Life is getting more simple here in 1943. Today we will take a look at our budget and it sure does look different than that future year of 2022.
Remember we are living a year like 1943.
The war has gotten very serious (ww2) and the only way to not sit and worry is to do all we can to help. I have been saving our cooking grease like they asked us to do and I am starting to plant seeds in newspaper cups to be ready for our spring victory garden. Charles picked up some seed potatoes down at the Jitney Jungle there sure is a ruckus about these seed potatoes this year, I am glad that we could get them. They were .59c for a peck. There was an article about planting released from Auburn.
Every home garden should include enough Irish potatoes to adequately feed the farm family in 1943 says W.A. Ruffin, Extension horticulturist. Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Mr. Ruffin offers these suggestions for planting Irish potatoes;
The soil should be of a sandy loam type if possible and be well fertilized. A 4-10-7 fertilizer should be used at the rate of two pounds for each pound of potatoes planted. Do not use stable manure for fertilizer as it causes the potato scab. It is important that certified seed be used for planting purposes and the seed pieces should weight approximately one ounce.
Plant potatoes in 3-foot rows 15 to 18 inches in the drill at the rate of three bushels per 1-4 acre. Plant in February or early March.
Yesterday I posted our 1943 Income and the breakdown of deductions.
$41.25 Gross weekly pay
-$4.54 Federal Income tax withheld
-$2.63 Victory Tax
-.41 cents Social security
$33.67 Take home pay per week after deductions
We will have to figure out after this month if we can afford a war bond.
And now our expenses.
We had to do a lot of looking to find what were normal expenses in 1943 and also how much did things cost such as electric, telephone, newspaper, fuel/gas and everything else? Here is what we found and we are using actual utility bills 1943 that we have in our possession.
For 1943, our weekly income is $33.67
Electric bill, average per month will fluctuate depending on the month and location but based on the actual bills that we have an average bill is below.
We are using the figures of a $3.18 cents actual bill that we have. Our electric bill will change as we go through the study. Charles has figured out the KWH which I will give more details about all of this later. This is going to be where our problem is for this study is going to get difficult. For this study we are basing our figures on what it cost per kwh in 1943 in the southern states and that cost was .3 cents per kilowatt hours. We have another bill that is .5 cents per kwh in the northeast part of the country. Now we have to get our Kilowatt hours down, A LOT! If you are doing this study and you want to drop your electric bill then you can figure the current (2022) cost of kilowatt hours and start reducing your usage because we all can do this. Our real Kwh here (2022) is .09 per hour at this time, that is basically .9 cents every kwh. In 1943 they did not have all the extra charges on the electric bill that we have now so we do not put those in our 1943 bill.
People have a lot more electrical items today that draw electricity and they were not needed in the past and are not actually needed today unless it is for a medical reason or work. We have a lot of trickle waste so turn off those power strips, stop using that blow dryer that uses a lot of power. Dry our hair like they did in the past such as rolling or pinning our hair or sitting in the sunshine or just letting it dry natural. Turn lights off when you are not in that room. Turn everything off and then turn it on one item at a time until we figure out what is necessary. Give yourself a study allowance if necessary, I might have to do this for the use of my computers. We all might have to do this. But we will learn so much from this study we will know what real basic means.
We are deciding on a telephone which would cost us $2.76 a month. This is another thing we will have to adjust and just use the $2.76 from the past because that is all we can do.
Our 1933 household gas bill that we have is $3.14
Newspaper .25 cents per week for daily and Sunday paper and we need the paper due to rationing information and war news.
Gasoline .21cents gallon
Postage stamp .3 cents
We will be posting our grocery bill weekly and we use the real prices in 1943.
I wonder what we are going to find out? Can we actually live like 1943? Will we be over budget or be able to save money? This will be as real as we can make it.
Health and life insurance is a difficult one. What we have found in research that there was health insurance in 1943 but most people did not want it. However during ww2, 1943 in particular was when health insurance was moving toward employer-sponsored health insurance.
Looks like we need a medical fund for trips to the doctor and hospitalizations.
Since I cannot find how much life insurance cost in 1943 the best I could do is find out what a funeral cost in 1943. In 1943 a funeral would have cost approximately $700.00. That would have included the casket, vault, opening and closing, and an obituary, the funeral would most likely have been held at a church but not all funerals, some were graveside. If any of you have any knowledge of 1943 life insurance cost or car insurance cost please let me know.
Since Charles and I have already paid for each of our plots, vault, headstone, opening and closing (In the real 2022) we are halfway there so we will continue on this line in 1943.
Car insurance was not mandatory at this time in Alabama but it was sold. From what little I could find the state of Massachusetts was the first state to make car insurance mandatory and that was in the year 1927.
There will be more expenses as we move through the weeks and months but we have to start somewhere and this is where we are today.
Today is February 1st and anything we purchase will go into the record book. I am a bit nervous to use much electric because now that Charles knows how much each Kilowatt costs that will affect that bill. You can do this too, and remember that each kilowatt that you use will cost you .3 cents per kilowatt (1943). The size of the house, location will affect usage, we just do the best we can. We will adjust as we research.
You cannot get the cost of kwh until you get your electric bill or use your last bill and then it is going to show you how many kwh hours you used. Then out to the side of that it will show you the charge of those KWHs.
Let me know how you are doing with your 1943 expenses and remember food rationing is going to be in for a serious change next month.
More to come and the diary reading next (I hope). My videos are on hold for now because there is much to do with research. I hope that you can follow and absorb all of this. Grandma Donna
