My Day in the Great Depression By: Angela Levesque

The Basics I made $750 per year I was a market owner I had a husband and a daughter

Basics continued Rent for our house was $12 per month The phone cost $3 per month, so we stopped that service Electricity was $1 per month, so we kept that Having the doctor come to the house was $3

Can I support my family? I can’t see how it would be possible for me to support my family on my income I don’t even have enough money for food My daughter goes and picks fruit off trees and off of the street She also shines people’s shoes for a little extra money

Family support continued My husband is unemployed My husband and I fight so much that it is hard to live together Divorce is too expensive with all of the legal fees, so we will probably just stay together ief1.htmhttp:// ief1.htm

Food I had $14.40 as a budget for the week I had enough money to buy plenty of bread and potatoes The government gave out some Cheese, but the lines were very long

Food continued There was very rarely meat My husband would sometimes hunt for meat Pasta was cheap too, so we ate that a lot We did eat carrots because they were one of the cheaper vegetables I don’t know if I could live like this everyday

Shopping Shopping around the town in the classroom was not very fun because I did not have enough money to buy anything that I didn’t absolutely need No extras! I felt very poor and kind of pathetic having to wait long lines for the government to feed my family

Clothes There was literally no money for clothes We just had to do with what we had before the Depression A sweater cost $1, so it was either a sweater or the electricity bill for the month

Toys I felt bad that I couldn’t buy my daughter toys 1 doll cost $2, so that was tough to come up with She had a few left from before to play with _19268_ ,00.htmlhttp:// _19268_ ,00.html

Neighbors My neighbors are all angry and mean Everybody is stressed about money and food Nobody gets anything besides the necessities anymore A lot of the neighbors are becoming unemployed because their bosses can not afford to pay them anymore e/GreatDepression.htmlhttp://ingrimayne.com/econ/EconomicCatastroph e/GreatDepression.html

Neighbors continued I feel lucky because I feel that my family is a little better off than most of the neighbors At least I have a job at the moment Some of the neighbors are both unemployed (25% of the population was unemployed), I don’t know how they are even living I feel bad because I don’t have any money to spare to help them out

Transportation I could not afford any type of transportation The average car costs $300 –That is almost half of my income! –Gas for a car was 5 cents per gallon -I train hop and walk most places –Sometimes I am lucky enough to find somebody to drive me

Transportation continued Cabs cost 20 cents per mile Bicycles cost $50 The train cost about 51 cents for a 30 minute ride, so it was much cheaper just to jump in and ride for free