Daily Expenses in Medieval Life

    While the cost of living table is okay for campaigns that assume everything to be included in your daily life in a TL1-4 world, I generally like to overcomplicate things. Here are a few ways you could separate out that cost of living, per some research I've done for other GURPS-related projects. 

    First up, is the economy. Assuming you are a lowly farmer peasant, your daily work equals one wheat grain bushel. One bushel was eight gallons or about sixty-four pounds. Looking at my research and cost comparisons to GURPS, that would put a day's work at $7.50 GURPS dollars, or two and a half pence. Speaking of pence, I figured that one pence is about three GURPS dollars. (GURPS dollars will be abbreviated as G$ herein)

    Now that the daily wage has been assumed, you can figure out a few other things. One example is merchant taxes. Goods will be taxed on the road, and then there will be import and export fees, fees to take things off the market before three days have elapsed, etc. I have written down a lot of this, but it is not quite backed up with enough historical evidence yet.

    Once we've found all that, there are a few more things to assume about your daily life. A new clothing set would run you G$102, though you'll rarely be replacing the entire set. I'd assume that to replace one or two pieces, it would run you at a max of G$40. Repairing clothes to pristine condition is rather rare, but it would fall under Housekeeping and would be rather cheap. Monthly rent for a cottage runs you about G$15, though a larger home in the city has about G$45+ rent per month. The highest source I saw said G$120 per month, though I am still not sure of its accuracy.

    Besides all that is mentioned here, there is also plenty more useful information in GURPS Low-Tech, the Low-Tech Companion series, Pyramid 3, Issue 33: Low-Tech I, and a few others scattered through out GURPS' large source book sea. A few other places to look could be GURPS Classic: Imperial Rome (as most items here are priced in Pence) and real-world sources listed in Pence, as you can easily just multiply the cost by three. "...and a ten foot pole" is also a great book to source prices, including those from higher tech worlds.