I was reading a letter my grandmother wrote me in the late 60's. She was complaining because a carton of cigarettes was $3!!!!

I remember going to the Saturday afternoon movies for 12 cents or so in the 1950s. A candy bar was 5 cents. When the first hamburger fast food place showed up in our Midwest town at the end of the decade, a hamburger was 20 cents and the french fries were 10 cents. A stamp was 3 cents. A Family Circle was 5 cents. Gum ball machines were 1 cent. I could take my 10 cent allowance down to the Ben Franklin dime store and get a choice of several toys--balls, jacks sets, jump rope, wax lips and soda bottles, etc and all sorts of candies at the candy counter.

When we were married and living in Maryland in the mid '60s, I remember falling in love with a cute little one story 3 bedroom house on a wooded lot for $25,000. They had a really nice two story 4 bedroom house in the same development for $30,000. Nowadays, one would do well to find a car at that price. We bought a new Oldsmobile Cutlass in the mid 60s for $3,000.

I used to work in a grocery store in the 1960s and can remember that Miracle Whip was 29â and Jello Gelatin was 9â. Why so many products ended in 9 is beyond me.

In the 1950s we used to go to the local store on Saturday at their closing time and pay 5 cents for all loaves of bread that were on the shelf. The store was closed on Sundays. We ate lots of Wonder-bread in those days.

Jim

We used to turn in a few pop bottles and use the money for gas to scoop the loop. Yes, I remember when McDonald's came to Mason City, Iowa. It was a 30 mile trip so not only was it a special place, it was a special trip to go there. I remember those movie prices. And the Ben Franklin dime store. I worked in the grocery store all through the 60's, too.

But you know what I miss the most? Coming home through the neighborhood yards at supper time and smelling everyone's supper cooking. And the slam of the screen door. And playing hop scotch in the evening while my parents and neighbors sat in lawn chairs and visited. My grandchildren have never experienced any of that.

This ad from 1907 was from one of my great grandfather's relatives, I was never able to figure out the connection. This was in the Moweaqua, Illinois newspaper.

I remember my father complaining when gas went up to 25 cents a gallon....

My first piece of quality, solid gold(not plated) jewelry was a shell cut away, 2" necklace pendant, hand made.....99 cents! Gold was expensive even back then, but I was a young bargain shopper.

{{!gwi}}

I lived in a small country town,with just 2 little grocery stores.We could go there with a nickel or dime and order an ice cream sandwich,which was 2 crispy waffles,much like a slice of bread, size,and then they'd pull out the car ton of Hershey ice cream,and cut a slice of that,depending on how much you wanted ,and then put that between the 2 waffles.it was Sooooooooo good.

I have never ever seen that again,no matter where I lived,and I' m 76 now,so doubt I ever will..
Kathi

It's easy to reminisce about consumer prices of yesteryear but you'll have trouble finding anyone to get teary-eyed about salaries and household income levels back then. I think we're better off now.

You mean when one income supported a decent middle class family and the wife was actually able to stay home and take care of her family ahd children? Yeah, bet no one misses those days!

Oh right, you mean the good old days when women were welcome in the workforce so long as the job they wanted was as a school teacher, a nurse, or a secretary. And when sexual harassment and misconduct from superiors were widespread and never prosecuted. And for those limited few women who were able to be hired in jobs that were held mostly by males, they could look forward to getting paid half as much as their male colleagues. And when childcare wasn't very available.

Please remind me, why did so many stay home?

A large number of today's educated females want a career in addition to a family. THAT'S a tough job when the at-home parenting roles can't be shared. But increasingly, they are shared.

Better off now???? In California working 9-5 doesn't pay the bills anymore. The tract house I grew up in in the 60's cost $16,000. It's now $240, 000. BETTER OFF?????

When I met my husband he had a gas station/repair shop. When he passed away in 1971 gas was 36 cents a gallon

The table tops at a restaurant I used to frequent had papers from years gone by. Loved to see the ads and the prices. Makes me smile. Much like your very first post.

snidely, you're close. "were..." is still sometimes going on. Pay rate comes to mind.

I remember hearing a friend of my mother's say that if her husband could only get a raise to $10,000 a year they'd be on Easy Street. (1940's)

I have my mother's accounts book from the 1930's. She wrote "Splurged" next to the $1.69 she'd paid for a dress. Another wild fling was when she and my father went to a matinee at the movies AND had dinner 'out'. (How often did anyone eat 'out' as a kid?)

Some women want careers -- or just want to work outside the home. Many more women (and men) have boring and/or exhausting, low-paying jobs, but must work to make ends meet. You can't have the kind of neighborhoods we had as children unless somebody is *home* in those neighborhoods. It used to be 'Mom'. It could just as well be 'Dad' or 'Grandma'. Our 'higher standard of living' is a fiction when it robs people of the time to raise their children because they must chase a dollar.

I wanted to be a stay at home mom, so I worked and we lived frugally for many years to set aside funds. I wanted my kids to have what I had had as a child, a mother at home. When we married, the pill was something new for our generation, and that made a huge difference in letting us plan ahead.

Today, my adult kids have friends who could well afford to stay home to raise the baby, but most of them choose to work. They feel working is easier and more enjoyable. I can understand. Those years can be lonely and exhausting. But I was surprised that DDs friend who had hormone treatments and IVF for 5 years before having the long awaited baby also preferred to return to work as a lifestyle choice. I am sure many of these young moms also had had working mothers, so the idea was more acceptable to them.

I remember when Woman's Day Mag was 2 cents later Family Circle came out it was a nickel

There's no praise or prestige for being a SAHM. Strangely enough, there is some for a SAHD.

In my affluent community, children are 'acquired' (sometimes at great medical or adoption expense) then handed off to caregivers, who can't afford to feed their own kids without working. I was astounded the first time I took our DGS to play at a park here. I was the only Anglo adult. He and I were the only English speakers.

The real zinger is that these absent mothers don't have paying jobs. They have busy social, exercise, and beautification schedules. They are as much 'display pieces' as the kids. I really thought that era was *over*.

I've recently started to think of this as "Life at Court".

I have a different lifestyle and different values than my parents had, so too do each of my kids compared to me. Heck, I had older siblings whose growing up experiences were more in the 50s than mine was in the 60s and that led to discernible differences between us.

There's no sense in being inflexible and critical when looking at what people of a different generation do or don't do compared to your views. They're guaranteed to be different, and neither is right or wrong, better or worse. Just different.

My first annual wage in 1953 was $1,900. (would have been $900. more [$1,100.? ... memory ain't what it used to be] had I been married).

When discussing income with some folks/families while a financial consultant, I've asked some women how they'd like to work for, say, $2.00 or $3.00 per hour.

When they, surprisedly, retorted that they wouldn't consider working for that, I'd say, "Well ... add up the cost of better clothing ... more cosmetics, at least part of the cost of the second car, plus much of operating costs ... plus the cost of day care ... and eating out more often, or buying more prepared food, due to your being really tired on a Friday ...

... plus the income tax on your income ... and your being lost as a deduction of your husband's income, were he the sole breadwinner ...

... and see what's left ... then divide that by the number of hours per year that you work. Let alone the time commuting, which, apart from auto operation costs (including work-relaterd fines, parking ,etc.), isn't costly financially.

Many hadn't really done the figuring involved - don't know how many may have altrered their plans as a result.

I feel fairly secure in terms of my self-esteem, and don't consider myself hugely egotistical ... but I do want my spouse and myself to be the caretakers of my children in their early formative years, rather than some unknown babysitter.

There was some discussion of Sue abandoning her university career after three years of a four-year course, but I suggested that were we, due to my death or disability, to have need for her to be breadwinner after ten years of so, that three years toward a four-year degree would be about as good as nothing, so she'd better get her degree, and she did.

When daughter went to kindergarten, Sue signed up for her required year of interning (in hospital diet), then found a position as second head of food service in a nearby psych. hospital (the one where Mom had spent several years toward the end of her life, actually).

(It was some after that ... that we parted).

ole joyfuelled

On a cruise, we stopped at a port in central America. We took an excursion that included a banana plantation and processing center. To me, it was surprising the number of people who had their hands on the bananas. 3 during the initial hosing to remove spiders and such. Another set of hands broke the huge bunches into more a manageable size. That person also put them into a roiling bath that moved them to another set of hands. That person picked them up and moved them to another roiling bath. Finally they got picked out of the bath and onto a roller toward the people who packed them in sleeves. Another person packed the crate and a forklift moved them into a waiting trailer.

And today, the ad in the newspaper showed bananas on sale for 39â per pount. Out of that money, who got what?

I was looking at a grocery ad from 1980 and I have to say that prices were not all that cheap and in fact they had chicken legs for 79 cents a lb which I can still find today. Some prices were a lot cheaper but others weren't all that cheap.

One thing that's gone up crazy is the price of houses. My sister bought a very nice 4 bdrm home for mid 20's. Considering that minimum wage has only gone for about $4 hr to about $8 an hour, the prices of that same home would be about $250,000 to $300,000 for a nice new home in that general area.

This post was edited by arkansas_girl on Thu, Sep 18, 14 at 17:19

My little tract house in a very nice area cost $9,000 in 1947. I bought it for $48,000 in the 1970's and I could sell it today for $480,000. It's considered a bargain for the area.

My first job paid 85 cents an hour plus tips. My first tip (I'll always remember) was a nickle for serving a cup of coffee. A 50 percent tip!

If I had 50 cents as a kid I thought I was a millionaire. I could buy a comic book and an ice cream cone and still get change.

When I was married in the late '60s, my weekly grocery budget was $12.

Some things are better now and some things were better then. Being young was definitely better.

Chisue - your mother's friend must have been in the upper echelon of employment already to aspire to $10,000 in the 1940's. When my husband got his PhD in the early 60's he said that his dream was to make $10,000. I can't remember when he finally did.

The only price that stands out to me was that the year I was married, 1962 PRIME sirloin steak was $.26 a pound. I haven't seen a cut of prime beef in years in a grocery store, not that I could afford it.

When I watch Antiques Roadshow and people gush about how much their treasure has appreciated from when they bought it, they never seem to take into consideration what inflation has done to their dollars over the years.

And when I watch antiques roadshow reruns and they show something has lost value, I wonder to myself how a person would know whether to hold on or sell. I don't have any "investments" in antiques. I have some old stuff that I like. I've wondered from time to time what number would have to be on the bill for me to trade my little treasure for the bill. I suspect a hundred bucks would be the top price offered and I don't need a hundred bucks that bad.