What it used to cost

Provides prices for groceries, houses and wages for Victoria, spanning the 19th to the 20th century.

Further resources

  • Australia in facts and figures. Provides national consumption statistics on different types of food and beverages and expenditure figures (look under ‘food and nutrition', p.105) 
  • Labour report. Issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, these reports include itemised costings for food, groceries, wages and rent. They span 1922-1973.

And for the rest of the world

How much is that? provides tools to help convert past values into current values (and vice versa) from America and the United Kingdom.

From our Pictures Collection

Former Art Library in the Domed Reading Room annulus, State Library of Victoria PCLTA 1451