30

LIVING EXPENDITURES

The average cash expenditure for living amounted to $699 per farm in the
area. It was higher in the western portion of the area, being $862 per farm in
the Smithers-Francois Lake districts as compared with, $592 per farm in the
Prince George-Vanderhoof districts. Living expenditures were fairly closely
related to income and the higher figure may have been due in a considerable
degree to the fact that those records were enumerated a year later and farmers
had earned more money in 1944-45 than in 1943-44 from all sources, both on
and off the farm.

The living expenditures in this area tended to be higher than in some other
pioneer areas. In an Alberta pioneer study! carried out for 1942-43, they
averaged $615 per farm; in representative pioneer areas in Saskatchewan? 1941-42,
they averaged $422 per farm. Some of the increase was undoubtedly due to
price increases in the items purchased, but better economic conditions probably
accounted mostly for the added expenditure; since the price index of farm pro-
ducts increased 31-7 points between 1941 and 1944 and net farm income in
Canada increased more than 50 per cent between 1941 and 1943.

The most important item in living expenditures was the amount paid out
for food, that is, groceries, fruit and meat purchased. This item amounted to
approximately one-half of the average expenditure. As the size of the family
increased the total living expenditure per adult month decreased from $34 for a
bachelor’s household (0-12 adult months) to $14 for a household with over 48
adult months, that is, a man, wife and more than four children (Table 19).
This reduction occured in spite of the fact that total living expenditure was, as
would be expected, directly related to size of family. The largest families spent
$890 per family; the smallest spent $394. Moreover, the ratio of cash expenditure
on food per person tended to be maintained at approximately one-half of the total
expenditure on cash living per person regardless of the total amount spent.

TABLE 19.—CASH FAMILY LIVING EXPENDITURES PER FARM ACCORDING TO SIZE
OF FAMILY, PRINCE GEORGE-SMITHERS ARPA, 1943-45

Adult Months* umber Ao - ifn for fond
Farms living we cue at adult
EB $ $ $
46 394 34 18
40 625 23 Il
68 749 23 11
55 832 19 9
54 | 890 14 7
263 699 19 it

Tt was apparent from Table 20 that living expenditures were directly related
to the size of the farm business. Operators of farms on which total production
(farm returns) was less than $1,000 spent $574 on cash living; those whose total
production was $1,000-$1,999 spent $746. The former group would be illus-
trative of the difficult position of a newly established settler with a small amount

1 Kristjanson and Spence, op. cit.

2 Stutt, R. A. and H. Van Vliet, op. cit.

’ Persons over 15 years of age in the home for one month are considered one adult month, those
15 years or under are -5 adult months.