Amazing!
I can remember seeing a local doc for $5.......if I saw a specialist it was $7.
We had no insurance and my first child, born in 1965 was a total of $500....seeing the OB doc often since I had a lot of problems and $250 for the entire hospital stay, including labor and delivery room charge, nursery and a four day stay for both of us.

Omigosh! And the gas to get there and back probably cost something like 50 cents a gallon. Maybe 25?

In 1955 my dad had a car financed through Household Finance Company and they required that he pay the insurance along with the car payment at the finance company office.

Every two weeks on Friday when Dad came home from work he would hand me a $20bill & a $5 bill and I would hike five blocks up to the finance company and make the payment for him. I remember it vividly because the payment came to $24.75 and I got to keep the quarter change, which I quickly took to the little Mom & Pop, grocery store next door.

At the front of the store they had a table about 10ft long and 3' wide that was stacked end to end with jars of penny candy, but what I really wanted was a foot long plastic tube that looked like a fat soda straw, which they sold as bean shooters. Three cents for the bean shooter and 12 cents for a pound bag of dried navy beans and I could terrorize the school and neighborhood for a couple weeks....not to mention I came away with a sizeable bag of candy too..

Some of the candy such as smarties, jaw breakers and red licorice whips were two or three for a penny.

On the other hand, mimimun wage was $1.12. My dad worked in a steel fabrication plant that made the huge rolling machines for steel mills and dad was making top money under the United Steel Workers Union, and he was bringing home a whopping $75 a week.

in those days you could buy descent used cars for $40 almost anywhere.

My husband says in 1965 gas in Bismack ND was 19 cents a gallon. IN 1969 he thinks it was 22 cents. When he came back from Viet Nam it started going up and In 1973 it started going up like crazy. Yjen it went up to 80 cents a gallon and kept going on and on and on to what it now. I remember when he said you could buy 20 gallons for 5.00 then when it was 4.00 a gallon he said you could by 5 gallons for 20.00. In 1952 his parents moved to Bismarck from the farm and his dad cleaned skunks for the fur for 25 cents a piece at a hide and fur place. He did that for 5 years and then he became a greenskeeper at a country club amd mever made much money there either when he started out and after 20 years he got cancer and passed away. That wasnt a very good life and he never even got to enjoy his retirement. He was 55 when he died.

When you look at the cash only, it seems small but as pup pointed out, if you look at the number of hours an average person had to work to make that $10 in those days, then figure how much it would be working at today's labor rates the gap closes. Convert that to bottles of pop, candy bars or loaves of bread too and that price goes up.

Although a cast for $1.75 even converted sounds cheap! But in fairness, those days you didn't have everyone suing for no reason, doctors having to cover their butts on everything and such. Even today a doctor can't just look at an x-ray without risking a lawsuit so you have to have a radiologist look at it too. And I'm not so sure medical care is that much better these days.

In 1966 I bought my first car, a used 1962 Chevy 2. I paid $650.00 for it. Got married in 1968 and we purchased a Ford Bronco with a very long list of extras on it. We paid $2950.00 for the vehicle. Now it would be well over $50,000. My hubbies first truck in 1971 was $3,700.00 and now the one he bought was $55,000. Our home along with 10 acres which we bought in 1971 was $25,000. We still live here.. It is funny to think back on these things..

When we were cleaning out my Mom's house I found the receipt for my china I bought before I was married. My brother-in-law was in Korea in the Army and sent it home to me. A 12 place setting of Nortalke with 8 pieces per setting with all the serving pieces was $55.00 plus shipping. You couldn't buy a meat platter for this now.

During the years of 1953-54, I worked in a filling station after school and on Saturdays. Gasoline sold for 22 cents a gallon and went up to 25 cents in two years. Just think, that price included state and federal taxes. Kerosene dispensed from a 55 gal drum sold for 15 cent per gallon. I was paid about $1 per hour - Its been so long ago that I don't remember the exact amount of pay. I do know it wasn't much for the hazardous part of the job. Changing a truck tire on an old style split rim was dangerous. Equally dangerous was wheels that used a split retaining ring against the tire bead.

The summer of 1964, I got a raise - I went to work as a stock and bag boy at a grocery store. Pay was 25 cents more an hour and much cleaner conditions. However, my feet were aching after being on them for 8 to 9 hours straight.

The time was about 1970. My family were residents of USA and we were vacationing with my wife's parents at their cabin on a small island in the Winnipeg flowage. It required a trip of 5 miles over water out of Minaki, Ontario to get to the cabin.

My young son ran, fell, and run an old snag on a fallen spruce tree into his leg just below the knee. Yep. This was going to require medical attention. We made the trip to town, took the car out from long term parking, and went to the territorial hospital in Kenora, Ontario. Meanwhile, I was shuddering thnk about how I would meet the cost. We had not budgeted for such a mishap. If the cost was too much, we'd have to curtail our vacation. We waited our turn at the clinic, and presently, our young son was taken to a service room. An intern examined and cleaned the wound. The nurse applied anti-biotic and bandaged the boy. Now came time to pay. I began to explain that I had an insurance card through my employer, and they stopped me. They replied, "We don't have a good way to process an issurance claim with the states and I do not think this job warrants it." Ok, I asked, "How much do I owe?" As I nervously waited, the billing agent added up a few numbers and said, "That'll be $12.50 US." I gasped with a pleasant surprise and gladly paid cash on the spot. They even apologized saying sorry, we had to charge $5 for materials. (That included a tetnus shot!)

I believe this has been the smallest medical clinc bill that I have paid in my lifetime.