Poland – Family Diaries – House finances – “House Expenditure Book January 1910”
Welcome to the website Narodowa.pl,
I would like to share a family financial curiosity – here is how our ancestors could have kept a book of household expenses in the early 20th century – selected page – January 1910:
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-Details of money account from January 1st – Rubles / Kopecks:
1910
– For cracking the coachman’s whips -1
– Payment of rent from 5 December to 2 January -21/53
– Cecilia’s salary … -11
– (?) … -1
– Spirits… -3/20
– Butter… -3/30
– Taxes… -217/91
– 2 Horse-drawn rugs -5
– (?) … /90
– To the shoemaker for lining shoes… -8/30
– Iron… -1/80
– Digestible (?) … 20 .. for dressing 2 skins… -1/10
– For a pood of wheat flour… -3
– For twine 30 … with bread… – /69
– To the chimney sweep… -2/50
– For butter… -2/37..
– For postal envelopes… -5/75
– Subscription to the magazines Tygodnik (Illustrated (?)… and Bluszcz… -4/20
– Percent 80 … -122
– Cylinders and Wicks… – /66
– Michalce… -18
– For coal… -4
– For cold cuts… -2/16
– Lids 24-spoons, apples 14 scoops 25 – /63
Total 1 page -442/80
The second page for January also includes further items – Cloth, Hat, Food, Firefighters, Wojciechowa, For ham, Bread and rolls, To the son, Zośka, Piotr, Percentage, For Sława’s subscription, For fustian, 12ft of veal, Miczalka (?) took a bag, To the musician, To the steward, To the packer (Lesser(?)… for shopping, For butter, Piotr did some shopping in Łódź, For flowers from Uncle, To Piotr’s salary, To the steward, Bread and rolls, Coal, Cotton wool, Liver, Pork, For 1 and 1/2 butter, To the steward, For 7 goats of coal, For 3 pots of porridge, Andrzej Piotrowski took salary, Wire for repairing chains, Lemons, Payment of rent from January 2nd to January 30th.
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And so on throughout all the months of 1910 and 1911 and earlier from 1905.
If Narodowa.pl allows, they could include all the pages, but there are dozens of them, and that can be quite tiring. But even this one page should give us a taste of the lives and finances of Polish families in the early 20th century.
Kind regards,
Jerzy Mioduszewski in Warsaw-Włochach, entry on the website Narodowa.pl 1 January 1999
