At the same time as the ordinary rationing, Britain and America had a kind of parallel rationing system. This involved a points system, whereby a certain number of points were given each month, to be spent on various extras such as tinned salmon or rice. The British were allocated either 24 or 16 points per month but I have not found any references to a similar system in Australia. As the most commonly accepted points allocation for this challenge is 16, that is what we will be using.

An item’s points value varied considerably depending on availability and popularity and bore no relation to the monetary value. Below is a list of the British points values I was able to discover.

Points Per Pound Or Per Tin

• Rice – 8
• Sardines – 2
• Sultanas – 8
• Skimmed Milk – 5
• Currants – 16
• Baked Beans – 2
• Dry Biscuits – 2
• Sweet Biscuits – 4
• Herrings – 2
• Stewed Steak – 20
• Rolled Oats – 2
• Salmon – 16
• Sausage Meat – 12
• Best Red Salmon – 32
• Chopped Ham – 3 (per oz)
• Spam – 16
• Edited to add Split Peas -2 (according to this website)

For prices not listed above, I will be using this American list:

If the item I want to buy is not on either list, I’m just going to have to assign my own points value, based on similar items.

Related articles

• The Rations – Food
• Supersizers and World War Two
• Getting Kids to Be Happy With Less
• Coupons and Rationing During WWII
• WW2 Month of Rations – The ‘Rules’.
• Wartime Rations

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Tags: Austerity, australia, Baked beans, Britain, Britain and America, food, Points, points system, Rationing, Salmon, Spam, United States, Wartime, wartime rations, World War Two, ww2, WWII