Money is a slippery thing. The same numbers meant something wildly different within a single lifetime. Enter your monthly take-home pay below and see what it would have bought in Britain in 1937 — then compare that with today.
It's a vivid way to feel inflation — not as an abstract percentage, but in houses, cars and loaves of bread — and a small window onto how much the ground beneath our assumptions can shift without us noticing.
Enter an amount to see what it would buy.
Average UK house
Average UK house
1937: £540Today: £270,000
—in 1937
—today
New Ford family car
New Ford family car
1937: £100Today: £27,000
—in 1937
—today
New television
New television
1937: £57 15s (£57.75)Today: £400
—in 1937
—today
Loaf of bread
Loaf of bread
1937: 8¾d (about 4p)Today: £1.36
—in 1937
—today
Train, Exmouth to Bournemouth
Train, Exmouth to Bournemouth
1937: 5/6 (27½p)Today: £54.75
—in 1937
—today
The same money, two different truths
Why do the numbers diverge so wildly? Some things we learned to
make cheaper. Some things we can't.
New television
7×
the price since 1937
We got so good at making these that the price barely moved. As
manufacturing improves, living standards rise — but it masks the
quiet erosion of our money's value.
Average UK house
500×
the price since 1937
You can't mass-produce land. So housing is the truest mirror we
have of the pound's real loss of value.
Measured in televisions, an annual salary of £150 from 1937 is worth about £1,000 today; in houses,
about £75,000. Official inflation splits the
difference near £14,000 — but that average
hides the real story: money has been quietly eroded, clearest in the
price of a home, even as technology raised our standard of living.
So what actually drives house prices?
Here's the whole story on one chart. Since 1937 the average UK house has risen about 510× in price, and the money supply about 880× — the two climb together. Official inflation (RPI, the price of everyday goods) has risen only about 95×, and the population barely 1.5×. The price of houses has inflated as the money supply has been inflated.
Average house price
Broad money (money supply)
Official inflation (RPI)
Population
Indexed to 1937 = 1×. UK, nominal (not inflation-adjusted). Sources: Bank of England (broad money), Nationwide & ONS (house prices), ONS (RPI & population). Download the data (CSV).
And there's a mechanism behind it. In the modern economy, most money is created by commercial banks the moment they make a loan — and mortgages are the largest channel of all. So lending to buy a house creates new money and bids up house prices at the same time, even as population and household numbers barely shift. The two lines aren't a coincidence; they're two views of the same thing.
Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.
— Bank of England, Money creation in the modern economy (2014)
Now run inflation forwards
The same force keeps working on the money you keep. Enter roughly what you
have in savings, then compare two ways of measuring inflation: the official
Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the growth of the money supply — what some argue is
the truer picture. Both show your savings' worth in today's money if the cash
simply sits there — the same pounds, buying steadily less.
Enter your savings to see how much they'll still buy in years to come.
Official inflation (CPI)
2.8% a year
The Bank of England targets 2%; CPI has averaged about 2.8% a year since 1988.
Now—worth of goods
In 30 years—worth of goods
In 60 years—worth of goods
In 90 years—worth of goods
Money-supply growth the “real” rate
9.8% a year
UK broad money grew about 9.8% a year on average across 1961–2017.
Now—worth of goods
In 30 years—worth of goods
In 60 years—worth of goods
In 90 years—worth of goods
Every figure is buying power in today's prices — what the money could still
purchase, not how many pounds sit in the account.
The value of your money is melting away like an ice cube in the sun.
The number of pounds never changes — what they can buy quietly disappears.
Found this eye-opening? Pass it on — it's a quick way to get others thinking about where their money really goes.
Where these figures come from
Prices are representative, not exhaustive — a snapshot for illustration.
Pre-decimal money converts as £1 = 20 shillings = 240 pence.
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