The 1950's and now -- a simple comparison

[Ray Newman]

When I was a boy in the 1950's, my mom would sent me down to the A&P store with a buck, and I'd come back with five pounds o' potatoes, two loaves of bread, three pints of milk, a pound of cheese, a packet of tea, and half
a dozen eggs.


Can't do that now...too many security cameras."

[awp101]

[bdhold]

[J Miller]

When I was a boy in the 1950's, my mom would sent me down to the A&P store with a buck, and I'd come back with five pounds o' potatoes, two loaves of bread, three pints of milk, a pound of cheese, a packet of tea, and half
a dozen eggs.


Can't do that now...too many security cameras."

On the serious side when I was a boy my mom would send me to the store with a $5.00 bill and a list. When I got home with the items on the list, she demand the change. And I'd best be handing it to her pronto.

Joe

[tman]

the cost of living verses wages has fallen of dramatically since the middle 1980's. the $ you worked for then, bought a lot more than it does now

[Tycer]

A silver dollar buys about the same amount of bread today as it did in 1964. They sell for $15-$19 today.

I hope y'all are stocking up on .999 Silver as yer finances permit.

[Topside]

I remember the day my Mom came in from the driveway with a couple of bags of groceries in her hands and said, "there'll be no more lamb chops for this family, they're almost 50 cents a piece. I'd guess that was about 1958. I can't afford'em now either!.

I used to get a kick out of reruns of the old Dobie Gillis tv program. Dobie's Dad was a grocer. When they'd show his Dad at work, signs on the wall in the grocery store showed prices like hamburger 15 cents a pound. Memories, just memories. GOOD ONES!

BB's were a nickel. Remington 22LR's 75 cents, shorts were 55 cents and 22 longs were somewhere in the middle. Do they even make longs anymore?



T.

[Bogie35]

Even the 70's and 80's were excellent compared to today. Today, things cost at least twice as much as they did even in the late 80's. However, today's salaries are not even close to twice what they were. It's definitely harder to make ends meet today.

But, enjoy what we have now 'cause it's only going to get tougher.

bogie

[oic0]

People just have a higher standard of living. They think their houses need to have tall steep roofs that look fancy from the outside. They also think they need a nice neighborhood where the house prices are high because everyone else wants in to the same small area. They have to have a car that cost half as much as their house, has a plush interior, a zillion government mandated safety features, and drinks gas. They think they need at least two of those every 5 years! They also think they need cell phone bills that run 100 a month and cable bills that run 100-200 a month. People bleed themselves dry with stuff the media tells them they need. Perfect little slave consumers.

[Ysabel Kid]

and a buck in your pocket!

Seriously though, in the late 60's/early 70's I got a quarter per week allowance. The only store I was allowed to walk to was the local A&P, as I only had to cross one street. It was about a half mile from our house - a bit farther taking the trail through the woods to avoid walking along the side of the road. Every Saturday morning my friends and I would march up to the A&P, buy a bottle of soda, a candy bar, and a piece of gum - for that .25 cents! I was 5 years old when I started doing this and we did it for a few years. Can you imagine letting your 5-year old wander to the store, alone with other kids the same age, now??? You can barely get the gum alone for a quarter now!

[bdhold]

Dyslexic, agnostic insomniacs.....
stay up all night, debating if there really is a Dog.

[awp101]

Seriously though, in the late 60's/early 70's I got a quarter per week allowance. The only store I was allowed to walk to was the local A&P, as I only had to cross one street.

Was that the 1870s or 1970s?

[Mokwaw]

Those were fine days. I got a fifty cent piece every week, providing I had kept my chores done up all week. Saturday matinee cost a dime, bag of popcorn a dime, cold drink was dime. This left me with enough to hit the bakery next door to the movie house for donuts 2 for a dime, and a good selection of hard candy or bubble gum. If I was going out to Grandpa's for the weekend it bought me 5 tubes of BB's or box of .22 shorts, depending on how much shooting I wanted to do, usually took the BB gun as Grandpa would pay me a penny for every sparrow I took out, and Grandma's cats appreciated the extra chow.

[KCSO]

Well lets see, as a kid we had...
No TV No inside plumbing, no running water unless you count running up hill with a bucket. We used a Sears catalog for paper and did our school work with pencils on a yellow tablet. We raised most of our food and the house was heated with wood we cut, split and stacked all summer to keep us warm all winter. If DEATH was imminent we might go to a doctor, or grandma would slap on a mustard plaster. I had, mumps, 3 kinds of measles, whooping cough, chicken pox and was the first in the family to get a polio shot. My mother was the last one in the family to have scarlet feaver. We went to town once a week for Church and the necessary groceries a 4 mile trip to a one room country store and everything else came from Sears or Monkey Wards. In schoo time we walked to school and the rest of the year we did farm work when we got old enough to lift a rake, no child labor laws then I drove a tractor as soon as we got one and fed horses before that. We had a shotgun and a 22 rifle for a family of four and we hunted only to eat, if you shot it it WAS on the menu.

The worst of all is that we were happy, we saved for the collection plate for POOR folks. Now I go home at night and watch the Outdoor channel and feel dissatisfied???

[stretch]

While I'm not as long in the tooth as some of the other
moss-backed curmudgeons on the board, I do remember
my father going on and on and on about the price of a
cup of coffee.

He and my mom would sometimes travel the 30 or 40 miles
from what was then RURAL Bucks County to Philadelphia for a day
away from us kids. He particularly liked to sup at a good eatery
during their outing, and his favorite was Bookbinder's; a
pretty swanky place. One evening they returned, and he was
nearly beside himself. They had charged him a dollar for a
cup of coffee! A whole G*********D AMERICAN DOLLAR for
ONE CUP of coffee!!! The nerve, the unmitigated GALL!
He ranted and raved for days and swore he'd never return to
such an establishment.

Times sure have changed! Gas station swill is more than that -
and let's not even talk about what comes out of the pumps!

-Stretch

[Old Time Hunter]

First time I filled MY own car, it only took around 19 gallons and it cost me exactly $3.00....still have the receipt. I worked at a gas station for $1.65 an hour and as a busboy at a BigBoy restaurant(filled in as a breakfast cook for the drunks after bar closing time on Saturday and Sunday mornings) for a $1.50 an hour, between the two jobs I brought home around $55.00 a week. My Dad only charged me $20 a week rent ('cause I was only 16 years old, when I turned 18 he charged me $150 a month plus $30 for food and utilities. Guess that was a hint to move on out, 'cause I rented an apartment with a roomate...older gal about 20, that only cost me $75 a month INCLUDING utilities) and I ate alot of McDonalds .15 cent cheeseburgers and .11 cent fries. Within seven to eight years I built my first house, all 2100 square feet of it on 15 acres for less than $43,000. That was about '77 or '78 and I had just lost my full time job as an design engineer at a well known machine tool manufacturer (they moved to a different state) and started driving truck off the Teamsters extra-board...made over $36,000 that year driv'n truck...go figure. Drove truck right up until Specter Freight closed in '82..last time I made decent money, around $40,000 that last year. Then I started relying on my college education, it has been almost all down hill since. Don't remember the '50's too much as I was just six or so, I do remember that ice cream cone at the Custard stand were two scoops for a dime.

[Sixgun]

Well lets see, as a kid we had...
No TV No inside plumbing, no running water unless you count running up hill with a bucket. We used a Sears catalog for paper and did our school work with pencils on a yellow tablet. We raised most of our food and the house was heated with wood we cut, split and stacked all summer to keep us warm all winter. If DEATH was imminent we might go to a doctor, or grandma would slap on a mustard plaster. I had, mumps, 3 kinds of measles, whooping cough, chicken pox and was the first in the family to get a polio shot. My mother was the last one in the family to have scarlet feaver. We went to town once a week for Church and the necessary groceries a 4 mile trip to a one room country store and everything else came from Sears or Monkey Wards. In schoo time we walked to school and the rest of the year we did farm work when we got old enough to lift a rake, no child labor laws then I drove a tractor as soon as we got one and fed horses before that. We had a shotgun and a 22 rifle for a family of four and we hunted only to eat, if you shot it it WAS on the menu.

The worst of all is that we were happy, we saved for the collection plate for POOR folks. Now I go home at night and watch the Outdoor channel and feel dissatisfied???

KCSO,
My Dad could have wrote what you said about word for word, right down to the Sears catalog and the .22. The only difference was that the family had a combination 12 ga/30-30 barrel---not over/under---you had to switch the barrels. My dad was born in '27 and lived in the mountains of western Pa. And your right, he said they were always happy

[Bogie35]

Well lets see, as a kid we had...
No TV No inside plumbing, no running water unless you count running up hill with a bucket. We used a Sears catalog for paper and did our school work with pencils on a yellow tablet. We raised most of our food and the house was heated with wood we cut, split and stacked all summer to keep us warm all winter. If DEATH was imminent we might go to a doctor, or grandma would slap on a mustard plaster. I had, mumps, 3 kinds of measles, whooping cough, chicken pox and was the first in the family to get a polio shot. My mother was the last one in the family to have scarlet feaver. We went to town once a week for Church and the necessary groceries a 4 mile trip to a one room country store and everything else came from Sears or Monkey Wards. In schoo time we walked to school and the rest of the year we did farm work when we got old enough to lift a rake, no child labor laws then I drove a tractor as soon as we got one and fed horses before that. We had a shotgun and a 22 rifle for a family of four and we hunted only to eat, if you shot it it WAS on the menu.

The worst of all is that we were happy, we saved for the collection plate for POOR folks. Now I go home at night and watch the Outdoor channel and feel dissatisfied???

I believe you hit the nail on the head my friend! I'm guilty as charged. We've gotten soft and gluttonous and pretty insatiable.

bogie

[Bogie35]

People just have a higher standard of living. They think their houses need to have tall steep roofs that look fancy from the outside. They also think they need a nice neighborhood where the house prices are high because everyone else wants in to the same small area. They have to have a car that cost half as much as their house, has a plush interior, a zillion government mandated safety features, and drinks gas. They think they need at least two of those every 5 years! They also think they need cell phone bills that run 100 a month and cable bills that run 100-200 a month. People bleed themselves dry with stuff the media tells them they need. Perfect little slave consumers.

You nailed it too. Good points.

bogie

[Bogie35]

Dyslexic, agnostic insomniacs.....
stay up all night, debating if there really is a Dog.