40 pounds

[homerbart]

Anybody tell me what the value of �40 in 1968 would be today. No inflation rates please just a rough guess. Thank you

[DSJ]

I'll guess �500.

[homerbart]

Hi DS - thanks for that guess but I would really like a good answer. The reason I would like to know is then I worked in the Civil Service and I went in for exams and passed 3 altogether resulting backdated money in my pay which resulted in me getting �86 of which I gave my mother �40 who was ecstatic so I just wondered what the value would have been today. Any other answers welcome.

[fredpuli47]

Well, back then I was a student in London. A bedsit in Bloomsbury (central, fairly posh) was �3 a week plus the gas meter to pay for: it took shillings (5p). If you fancied luxury, dinner at The Savoy Hotel, with dancing to a full dance band, and a cabaret (chorus girls, singers, variety acts , named headline act) was �4 excluding wine ! A seat 'up in the gods' at the Royal Opera House was 8/6 ( 42 and a half pence ). So �40 was 'a fortune'.

[jon1968]

It depends on what you�re comparing it to.
This only goes up to 2006 but should give you a rough idea.

[homerbart]

thanks jon 1968 for your answer and to you DS - you werent far wrong �40 was roughly �500. I gave it to my mum and she deserved every penny as she was so poor. But I always had guilty feelings over keeping �46.00. I think then I was earning about 5-6 pounds per week too.

Thanks everybody. Have a few quid now and would have loved my mum to be living and enjoying money - she loved to get money rather than clothes, jewellery - she used to say when she had a few pounds in her bag she was happy.