Resource Management I: Management Concepts and Motivation, Decision Making, Functions of Management and the Family Life Cycle, Resources and Work Simplification, Natural Resources and the SDGs, and Money Management

• Planning: deciding in advance what to do, how, when and by whom; the most important function, since it sets the course for the others.
• Organising: arranging people, tasks and resources so that the plan can be carried out.
• Controlling the plan in action: energising (getting started and keeping going), checking (comparing progress with the plan) and adjusting (changing course when needed).
• Supervision: guiding and overseeing those who carry out the tasks.
• Evaluation: judging the results against the goals, which feeds the next round of planning.

Resources are the means available to achieve goals. They are classified as human (time, energy, knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and interests) and non-human or material (money, goods and property, and community facilities such as parks, libraries, hospitals and public transport). Some writers class time with the non-human resources; all agree it is the one resource distributed equally, 24 hours a day to everyone. Resources share common characteristics: they have utility, they are limited, accessible to different degrees, interchangeable (one can substitute for another, as money for time when a service is bought), interrelated and manageable. Their use is affected by the family's values, goals, knowledge, stage of life cycle, income and environment. Conservation means using a resource so that it yields most satisfaction with least waste, and it extends from household practice to natural resources.

Time management uses a time plan: list the activities, estimate the time each needs, fit them into the day or week around fixed commitments, and check and revise. Peak loads, periods when demands pile up, are eased by dovetailing (doing two compatible tasks together, such as supervising homework while cooking), by shifting tasks and by sharing them. Work simplification, as Marvin Mundel framed it, is the conscious search for the simplest and quickest way of doing work with the least expenditure of time and energy. His five classes of change run from the least to the most far-reaching:

Fatigue is a state of reduced capacity for work. Physiological fatigue follows muscular effort and the build-up of metabolic by-products; psychological fatigue follows boredom, frustration, worry and monotony, and can appear without heavy physical work. It is managed by good posture and body mechanics, correct work heights, rest pauses planned before exhaustion sets in, varying tasks, adequate lighting and ventilation, sufficient sleep and nutrition, and a positive attitude to work.

Land, forests, water and air are the natural resources on which households depend, some renewable, some effectively non-renewable on a human time scale. India holds a large share of the world's population but a much smaller share of its fresh water, so water conservation is a household matter as much as a national one. Rainwater harvesting collects rain from rooftops and paved areas into storage or directs it into recharge pits and wells to replenish groundwater. The volume that can be harvested is roof area × rainfall × runoff coefficient: a 100 square-metre roof in a place receiving 800 mm (0.8 m) of rain a year, with a runoff coefficient of 0.8, can yield 100 × 0.8 × 0.8 = 64 cubic metres, which is 64,000 litres.

• The Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 require every waste generator to segregate waste at source into three streams, biodegradable (wet), non-biodegradable (dry) and domestic hazardous waste, and to hand it over to authorised collectors; they also make bulk generators process their own wet waste and call for integrating informal waste pickers.
• The waste hierarchy runs refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and recover, with disposal last; wet waste can be composted, vermicomposted or converted to biogas, and only residual inert waste should reach a sanitary landfill. Identified single-use plastic items were banned in India from 1 July 2022.
• Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, in the definition of the Brundtland Commission's report Our Common Future (1987).
• The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in September 2015 as the 2030 Agenda, are 17 goals with 169 targets. Those closest to Home Science include SDG 2 (zero hunger), 3 (good health and well-being), 5 (gender equality), 6 (clean water and sanitation), 7 (affordable and clean energy), 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and 12 (responsible consumption and production).

Family income takes three forms. Money income is the flow of money from wages, salary, business, rent, interest and pensions. Real income is the flow of goods and services available to the family, direct (produced at home or received free, such as vegetables from the kitchen garden or community facilities) or indirect (bought with money income). Psychic income is the satisfaction derived from the use of the other two. Income can be supplemented by home production, part-time or home-based work, wise buying, doing work oneself instead of paying for it, and using community facilities.

A budget is a plan for spending and saving income over a period. Its steps are to estimate income, list expected expenditure (fixed items such as rent and fees, and flexible ones such as food and entertainment), balance the two with savings as a planned item rather than a residue, record actual spending in household accounts (a daily cash book, with monthly summaries) and evaluate. Engel's law, stated by Ernst Engel in 1857, holds that as family income rises the proportion spent on food falls, even though the amount spent rises; the food share is therefore a rough indicator of economic well-being.

Savings are income not spent now; investment puts savings to work to earn a return. Choices are judged on safety of the principal, liquidity (how quickly it can be turned into cash), return, and tax treatment. Bank and post office deposits are safe and liquid with modest returns; the Public Provident Fund has a 15-year lock-in with tax-free returns; the Sukanya Samriddhi account, for a girl child under 10, matures at 21 years; mutual funds, often through systematic investment plans, shares and gold offer higher but riskier returns; insurance protects against risk rather than serving as an investment. On tax, interest from deposits is taxable income, and under the current income-tax law a taxpayer chooses between a default regime with lower rates and few deductions and an optional regime that allows deductions for specified savings, so the tax advantage of an investment depends on the regime chosen.