Household expense ledger of Elizabeth Motley Austen : Wilmington, near Dartford, Kent, 1772-1781.

The ledger is titled "HOUSE EXPENCE BOOK EMA 1772" and lists mainly bills paid for food and drink, including luxuries such as tea, coffee, chocolate, grapes and "wallnutts," but also household requirements such as different sorts of candles. The first page lists, with prices, the butchers, bakers, cheesemongers, oil shop, paying someone for "washing" (while at her father's house), grocers, and a pig; later pages redolent of meat, poultry, cheese, beer, porter, wine, sweets (a confectioner's bill), curry powder, anchovies, asparagus, soy [?], a "firkin of Salt Butter," "2 Bottles of Mushrooms." "Household expences" also include a winter spent in London (listing all household expenses there in 1772), annual wages paid to servants (both for work at Wilmington and in London -- the servants are named), house cleaning, a "dishclout," and much else. In 1772 (from June to December) Elizabeth Motley Austen paid out £24.16.6 at home (Wilmington) and £72.10.2 in London. She always expended at least £300 per annum and in 1781, the last year of the record, she spent at total of £428.9.2.