The Historic Value of Money

I was looking at the will of an ancestor recently and saw that he left his sister-in-law a sum of £5 (five UK pounds).

It is not a particularly old will as the gentleman in question died in December 1927, but it got me to thinking what that £5 would be worth now.

There are lots of ways of valuing the current worth of historical sums, but I found a couple of sites that make the job easy ....

If you are in the UK then The National Archives Currency Convertor site will give a comparison at 5 yearly intervals.

With the help of the site, I found that £5 in 1930 (the nearest 5 year rounding) would would have the spending worth of approximately £167 in today's money.

If you are in the US then I found The Inflation Calculator which does the same task.

I took US$5 and did the conversion from 1927 and found that the relative worth in today's money is approximately $55

It would seem that inflation has been a lot higher in the UK - or perhaps they used a different basis for comparison.

I feel sure that there are similar convertors online for other countries of the world.

Whilst looking at my problem over the £5 legacy I also came across the Measuring Worth site.

It is a somewhat complicated site that explains lots of ways in which monetary values can be compared, and it is surprising how the results can vary. It was much too difficult for me to take in but perhaps it will be more helpful to some.

Be sure to visit Looking 4 Kin Genealogy Links & Chat