Based on the family, income, accommodation and records described
in
How a typical working class family spent its money in 1950s Britain
My father's household account book
for the then years of 1953-1962 gives a detailed record of how a typical working
class family of a father, mother and one child spent their money in the middle
years of the 20th century. It thus provides a unique window into the the cost of
living at the time and rates of inflation.
The accounts are presented under
key categories, as
annual expenditure and
as monthly expenditure, and are of course in the old
£-s-d
(pound-shilling-and pence system). This page is about monthly expenditures.
Monthly accounts for 1953
The earliest surviving full set of my father's monthly accounts are for 1953.
They are shown below as three
images of four months each. There are also monthly accounts up to all the years
until 1962, but being later they are probably of less interest.
Expenditure January - April 1953.
Click for a larger version in a new window.
|
Expenditure May - August 1953.
Click for a larger version in a new window.
|
|
Making sense of the accounts
My father was a trained accountant who must have kept his accounts in the
accepted fashion, with four columns for every month, except January, headed:
- Account brought forward
- Accrued
- Paid brought forward, and
- Paid
If you can shed further light or explain more
clearly, please let me know. Pat Cryer.
Although I can understand the general meaning of these headings, as I am not a trained accountant,
I
can't really understand how the amounts worked. However, the first category
of the mortgage repayments on our house (to 'Abbey Road') look
reasonably straightforward:
My father seems to have been working towards
balancing the books at the end of the year. So there was nothing to bring forward
into January. The amount due in January was £4 and this was paid. By
February that £4 had 'accrued', ie built up, into the yearly outgoings, but another £4 was
due for the current month and was paid, making £8 the total paid for the year. This continued month by month so that the accrued outgoings by the end
of December were 12 x £4, ie £48.
However, I leave it to better brains than
mine to work out the significance of the amounts in the other categories.
Yet I honestly believe that if they would do so, my father's accounts would
provide a significant contribution to our understanding of the cost of
living and the rate of inflation in the 1950s.
This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as
Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.
The 1940s and 1950s are also written as the 1940's and 1950's
