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The article profiles Margarita Gálvez, a Cuban homemaking guru who has become famous for her conservation tricks. In Cuba's socialist economy where many products are rationed, Gálvez has devised several duplicative methods, for example she touts salad dressing as a hair product, and bread crumbs to soften hands.

Comments on the popularity of designer aprons. Claim that aprons are gaining in popularity upon being redesigned as a fashion accessory; Comments of women who wear aprons and insist that they are an attractive fashion statement; Sociological aspects of the popularity of aprons; Popularity of gourmet cooking and home entertaining television shows and books; Historical use of aprons by laborers and homemakers.

Reports that more fathers are staying home as mothers are earning more money. Narrowing of the wage gap between men and women; Advances in long-term trends toward wage equality; Controversy over role reversals for some couples; Advice from couples on how to make the switch work.

Reports on the changing Internet audience in the United States. Growth in the number of blue-collar workers, older people, and homemakers using the Internet; Efforts of Internet companies to capitalize on their changing audience with sweepstake promotions, lottery games, and tabloid news.

Reports that the Congress has agreed to improve individual retirement accounts (IRAs) for homemakers as they opened negotiations on a package of tax breaks in legislation raising the minimum wage.

Discusses some of the provisions in the Homemakers IRA bill, which ws introduced in 1993. Tax treatment of the retirement savings of one-income households; Resolution passed by the Senate which states that any tx bill passed in 1996 should include the Homemaker IRA.