Wood may cost 2d. a week, or in very parsimonious hands 1d. is made to do. Gas, by the penny-in-the-slot system, is used rather more for cooking than lighting. The expense in such a family as that under consideration would be about 1s.
s. d. Rent 8 0 Clothing club 0 6 Boot club 1 0 Burial insurance 0 11 Coal 1 6 Gas 1 0 Wood 0 1 Cleaning materials 0 5 ----- 13 5
The whole amount of the household allowance was supposed to be 22s. The amount left for food therefore would be 8s. 7d. in a week when no irregular and therefore extra expense, such as a doctor’s visit or a new teapot, is incurred. This reasoned calculation of expenses other than food has been built up from the actual personal knowledge of the visitors in the investigation—from the study of rent-books and of insurance-books, from the sellers of coal, from the amount taken by the gasman from the meter, from the amount paid in clothing clubs and boot clubs, down to the price of soap and soda and wood at the local shop. It does not depend upon the budget or _bona fides_ of any one woman. It is therefore given in order to show how closely it bears out budget after budget of woman after woman now to be given.
Mr. P., printer’s labourer. Average wage 24s. Allows 20s. to 22s. Six children.
s. d. Rent 8 0 Burial insurance (2d. each child, 3d. wife, 5d. husband; unusually heavy) 1 8 Boot club 1 0 Soap, soda, blue 0 4½ Wood 0 3 Gas 0 8 Coal 1 0 ------ 12 11½
s. d. Rent 8 0 Burial insurance 1 8 Boot club 1 0 Soap, soda, blue, starch 0 5 Gas 0 8 Coal 1 0 ----- 12 9
s. d. Rent 8 0 Burial insurance 1 8 Coal 1 6 Boot club 1 0 Soap, soda, etc. 0 5 Wood 0 3 Gas 1 0 Hearthstone and blacklead 0 1 Blacking 0 1 Cotton and tapes 0 3 ----- 14 3
A note in margin of this budget explains that no meat was bought that week owing to a present of a pair of rabbits. Meat generally cost 2s. 6d.
The next week Mr. P. was ill and earned only 19s. He allowed 18s. 1d.
s. d. Rent 8 0 Burial insurance (stood over) -- Boot club 1 0 Coal 0 6 Liquorice-powder 0 1 Wood 0 2 Gas 0 9 ----- 10 6
This family spent extraordinarily little upon coal, and less than the usual amount on gas. Their great extravagance was in burial insurance. The extra penny on each child was not to bring a larger payment at death, but to provide a small sum at the age of fourteen with which to start the child in life. A regular provision of 6d. for other clothing than boots was made when the household allowance rose to 21s. 9d. on January 6, 1911.