Thriftlady's wartime experiment

sproggi

ZIZA wrote: »

A quick question.

You were allowed 1shilling and 2pennies (approx 6p) per week to spend on meat does anybody know how much that would be today with inflation?

Thanks

According to this site 1s & 2d in 1944 was worth £1.77 in 2006 using the RPI:eek:

http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/

Sproggi

ZIZA

Thanks for that Sproggi

That means that the meat allowance for 2 people would be £3.54 per week.
I suppose thats not too bad. You could buy 12oz of mince and stretch it out with pulses to make 2 meals for 2 and buy something else with whats left that you can stretch to make 2x2 again thats 4 mains taken care of. Then have fish and vegetarian on the other 3.

Errata

Just to put things into perspective. Local telly report during the week about an upmarket caff in Leeds that's selling a serving of chip shop 'scraps' for
£4 :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

thriftlady_2

sproggi wrote: »

According to this site 1s & 2d in 1944 was worth £1.77 in 2006 using the RPI:eek:

http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/

Sproggi

Oh brilliant find Sproggi :T :T So, that's £8.85 for my lot -that's a bit less than I'd hoped, but it sounds realistically stringent I t puts my free range chicken out of the picture though:(

Of course in those days all the meat would have been free range and organic too probably.

Edit : if you calculate the amount for earlier in the war, say 1941 it comes to £1.99 or £9.95 for a family of 5

[Deleted User]

I`m late finding this thread. I`ve read the first 2 pages and will go back in a moment. What an interesting topic!

I was a 1948 babe and lived in Liverpool were things were really tough. It wasn`t just about the back-end of rationing but the fact that there just was not any money around so lots of people could not buy the rations anyway. Sour milk and potatoes were a staple in our house but the milk was untreated milk and it must have been so good for us because we 7 children were never ill, apart from the usual childhood things which built up the immune system. We all lined up in a row to get our spoonful of cod liver oil and we said our prayers together before bed. We slept 5 in a bedroom but it was great because we would talk and talk.

I used to be sent to the greengrocers with a dolls pram, in which to carry a mountain of staple veg and some fruit. Gosh, apples were so valued by us children. I adored fruit because it was so scarce when every penny counted and I remember coveting a big yellow fruit. Somone told me that it was called a grapefruit!! I remember bread and warm milk, thick wholesome soups with pulses. A pigs head was turned into lovely brawn, which I loved sliced with vinegar.

Necessity was the mother of invention and being the eldest and a girl, I was expected to help in the house. I scoured recipe books looking for family cakes which only used the one egg which was in the house and I was a darned good cook by 11 and I could sew a skirt on a treadle machine

Washing soaked overnight in a bath of cold water and then it was washed a bit at a time by hand with sunlight soap, then mangled and dried in the yard

Hard maybe, but everyone was in the same boat and people pulled together. It didn`t seem to be such a selfish society then

Linda32

Sarahsaver wrote: »

Milk sop is what it is called! Sounds really appetising doesn't it LOL. Mum told me about having it as a child - she was born in 1938. Nanna's neighbour used to eat it when I was little, in the 1970's, I remember her sitting in her window eating the milk sop, she was pretty toothless so the ideal food for her I guess!

I havn't got to the end of this thread yet, but just wanted to mention about the bread and milk which is mentioned.

I had this as a child (of the 70's) Dad born 1934 Mum 1944, so nether of them really remember rationing although they sort of lived through the time and the end of rationing.

I don't remember a name for it, apart from bread and milk, I liked it at the time but can't say I fancy it now to be honest.

Will deffinately read the rest of this thread :T but its time for tea now.

thriftlady_2

Great post Kittie, you've made me feel guilty about all the apples we've got from the other side of the world I know they wouldn't have been available in June during the war, but tbh if there weren't any in the house the kids would riot. I must have odd kids -they haven't noticed anything different about our food this week except that they got sweets ! but if I stopped the apple supply I'd soon know about it -ds2 would be phoning childline :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

I just remembered some food that we LOVED. Bacon bits, fried to crispy swimming in lots of bacon fat. Let go cold and spread on bread. It was just lovely. LOL the health police would be out today but us children were slim and so healthy. We burnt it off because we played out all the hours we could

Gingham_Ribbon

thriftlady wrote: »

they haven't noticed anything different about our food this week except that they got sweets ! but if I stopped the apple supply I'd soon know about it -ds2 would be phoning childline :rotfl:

I've got one like that. He had a huff the other day because he saw me eating one of 'his' apples. LOL

sairy2005

The house we lived in had no electricity only gas and that only downstairs. We had no running water just a tap in the back garden for 3 cottages and a loo down the garden (not flush - a bucket). The outhouse was used to wash the clothes in a huge copper and this was also used to heat up the bath water. This was in the quite posh part of Cambridgeshire and not all that long ago really. My grandparents had lived there for 50 years and had 4 children - 2 of which died quite young. (2 and 1) Life must have been very hard.
When we moved to a house with a flushing loo I was frightened of it and my Dad had to go upstairs and flush it for me.