Historical Good Values and Cost of Living

Values are given in an equivalent weight of silver unless otherwise specified. eg. "GOLD = 12:1" means 12 pounds of silver is worth 1 lb of gold. "PEPPER = 1:8" means 1 lb of silver is worth 8 lbs of pepper.

Index: Copper Silver Gold Labor (1d, laborer wage)

Note: if "labor" is selected, the units for everything will no longer be dimensionless ratios, but instead be in grams of the good per day of labor.

Methodology for CoL/SoL

I base cost of living on daily consumption of the CHEAPEST goods in the following categories:

• Fuel: 1.35 kg of Charcoal or Coal, or 2.2 kg of firewood, whichever is cheaper (fallback: 2.2 kg of any good)
• Fruit: 350g (fallback: vegetable, then grain, then any good)
• Vegetables: 350g (fallback: grain, then any good)
• Grain: 300g (fallback: any good)
• Dairy: 150g (fallback: grain, then any good)
• Meat (incl. Poultry): 105g (fallback: grain, then any good)
• Fish: 30g (fallback: meat, then grain, then any good)
• Nuts: 20g (fallback: meat, then grain, then any good)
• Alcohol: 15g (fallback: any good)
• Salt: 1g (fallback: any good)
• Fabric: 1.65g (proxy for clothing; fallback: any good)
• Eggs: 0.18/d (0.015 doz/d, fallback: meat, then any good)

By dividing the wage by this CoL figure, we can establish a rough estimate with which we can compare disposable income.

Food

For most goods I use a combination of dietary guidelines, or actual consumption data when available (eg. here). For salt I have taken the minimum of this dataset. Dietary guidelines: USDA, Japan (spinning top) (which I use 70g as an approximation for 'serving').

• Grain: USDA recommends 6 oz or 170g, Japan recommends about 420g(?)
• Dairy: 0g minimum, 1083g maximum (Denmark, milk, 2022), USDA recommends 3 cups, or 735g which seems ridiculously high. Japan recommends 140g(?).
• Vegetables: 15g minimum (Chad, 2022), 1116g maximum (China, 2022), USDA recommends 2.5 cups, or abt. 300g, Japan recommends 385g.
• Fruit: 14g minimum (Zambia, 2022), 1331g maximum (Dominica, 2022), USDA recommends 2 cups, abt. 350g, Japan recommends about the same.
• Meat (incl. Poultry): 10g minimum (Burundi, 2024), 404g maximum (Tonga, 2024), USDA recommends 105g
• Nuts: USDA recommends 20g
• Fish: 1g minimum (Afghanistan, 2022), 238g maximum (Iceland, 2022), USDA recommends 32g
• Alcohol: 0g minimum, 46g maximum (Russia, 2020)
• Salt: Consumption: 5g minimum (Samoa, 2024), 18g maximum (China, 2024), BUT EU DRV 2g/d total sodium and USDA recommends no more than 2.3g/d.
• Eggs: 0 dozen minimum, 0.120 dozen maximum (Hong Kong, 2024)

Fuel

For fuel usage I have used this very basic heuristic:

• The global average energy consumption per capita is 3,500 kWh/yr (12.6 GJ). (Source)
• Approximate fuel densities of Charcoal and Coal are around 30 MJ/kg. For Wood it is around 18.5 MJ/kg. (Source)
• Coal power plants operate at an efficiency of about 35%. (Source)
• Therefore, per person per year, 1,200 kg of coal is required, or about 3,285 g/d.
• However, in the modern era, only about 41% of this goes to uses relevant to all time periods (ie. heating and appliances). (Source)
• This results in an estimate of 1,347 g of coal per person per day.

Clothing

For fabric usage I have used this very basic heuristic:

• The average lifespan of a single article of clothing is 5 years. I'm mostly pulling this value out of my ass, but I find it reasonable.
• I assume someone will need the following articles of clothing: a shirt (150g), underwear (85g), pants (650g), coat (1200g), gloves (110g), shoes (775g), socks (40g)
• These will weigh about 3 kg total. (Source)
• This amounts to an average of about 1.65 g/d of fabric.

This may seem very small compared to the contemporary average, but it seems the Philippines gets along just fine with 2.6 articles of clothing per capita per annum, which is a comparable figure. (Source)

Clothing was a valuable possession for most of history, and people took good care of their clothes (and they usually only one set, unless they were wealthy).

Limitations

This does not account for regional differences in food consumption or cost. As an example, dairy is virtually absent from Chinese cuisine. Different regions and time periods may be more or less meat-centric than this baseline. Warmer climates do not require as much clothing as cooler climates, and thus will use less fabric. All of these, along with simple lack of data, can cause CoL values to appear higher than wages (an impossibility). Fuel costs for warmer climates will be far less, since you only need to account for cooking fuel and not heating fuel.

Alternative: Just Grain

Since there is always grain data available, I have also provided this metric, which is better for comparisons when there is a lack of other data.