| s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|
| Rent (one good room upstairs; two windows) | 5 | 0 |
| Burial insurance | 0 | 3 |
| Boot club | 0 | 6 |
| Coal (1 cwt. stove coal for foreign stove, which stands out into the room, and will be very dangerous when the baby begins to crawl) | 1 | 3 |
| Gas | 0 | 8 |
| Soap | 0 | 3 |
| Oil | 0 | 2 |
| Matches | 0 | 1½ |
| 8 | 2½ |
Left for food 9s. 9½d.
| s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|
| Six loaves | 1 | 4½ |
| Husband’s dinners (he is given 6d. daily by his wife for his dinner, which he eats away from home) | 3 | 0 |
| Meat | 3 | 2½ |
| ½ lb. butter | 0 | 6 |
| 1 lb. flour | 0 | 1½ |
| 1 tin of milk | 0 | 4 |
| 4 ozs. tea | 0 | 4 |
| 1 lb. moist sugar | 0 | 2 |
| ½ lb. dripping | 0 | 3 |
| 8 lbs. potatoes | 0 | 4 |
| 4 lbs. greens | 0 | 2 |
| 9 | 9½ |
An average per head of 4s. 10¾d. a week for food.
If the wages never rise, and if the family grows larger, the amounts spent on burial insurance, soap, coal, gas, and, later on, rent will increase, leaving less and less for food, with more people to feed on the less amount. Extra bedding will eventually have to be bought, though the parents will naturally put off that moment as long as possible. Should the wage rise gradually to 24s., or even 25s., it would not all go upon the general living. The man would naturally take a larger amount of pocket-money, and out of the extra sum which he might allow the wife, he would certainly expect better living. A “relish to his tea,” costing 2d. a day, mounts up to 1s. a week, and a “rasher to his breakfast” costs the same. So an increase of 2s. might be completely swallowed up in extra food for the worker. And it would be really needed by him, as his proportion of the money spent would tend to diminish with more mouths to fill.
Another instance of a young couple starting on £1 a week is that of Mr. H., who is twenty-two, and works in a brewery. Every third week he has night work. He allows his wife his whole wage. There is one child of six months. The wife is twenty. She worked in a polish factory until marriage, when she was dismissed, with a small bonus, as the firm does not employ married women. With the bonus she helped to furnish. She is an excellent housewife, and keeps her room comfortable.
Date of budget, January 16, 1913 (see p. 150).
| s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|
| Rent (one room, small; one window, upstairs) | 3 | 6 |
| Husband’s fares | 1 | 0 |
| Husband’s pocket-money | 1 | 0 |
| State sickness insurance | 0 | 4 |
| Four weeks’ burial insurance (Mr. H. had been ill on half pay, and burial insurance had stood over) | 1 | 0 |
| Soap, soda | 0 | 3½ |
| 1 cwt. coal | 1 | 6 |
| Gas | 0 | 6 |
| Wood | 0 | 2 |
| Newspaper | 0 | 1 |
| Boracic powder | 0 | 1 |
| Cotton | 0 | 2 |
| Needles | 0 | 0½ |
| Buttons | 0 | 1 |
| Paid off loan (5s. borrowed from a brother during husband’s illness) | 1 | 0 |
| 10 | 9 |
This leaves for food, 9s. 3d. between three people, or an average of 3s. 1d. a head.