. Times, quantities, who does what, and the step everybody skips.
Read every Standard Operating ProcedureCorrespondence
Weekly1 published
Reader letters, and the dilemmas that arrive with them.
What readers write to us, printed with permission and answered where we can answer. Letters are edited for length and for anything that would identify a child. First names or initials only.
Read every CorrespondenceThe Reasonable Adult
Thursdays1 published
Joanne Park answers one household dilemma. Calmly.
An advice column written by a retired hospice social worker who is not a therapist and says so weekly. Calm, not clinical, and unimpressed by the idea that anyone's household is uniquely broken. It is the most-forwarded thing we publish.
Read every The Reasonable AdultThe Long Entry
Monthly1 published
One reported feature, 3,000 to 5,000 words.
A month of reporting on one question about how households work now — the childcare market, the third shift, the cost of a free grandparent, what happens to a house when the person who ran it dies. Edited by Andre Bellamy.
Read every The Long EntryIndex
Wednesdays1 published
The week in research, policy and news affecting households.
A short weekly roundup, compiled by David Nkemelu: the studies, bills, rule changes and price movements that will show up in somebody's household budget or school calendar. Every item links to the primary source.
Read every Index