To wonder how people in ww2 paid their rent and mortgages?

[heateallthebuns]

It's not really aibu, but chat isn't working for me this morning.

If a man was conscripted and was a soldier in the war. Did he get paid? Was it enough to cover rent / mortgage?

I guess single people just gave up their rented houses? What about families?

Yes they were paid . Most of the money was sent back to their wives/parents.
Women also went in to work during the war so earned their own wages to pay for living costs.

Most average soldiers did not have mortgages so it was rent.
Few men lived on their own they were either still at home when they joined, joined before the war so lived on base or had left home because they married.

I presume single people gave up their homes as you say, but yes soldiers were paid.
Conscripted ones too. Or at least, should've been - from my knowledge there was often difficulties being paid due to someone thinking you'd died or any other number of mistakes that could happen, and safety was a concern too.
I'm not sure how they were paid or how it got to their families at home though. My great grandad fought in WW2 and rarely spoke of it, but my mum did have some interesting discussions with him nonetheless

I can answer to one bit of what you've asked. A single person would have been very, very unlikely to have rented a house. When I was a child, in the 60s, a single person either lived with parents until they married or, in the rare case that they didn't would rent no more than a single room, often in a 'guest house' i.e. multiple occupation dwelling owned by often a widow, who might provide meals in a dining room, or, at best, a bedsit, a single room in a multiple occupancy dwelling with your own cooking facilities in your room and a shared bathroom. I think a single person renting a whole house was pretty much unheard of, TBH.

Don't forget, back then, your living expenses were a much, much larger proportion of whatever your wages were - people had cheap and rare holidays, spent very little on clothes or entertainment, didn't buy luxury goods, at the start of the war there weren't even TVs in houses, they didn't really start until 1953 when the present Queen had her coronation, and one person on a street might have had a TV and the whole street went and watched theirs, and the idea of having your own TV took off. So attitudes towards money were extremely different to what they are now, and your rent or mortgage (I'm not sure how common mortgages were or what form they took) was the first thing that came out of your wages (weekly in cash usually, in an envelope), leaving what was left for food and bills and often nothing after that. Of course if you were in the Army etc you were paid - I don't know how it worked, but my dad was in the army and my mum at home with one and then two children (conceived on leave) in a council flat. I was born ten years after the war - just as rationing finally stopped.

I had three older sisters, neither of the two oldest, both born during the war, left home until they married, one way into her mid to late twenties. The third one stayed with my dad after my mum and then I left - now early 70s. She sort of retained responsibility for him almost until he died - but that's a loooong story not for here. HTH.

They did get paid, although I think that if the husband worked in a job that provided a tied house, his family would probably be told to move out when he joined up. Source: a Rosamund Pilcher novel so might not be accurate, but it has the ring of truth to it

I also remember reading (in a real history book this time) that some country people were shocked by the conditions that evacuees has clearly lived in before being evacuated - one anecdote was about a little boy who weed on the carpet and was told off by his mother for not going in the corner of the room, as people with no toilet would sometimes use a sheet of newspaper in the corner. Not strictly what you asked, but it does show the standard of living conditions some people had. Certainly shows why tower blocks were built - there must have been such hope that these would be better than the tenements they were replacing...

My mother always said they were much better off during the war because my father's pay as an officer was much more than his salary before the war. Obviously he wasn't there and did not need feeding or clothing either. You couldn't spend much because of shortages and clothes were made at home and fabric recycled.
They were bombed out of my grandmother's house and rented a cottage, which they bought at the end of the war with his army gratuity.
We had television from 1949 though.

Full employment meant that people were better off. Remember they had been living through the hungry 30s after the 1929 crash. Work was obligatory except for women with small children. Nurseries were set up to ensure women could go out to work. Yes soldiers were paid. Home ownership and renting continued as before. Some large houses were commandeered for army use, often with the family living in part of it. If you had room you had to accept evacuees or have soldiers billeted on you if circumstances required.

Rationing meant that there wasn't much to spend money on and the war effort dominated all aspects of life. ID cards, ration cards and all kinds of rules meant that life was very regulated. It was total war, civilians were mobilised for the war effort.

Young middle class women, who before the war would have lived at home until marriage, often enjoyed the freedom of joining the services or going out to work.

People always paid their rent to the rent man who knocked on the door each week. In our case we often had to pretend we were out, all of us hiding round the back until he had gone. We lived with my Nan and she would larrup us if we made a sound.

spudlet, I've read that book about the little Glaswegian boy weeing on the floor - can you remember what it was called? I'd forgotten about it until I saw your comment!

I have been looking at family history and got my great grandfather's WWI (not WWII) war records last weekend. On the forms most of his children are listed - presumably those still living at home at the time - poor chap (and he was poor in every sense) served from 1914 to 1916 at aged 42 with 6 children at home. Lucky him was invalided out in 1916 (although he died of war wounds in 1917 just after his last little baby was born). It looks like they made a record of who was at home so the next of kin were recorded and yes wages were paid.

In WWII my grandfather was too old to serve, very old by then, my father was a teenager so escaped it but women did get to work - they loved it - free of husbands, sometimes they had lovers, free nurseries, allowed to work in factories - it was massive freedom including financial freedom for many.

Most of my family always rented and looking at the census records from the 1800s to 1911 it looks like most adult children stayed at home unless living in at work when in service or else until they married around 22 - 28. I see quite a few family members with the older sons at home (almost all on one side were miners one starting at age 14) until they married, occasionally one at home with the mother forever as they never married.

People much like is often the case now could not afford to live separately as single people.

Most people stayed with parents until marriage. Marriage was more stable and there were far, far fewer single parents so less childcare expenses etc. Lots of tied cottages.
Lower expectations around owning 'things', less hedonism and plastic money debt.
Cheaper food, less food, growing your own food, eating out less.
Greater polarisation of wealth ( although that's returning).
Cheaper housing and greater availability.
Few entertainment costs. Simpler 'big' events like weddings resulting in lower debt.
Money sent back to wives. Widows pensions.
Tick at the local shops until payday.
Hungry mothers.

A bit off topic but yesterday I had the privilege of holding a bravery medal ( the MM) and the letter from the king it came with from WW1. It gave me goosebumps.

My Mum was born during the War, her Mum and Dad lived with her maternal grandparents in their house, both worked in factories in Birmingham for the war effort, Mum's Dad wasn't conscripted due to being partially blind.
With my Dads family, they owned a guest house, where the Mum (My Nan) continued to run it filled with people who evacuated to Wales while her husband was away fighting.
Army pay was sent home I was told, so the wives could support the family on that and any work they could find.

Yes, people were paid for their war efforts (except the part time positions like fireman, fire watch and home guard - but these people had other jobs - mostly in reserved occupations) Most single people who needed to live away from family would have rented a room (or a bed) from a landlady. My Gran used to 'hot bed' with a man who worked the night shift because of a shortage of accommodation near the armament factory where she worked. The landlady just used to swop the sheets over morning and night!

a little boy who weed on the carpet and was told off by his mother for not going in the corner of the room, as people with no toilet would sometimes use a sheet of newspaper in the corner
I do believe you read that somewhere, but tbh it sounds unlikely. Many had outside toilets at that time, so I'd think that if somehow a family had no toilet at all, would have 'gone' somewhere outside (or at worst in a bucket, in another room).

Also, carpets weren't something poor people had in every room, even a rug would be something not everyone could afford...so again, seems more that they were behaving oddly by having kids wee in the corner, rather than that being poor drove them to that as the only choice?

I've always wondered how anything was paid before bank transfers and direct debits existed. My granny still pays her mortgage over the counter in the bank every month

My Mum talked a lot about life back then (thirties/forties). In her parents social circle no-one even dreamed of buying a property - everyone rented. Often a family would rent rooms in a house - perhaps even the whole floor while another family rented the other floor (so one family upstairs, another on the ground floor).

And when I use the term "social circle" that just means the people in their street or in the local pub (at least one in every street) cos that's where all the Socialising happened.
They did used to go to the Pictures at least once a week tho so that must have been relatively cheap.
Everyone smoked too - so that must have been cheap as well.

Everything was paid in cash. Rent man etc would call to collect. Wages paid in cash.

There was almost full employment then. People were paid and then taxed, so the government got some of the payment back.

Women were also employed in huge swathes, and children were sent to the countryside.

Rationing meant less money was spent.

The problems started after the war though. Women had to be domesticated again to make way for those soldiers returning. With the advent of television and adverts, this proved to be easy.

Not many single person households until 1970s, really.

Remember Men behaving badly? It wasn't weird they were sharing a bedroom in 1990 or whenever it started. I sure would be now.

Until modern times, Housing was a lot more crowded.
Kids shared beds, with opposite sex until puberty often. 3 kids in one bed - completely ordinary.
You paid for the doctor so you didn't go unless you were wealthy (or the dentist).
Young married couples often stayed with their parents until they started having babies (& maybe after that, too).
The weekly food shop was a much bigger % of total income.
Terry O'Leary (former head of Tesco) talks about that, a lot.
You only had 6 or 7 outfits to wear in total. 1 or 2 pairs of shoes.
1 week of paid holiday was a delightful novelty in the 1950s.

Houses being bombed.

I just can't imagine all the 'sorting out' after such a situation. Obviously an awful situation but then the practicalities of finding a new place to live, rent payments - and did insurance even cover war damage?

Antoniacaenis If you think that being a fireman during WW2 was a part time job then you're mistaken.
My Dad joined what was then the Auxiliary Fire Service at the outbreak of war, was in Plymouth while it was comprehensively flattened at the start of the Blitz, and was then sent back to the Midlands just in time for Coventry and the huge raids on Birmingham... He reckoned that he didn't get a night's sleep for well over a year.
After the war, he stayed in the Brigade until he retired. Some of the stories that I've been told (not by him) are hair-raising... Believe me, it wasn't part-time..!

My in laws were married in 1938 and had a baby soon after.
As most people did, they lived with their parents before marriage and after. FIL went off to war in 1939 and MIL lived with her in laws until he returned six years later.
There was no rent to pay during the war and after he returned they continued to live with in laws for another few years until they bought a house.

If you were i the merchant navy and were torpedoed and lost your ship, you didn't get paid until you were crewing on a new ship!

I don't think the actual mechanism for paying soldiers had essentially changed when I joined up in the late 80's. When you were sent away you filled out a form saying how much was to be paid to your wife (only married people then!) or as a single person how much was to go into your bank. I assume that in the last war this would of been done through the Post Office.

The remaining money that you was effectively you 'beer money' would be handed to you weekly in a typically army fashion.....

You had to queue up in front of a desk which had (from memory) a higher ranked officer, the adjutant and a member of the army pay corp.

You would then march to the desk, which may well be in the middle of a field, come to attention, salute. The money was then counted out. You signed. Saluted and marched away.