Life has really changed???

[Smitty37]

I looked today at a flashback to 1962 (the year we go married) at what was going on....I just smile at some of the prices.

Gas - 25 cents a gallon
Pack of gum or a candy bar..a nickel
Fast food hamburger 15 cents
ice cream bar (they say 15 cents but it was really a dime)
Doctor's office visit 5 dollars
33 1/3 record album about 3 dollars
average new car about $2500 but a lot were cheaper
Cigarettes were 30 cents a pack.
Soft drinks were about a dime
I was drinking 15 cent draft beers at my favorite bar


Big new TV series McHales Navy Debuts --- Tim Conway was really funny in that series.
Another one The Beverly Hillbillies also debuts.


Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jody Foster, Herschel Walker, Jerry Rice, and Evander Holyfield were born that year and Marylin Monroe died.....Adolf Eichmann was hanged.


It was Chevrolet's 50th anniversary year and I bought a 62 Impala 2 door hardtop in the special color Anniversary Gold...loaded for $2807 or it might have been $2708 -- I wouldn't bet my life on either.


We rented a 4 room apartment for $80 a month. We bought bought 3 rooms of furniture and a dining set for the kitchen. Including a bedroom set with double bed including box springs and matress, two dressers, two night stands, a full length mirror and a clock radio alarm; A Living room set with a Castro Convertible 6 1/2 foot sofa, an easy chair, a castro adjustable chair, a marble top coffee table and matching lamp camode and a braided carpet....all for less than a thousand dollars - they were not low priced stuff either.


My salary at the beginning of the year was $123 per week with an additional $10 (8%) per week as a 2nd shift premium. At the end of the year it was $140 per week with an additional $14 (10%) as 2nd shift premium. With overtime my earnings that year were $7963. Median income was about $6000.




What a difference a half a century makes.

 

[jeff]

It would be interesting to compare the price of all that stuff to the price of gas then and now. Gas was $0.25 then, $3.50 today (in Cleveland, anyway)

A record album then was $3, or 12x the price of gas. Today an album (iTunes) is around $10, or 2.8x the price of gas. Big difference!

A car was around 10,000x the price of gas. What is a new "average" car today? $25000? That's about 7,150x the price of gas. Not such a huge difference.

The cheapest gas I remember was about $0.39 a gallon around 1967. My dad used to send me walking to the gas station for mower gas with a one gallon can and 50 cents. That let me stop for an 11 cent ice cream sandwich at the corner store on the way home.

Yes, Smitty. Time slips away!

 

[ironman123]

Dang, where is that DIY plan for a Time Machine.

Ray

 

[TellicoTurning]

In those days penny candy was really a penny, now it's 25 cent... In April 1963 I was a 3rd class petty officer in the navy and made an emergency leave home for my brother's funeral. On my way back to San Francisco, I got off the bus to spend a day or two with my mother in Chandler, Arizona. She had seen a 1959 Impala on a local used car lot and fell in love with it... they didn't need and couldn't buy the car, but I did for about $800.
Gas was about 32 cents in the bay area and along route 66.... on my first trip home later in the year, I had to stop in Mountainair, New Mexico for gas.... gas was 48 cents a gallon and I was livid that they were "gouging" people just because it was the only station for several miles along the route....

 

[TellicoTurning]

It would be interesting to compare the price of all that stuff to the price of gas then and now. Gas was $0.25 then, $3.50 today (in Cleveland, anyway)

A record album then was $3, or 12x the price of gas. Today an album (iTunes) is around $10, or 2.8x the price of gas. Big difference!

A car was around 10,000x the price of gas. What is a new "average" car today? $25000? That's about 7,150x the price of gas. Not such a huge difference.

The cheapest gas I remember was about $0.39 a gallon around 1967. My dad used to send me walking to the gas station for mower gas with a one gallon can and 50 cents. That let me stop for an 11 cent ice cream sandwich at the corner store on the way home.

Yes, Smitty. Time slips away!

Down in Texas in the late '50's we used to have "gas wars" when the stations would start bidding against each other and the prices would drop... lowest I remember is in Waco about 1958 gas got down to $0.14 per gallon... Story went around that a tanker pulled in from Kansas City and told the station attendant (in those days he would pump gas for you)... the attendant filled the truck's saddle tanks and started to ring up the sale... the driver said "No, No, fill it up" and proceeded to fill the tanker with gas at $0.14... pumped the station dry, then made $0.15 a gallon profit back in KC. I won't swear to the validity of the story, but heard it several times.

 

[Smitty37]

It would be interesting to compare the price of all that stuff to the price of gas then and now. Gas was $0.25 then, $3.50 today (in Cleveland, anyway)

A record album then was $3, or 12x the price of gas. Today an album (iTunes) is around $10, or 2.8x the price of gas. Big difference!

A car was around 10,000x the price of gas. What is a new "average" car today? $25000? That's about 7,150x the price of gas. Not such a huge difference.

The cheapest gas I remember was about $0.39 a gallon around 1967. My dad used to send me walking to the gas station for mower gas with a one gallon can and 50 cents. That let me stop for an 11 cent ice cream sandwich at the corner store on the way home.

Yes, Smitty. Time slips away!

In 1967 I moved from Pleasant Valley NY to Barton, NY (about 150 miles) in Pleasant Valley I was paying 28 cents a gallon and in Barton I was upset because I had to pay 34 cents. At the same time in the Pocono's in PA there was one station where I could still get gas for 25 cents. So even then there was a big difference in prices based on where you happened to be.

Music we really can't compare because the delivery is so changed - then an album was either a 33 1/3 rpm disc - today if you buy a cd you pay $15 - $20. You do have lots of options for music that weren't even a gleam in someone eye back then.


All things were not cheaper then either - a computer with the power of my desk top would have cost you several million dollars and there probably weren't more than a dozen or so in the world.


You could buy a telephone but it would cost you a lot of money and the internals would have to be approved as compatible by AT&T. There were still places where "party" phone lines were common.


Most major appliances were relatively more expensive than they are today requiring more hours of work to pay for them then are required today.


Clothing, relatively speaking, is being given away today. I buy a lot of the same kinds of clothes I bought then and they cost about the same.


I think the biggest difference that I see is that price stability has changed so much. In 1962 a lot of common household things cost just about what they had cost in 1942 and many cost the same as they had in the 1930s. While in 2012 almost nothing cost the same as it had cost in 1992 much less 1982. For instance gas - .25 per gallon from about 1957 to around 1967/68. July 11th I filled my Truck for $3.43 per gallon...July 17th my wife filled her car for $3.63 per gallon. About a 6% change in a week.


I am not pining to go back to those days because of prices. I miss much more other things, like people being nice to each other (even strangers); like it being safe to walk down the street alone at night; like men and women thinking marriage first then living together and having kids; like not being afraid to flag down a car to get help if you had a breakdown on the road.


In material things I think we're, on the whole, a lot better off today but it seems to me we've paid a very high price in 'quality of life'.

 

[jttheclockman]

Smitty you seem to have a ton of time on your hands and you brought the thread up. Being most things are relative why not sit down and calculate the differences using the inflation rate scales. I bet they are not that far off. You still could be buying that nickle candy.

 

[edicehouse]

My grandfather and I had this discussion a few years back, he said when he was my age (early 30's) a gallon of gas was X cents a gallon, and he had an income of Y an hour. I don't remember the numbers but he would have to work (forget the % of an hour to get 1 gallon of gas). And he took my pay rate and it was considerably less. So he asked was gas really cheaper back then?

 

[KBs Pensnmore]

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

 

[Scruffy]

Ed, years ago back in the 80s, I had a friend that proposed normalizing...

prices by using the price of a MacDonald's Big Mac. He worked as a free lance writer for some magazine in Phoenix. I think its bankrupt so he did not help it much.

In 2008, the Big Mac average price was $3.60.
The average cost of gasoline was $1.50 a gallon.

In 2012, the Big mac is around $4.06.
The cost of gasoline is around $3.45 a gallon.

So in 2008, gas cost 1.50/3.60= .42 (approx)
2012, gas 3.45/4.06 = .86 (approx)

So one could say that the price of gasoline doubled with respect to Big Macs.


He actually used it to figure out which country was the cheapest to live.

I think is was someplace in the old USSR.

 

[jttheclockman]

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

And so what is different now??????:biggrin:


Gas is probably the one commodity that may not stand up to the scrutiny of the inflation laws but I am sure it will be close. That is because it fluctuates so widely every time someone over there sneezes or has to go to the bathroom.

 

[wolftat]

And I just spoke with a friend who is paying $.14 a gallon for gas but says he can get it cheaper if he buys it through the black market.. I just filled up my pickup and it cost me $130, luckily I still had some when I went to fill it or it would have been a lot more. My father bought a brand new "69 Camaro SS/RS and paid $3900 out the door for the fully loaded car, I wish he still had it, in mint condition it would be worth 30 times that easily. I said would quit smoking when the price hit a dollar a pack and that is one thing I am glad that the price went up quickly on, I quit smoking 27 years ago. I also recently pulled a bunch of Jim Beam out of my cellar and found the prices still on the bottles, I paid $9.99 for a liter, now we sell them at our store for 3 times that and they are only about 10 years old. That was around the last time I had a drink as well.

 

[sbwertz]

We, too were married in 1962. We were both in the army and our take home pay was $99 each per month, plus $80 a month in housing and food allowance. When we moved to AZ in 1964 my husband's starting salary with GE was $8500 a year. That $123 a month house payment was HUGE.

How things change.

 

[Smitty37]

It would be interesting to compare the price of all that stuff to the price of gas then and now. Gas was $0.25 then, $3.50 today (in Cleveland, anyway)

A record album then was $3, or 12x the price of gas. Today an album (iTunes) is around $10, or 2.8x the price of gas. Big difference!

A car was around 10,000x the price of gas. What is a new "average" car today? $25000? That's about 7,150x the price of gas. Not such a huge difference.

The cheapest gas I remember was about $0.39 a gallon around 1967. My dad used to send me walking to the gas station for mower gas with a one gallon can and 50 cents. That let me stop for an 11 cent ice cream sandwich at the corner store on the way home.

Yes, Smitty. Time slips away!

Down in Texas in the late '50's we used to have "gas wars" when the stations would start bidding against each other and the prices would drop... lowest I remember is in Waco about 1958 gas got down to $0.14 per gallon... Story went around that a tanker pulled in from Kansas City and told the station attendant (in those days he would pump gas for you)... the attendant filled the truck's saddle tanks and started to ring up the sale... the driver said "No, No, fill it up" and proceeded to fill the tanker with gas at $0.14... pumped the station dry, then made $0.15 a gallon profit back in KC. I won't swear to the validity of the story, but heard it several times.

For whatever reason we never had those right where I lived but about 30 -35 miles away in New Jersey they had gas wars. Guys used to put 3 or 4 55 gallon drums in the back of their pickup trucks and drive there to fill them up often at 15 to 17 cents a gallon when the price was 22 or 23 cents a gallon where we lived. I was not driving but I made the trip with an older guy a couple of times.

 

[Smitty37]

We, too were married in 1962. We were both in the army and our take home pay was $99 each per month, plus $80 a month in housing and food allowance. When we moved to AZ in 1964 my husband's starting salary with GE was $8500 a year. That $123 a month house payment was HUGE.

How things change.

$8500 in '64 was pretty good pay...average was probably about $6500. I got out of the service in 1959 I was E-5 with over 4 years service, receiving sea pay and clothing allowance and my total was $227.00 per month before taxes. Base pay for E-5 less than 4 years was $180 per month over 4 years was $200. There had just been a pay increase that started in 1959. When I made E-5 the base pay with less than 4 years was $160. Sea Pay was $20 and didn't increase with the pay raise. You could make more if you were submarine service and got hazardous duty pay which was $55.00 a month. Odd thing about that was Destroyers (where I served) actually lost more people at sea than the submarines did but didn't get hazardous duty pay.

 

[Smitty37]

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

And so what is different now??????:biggrin:


Gas is probably the one commodity that may not stand up to the scrutiny of the inflation laws but I am sure it will be close. That is because it fluctuates so widely every time someone over there sneezes or has to go to the bathroom.

You are right there - in part because of the variation in fuel taxes which range from a total of 69 cents a gallon in NY State to 26.4 cents per gallon in Alaska.

They are difficult to figure because in most states sales taxes also apply and (at least in NY State) may not be stated separately from the pump price - that's about the only place other than bars where sales tax is not required to be stated separately on the customer's bill. In addition, some "fees" are applied per gallon of fuel by some states which are charged and collected like a tax but aren't called a tax.

European fuel taxes average around $5.00+ per gallon and the country with the lowest tax in Europe charges about what the total price of a gallon of gas in in the USA.



Many OPEC nations actually have a negative tax on gasoline so if we are buying from them we are actually paying a tax to them as well - even though it is not ever stated as such. Venezuela actually sells gas for about 10 cents a gallon or so locally so their exported gas has a certain amount of the cost going to support cheap gas at home...that is a tax on exported gas, whether they call it that or not.

 

[Smitty37]

OOPS

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

Wrong gallon there -- a US gallon is about 3.785 liters. Imperial Gallon is about 4.5 liters. An imperial gallon is 1.25 US gallons - So your comparable price per gallon is about $5,87 still plenty high enough.

 

[tjseagrove]

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

...

They are difficult to figure because in most states sales taxes also apply and (at least in NY State) may not be stated separately from the pump price - that's about the only place other than bars where sales tax is not required to be stated separately on the customer's bill. In addition, some "fees" are applied per gallon of fuel by some states which are charged and collected like a tax but aren't called a tax.

...

I remember when they actually listed all the different taxes you paid on a gallon of gas on a sticker at the pump. They should have to do that again.

 

[Smitty37]

And I just spoke with a friend who is paying $.14 a gallon for gas but says he can get it cheaper if he buys it through the black market.. I just filled up my pickup and it cost me $130, luckily I still had some when I went to fill it or it would have been a lot more. My father bought a brand new "69 Camaro SS/RS and paid $3900 out the door for the fully loaded car, I wish he still had it, in mint condition it would be worth 30 times that easily. I said would quit smoking when the price hit a dollar a pack and that is one thing I am glad that the price went up quickly on, I quit smoking 27 years ago. I also recently pulled a bunch of Jim Beam out of my cellar and found the prices still on the bottles, I paid $9.99 for a liter, now we sell them at our store for 3 times that and they are only about 10 years old. That was around the last time I had a drink as well.

You've got a bigger tank than I do - mine will only take about $75.00 worth at today's prices when it's bone dry.

 

[theidlemind]

I'm still in that $1.00/gallon mode, but I drive diesel. 33 gallon tank is $30 away from being full again. Makes the paychecks go a little farther.

I am referencing biodiesel BTW........gotta love it.

 

[sbwertz]

We, too were married in 1962. We were both in the army and our take home pay was $99 each per month, plus $80 a month in housing and food allowance. When we moved to AZ in 1964 my husband's starting salary with GE was $8500 a year. That $123 a month house payment was HUGE.

How things change.

$8500 in '64 was pretty good pay...average was probably about $6500. I got out of the service in 1959 I was E-5 with over 4 years service, receiving sea pay and clothing allowance and my total was $227.00 per month before taxes. Base pay for E-5 less than 4 years was $180 per month over 4 years was $200. There had just been a pay increase that started in 1959. When I made E-5 the base pay with less than 4 years was $160. Sea Pay was $20 and didn't increase with the pay raise. You could make more if you were submarine service and got hazardous duty pay which was $55.00 a month. Odd thing about that was Destroyers (where I served) actually lost more people at sea than the submarines did but didn't get hazardous duty pay.

$8500 a year was EXCELLENT for an entry level position. We were thrilled. We were able to buy a brand new 3 bedroom home.

We were both E3s when we got married. and made $99 a month (up from $68 as a recruit and $86 as an E2.) But since everything was provided as long as we were in the barracks, it was all "disposable income." Once we were married and in off-post housing, things got kind of tight. Then I got pregnant and had to take a medical discharge and things got REALLY tight! (No maternity leave back then.) Husband made E4 and I got spousal allowance. But there wasn't much extra. When he got the programmer's job with GE we thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

 

[Donovan]

When I started working I earned 230 rand per month($23 in today's money). The exchange rate $2 to the rand and petrol was 9 cent per liter. About $0. 4.5 cents per gallon. I was earning a super salary as a police constable was earning 95 rand ($9-50) in today's money. Yet we had kids a house and a good life. I wouldn't like to go back to thous days but as Smitty said the values was most properly better

Donovan

 

[Smitty37]

We, too were married in 1962. We were both in the army and our take home pay was $99 each per month, plus $80 a month in housing and food allowance. When we moved to AZ in 1964 my husband's starting salary with GE was $8500 a year. That $123 a month house payment was HUGE.

How things change.

$8500 in '64 was pretty good pay...average was probably about $6500. I got out of the service in 1959 I was E-5 with over 4 years service, receiving sea pay and clothing allowance and my total was $227.00 per month before taxes. Base pay for E-5 less than 4 years was $180 per month over 4 years was $200. There had just been a pay increase that started in 1959. When I made E-5 the base pay with less than 4 years was $160. Sea Pay was $20 and didn't increase with the pay raise. You could make more if you were submarine service and got hazardous duty pay which was $55.00 a month. Odd thing about that was Destroyers (where I served) actually lost more people at sea than the submarines did but didn't get hazardous duty pay.

$8500 a year was EXCELLENT for an entry level position. We were thrilled. We were able to buy a brand new 3 bedroom home.

We were both E3s when we got married. and made $99 a month (up from $68 as a recruit and $86 as an E2.) But since everything was provided as long as we were in the barracks, it was all "disposable income." Once we were married and in off-post housing, things got kind of tight. Then I got pregnant and had to take a medical discharge and things got REALLY tight! (No maternity leave back then.) Husband made E4 and I got spousal allowance. But there wasn't much extra. When he got the programmer's job with GE we thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

Yes, we didn't get paid much and on a lot of bases you had to be E-5 or above to get on base housing.

In '60 I started my civilian job at $5200 but starting pay was going up pretty fast in the field I was in - IBM had started my job code at about $4400 less than a month before I was hired and was at $6000 within two months after I was hired. My pay increased 40% in about 2 1/2 years without changing job description or title.

 

[sbwertz]

Yeah, my husband worked for General Electric, Honeywell, Honeywell/Bull, and Groupe Bull for 30 years and never changed his desk. They kept selling the computer division.

 

[Smitty37]

Yeah, my husband worked for General Electric, Honeywell, Honeywell/Bull, and Groupe Bull for 30 years and never changed his desk. They kept selling the computer division.

Yep I am very familiar with computer manufacturers changing hands during the 60s and 70s --- we were the big guy they were all trying to compete with and take business from.

 

[maxwell_smart007]

.[/quote]You've got a bigger tank than I do - mine will only take about $75.00 worth at today's prices when it's bone dry.[/QUOTE]

75 doesn't move the needle on my truck! I haven't ever filled it - it would take $250 in our gas prices to put a full tank in it...When I was a kid, I remember saying 'put $10' in it - and it would last a week....now we fill up in $40 increments on the little car

Nostalgia moment - I also used to tell time by tv shows - Grandma's house was two Sesame Streets and a Mr. Dressup away from home!

 

[Smitty37]

.

You've got a bigger tank than I do - mine will only take about $75.00 worth at today's prices when it's bone dry.[/quote]

75 doesn't move the needle on my truck! I haven't ever filled it - it would take $250 in our gas prices to put a full tank in it...When I was a kid, I remember saying 'put $10' in it - and it would last a week....now we fill up in $40 increments on the little car

Nostalgia moment - I also used to tell time by tv shows - Grandma's house was two Sesame Streets and a Mr. Dressup away from home! [/quote]They tell me the tank on my pickup is 19.9 US gallons...I take their word for it because I have never filled it from dead empty. Gas today here was $3.699 USD per gallon. 10 days ago it was $3.439 and last Thursday it was $3.639. Delaware prices do not include sales tax.

 

[sbwertz]

My husband was in on the ground floor of computer technology. He was on the team that wrote the very first ANSI standard COBOL compiler. He was on the ANSI standards committee that approved the ASCII code. (I know the guy who invented the backslash).

He got started in computers when they asked for volunteers at West Point when GE came to teach the cadets about computers. My husband was the head of Technical Services at the West Point Library at the time, and volunteered. When his enlistment was up, GE hired him right out of the Army and we moved to Phoenix.

He was so excited when he came home the first day....They were letting him work on the BIG mainframe with 16K of memory. The one at West Point only had 4K (yes, Kilobytes, not Megabytes.) Punch cards for input. And it took a whole room to house the system and it's big tape drives.

 

[cwolfs69]

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

not sure where you got your conversion from but 1 gallon is 3.78 liters

 

[wolftat]

And I just spoke with a friend who is paying $.14 a gallon for gas but says he can get it cheaper if he buys it through the black market.. I just filled up my pickup and it cost me $130, luckily I still had some when I went to fill it or it would have been a lot more. My father bought a brand new "69 Camaro SS/RS and paid $3900 out the door for the fully loaded car, I wish he still had it, in mint condition it would be worth 30 times that easily. I said would quit smoking when the price hit a dollar a pack and that is one thing I am glad that the price went up quickly on, I quit smoking 27 years ago. I also recently pulled a bunch of Jim Beam out of my cellar and found the prices still on the bottles, I paid $9.99 for a liter, now we sell them at our store for 3 times that and they are only about 10 years old. That was around the last time I had a drink as well.

You've got a bigger tank than I do - mine will only take about $75.00 worth at today's prices when it's bone dry.

I have a 38 gallon tank and am paying $4.10 last time I filled it. It should last me most of the week and then I refill it again. Not much I can do about it, I am required to drive for work and I refused the car they offered me. My truck is faster and more comfortable. Luckily, I do get a fuel allowance.

 

[islandturner]

You guys have it pretty good at $3.50 a gallon we pay $1.55 for a liter and there is 4.5 liters to the gallon which works out at $6.97 a gallon
I can remember when it was 20cents per gallon I just got my license 1968
mind you my pay was $12.00 a week half my wage went on the car for fuel to get to work 25 mile round trip 5 days a week.
Kryn

not sure where you got your conversion from but 1 gallon is 3.78 liters

1 imperial gallon = 4.54 litres
1 American gallon = 3.78 litres

 

[Smitty37]

My husband was in on the ground floor of computer technology. He was on the team that wrote the very first ANSI standard COBOL compiler. He was on the ANSI standards committee that approved the ASCII code. (I know the guy who invented the backslash).

He got started in computers when they asked for volunteers at West Point when GE came to teach the cadets about computers. My husband was the head of Technical Services at the West Point Library at the time, and volunteered. When his enlistment was up, GE hired him right out of the Army and we moved to Phoenix.

He was so excited when he came home the first day....They were letting him work on the BIG mainframe with 16K of memory. The one at West Point only had 4K (yes, Kilobytes, not Megabytes.) Punch cards for input. And it took a whole room to house the system and it's big tape drives.

Yep, in about 1964/65 I was working on IBM S360/40 and the common main memory was 32K and they peaked out at 256K. Even the S360/50 only averaged about 64K. I worked in System Test and worked on the 1st System 360 IBM ever delivered outside the company.

A lot of our early machines had punched card inputs and outputs along with magnetic tape. Mostly the buyers did their own programming using whatever compiler they happened to have. And we sold a lot of those computers.

 

[Smitty37]

One should not take everything here as saying everything was better in the past. Some things were some things were not.

Inflation was not even thought of as a problem --- that was better.


Saving was "good" and the relationship betwreen interest paid and interest earned was such that saving was encouraged. That was better than today where savings essentially lose value because inflation typically exceeds returns.


Packaging of goods we bought did not cause a lot of problems disposing of the packaging - brown paper bags were biodegradeable and were frequently reused. We got perhaps one or two catalogs a year and almost no advertising flyers in our mail to dispose of. That was good.


Medical care was cheap - that was good. But there was not nearly as much care available, nor was it as good as todays care.


Electronics has advanced tremendously -- in fact many, if not most of todays technological advances are directly related to the advances in electronic technology...That is much better today.


Cars are much better today. I've had my pickup for 6 years and have done nothing but change the oil and associated filters and routine maintenance - I did replace a tire but that was a road hazzard issue (ran over a bunch of nails left by construction). Have had only one mechanical problem (a tail light carrosion issue) on the last 6 vehicles I've owned. That would have been unheard of in the 50s/60s. Again though, much of that improvement is associated with advances in electronics and computers. That being said, my opinion is that cars were a heck of a lot better looking back then, and they didn't all look alike.


Television viewing quality is a lot better - electronics and computers again. Programming in my opinion is much much worse. My folks didn't need to worry about me watching any show that came on TV - I had to pull the plug for 8 years, and if I had kids today there would be precious little that they would be allowed to watch. I don't really think we need the vulgar language, graphic violence and pornography made available 24 hours a day.


Personal relationships were a ton better in the old days at almost every level. I can't really think of anywhere today that people treat each other better even given all the laws we've put in place to try to force us (on one hand) to do so. On the other hand we've put just about as many laws in place that make us tend to not treat each other as well. I never in my life raised my voice to my mother - not because I never disageeed with her but because whether I disagreed or not, she was my mother. Not one of my teachers would ever have suggested that I keep something they were teaching from my parents because it might be in opposition to my folks morals....we have lost a lot there - and it has been worse for every generation.


So looking back is not forgetting the advances that have made life in some ways better, it is remembering the things that have suffered due to those advances. Price changes are amusing to a lot of us because we can remember when things were the same price for 20 or 30 years....no one born since 1945 or so can really remember that. For instance, nickel candy bars came into being in the 1930's and were just beginning to change in the late 1950s. I started school in 1943 and in my 12 years of school almost nothing that a kid bought or saw purchased regularily changed in price. Movies were about a quarter, comic books a dime, soda pop a nickel, candy bars a nickel, ice cream cone a nickel a scoop, gasoline about 20 cents a gallon, first class letter 3 cents, penny candy really a penny or less. We just don't see that kind of price stability today and that's why we look back on it the way we do.

 

[Smitty37]

Smitty you seem to have a ton of time on your hands and you brought the thread up. Being most things are relative why not sit down and calculate the differences using the inflation rate scales. I bet they are not that far off. You still could be buying that nickle candy.

I don't think you can equate that without a lot more time than I have. Virtually all of the 5 cent sized candy bars (for instance) have disappeared.

I am basing my thoughts more on a simpler formula. In 1961 median family income was about $5700 based on the Census Bureau estimate. That was based on a vast majority being single wage earner. In 2011 (couldn't find 2012) it was about $50,000 with the vast majority being two wage earners. Or about 9 times as much.


I don't know of a single candy bar (for instance) that cost's 45 cents for the same weight bar we got for a nickel.


Gas $.25 then that would translate to $2.25


A loaf of bread was about $.21 that might be a little cheaper now.


A car was about $2200 to $2300 - it is hard to compare apples to apples but the average in 2011 was in the range of $29,000 per transaction. I personally think that cars are better now though and that difference could be mostly improvements.


Median home price in Oct 1963 $17,600 in 2011 $212,300 - again it's hard to compare apples to apples due primarily to increased size, number of bedroom and baths but never-the-less even with the super low interest rates (standard in '63 was 6%) and the burst bubble dropping housing prices a ton since 2008 you still need income higher than $51,000 to buy an average home.


Telephone Service - not much by way of direct comparison but over all probably a lot cheaper today with a lot more capability.


Television - was free to most users - today it is quite costly


Radio - free then and free now same price but the programming is somewhat different the way I used radio then and now was about the same, mostly in my car and mostly a particular local station that I liked.


Computers - no comparison - individuals could not have computers than for many reasons not the least of which was cost. Today everyone can have one for very reasonable prices.


Groceries over all ... hard to say because there is so much change in the way we eat but my wife and I with one child budgeted $20 per week for groceries (including baby formula), household cleaners, soda (at that time my wife literally drank nothing but Coca-Cola) etc. Could someone do that for $180 today....who knows, we had no food stamps, WIC or other government programs that a household with average income could qualify for. I tend to think without such programs the answer would be no - but I can't say for sure. Milk, chicken and eggs are much cheaper today by comparison.


Movies and other entertainment is much higher today i.e. ML Basball games. We could drive to Yankee Stadium on about $3.00 worth of gas, Park for $1.00 and get Box Seats on the first base line for a little over $3.00 - I don't know what it is today but I have an Idea that it would be a lot more. Drive in movies let us take the whole family for about a dollar and a half - it costs more than that now for movies on TV.


Health insurance - we didn't need it, I don't pretend the health care available was nearly as extensive as it is today but what there was (which wasn't really all that bad) people could afford. Today paying for insurance or having medical problems without insurance are a major expense. When our eldest was born in 1963 the hospital cost us $229 for entry, the labor room and delivery room, 4 days stay for my wife and son, use of an operating room for circumcison and check out. A typical visit to a doctor might cost $5 to $10.00.




Over all, I believe that a family with average income in 1963 was relatively better off than a family with average income today and nearly all the people I knew where both husband and wife worked, had income well above average and usually no or grown children.

 

[jttheclockman]

Like I said way too much time on your hands.:biggrin:

 

[Smitty37]

Like I said way too much time on your hands.:biggrin:

Well John, maybe someday, if you are frugal enough, wise enough in your investmets, selective enough in your choice of children, prufdent enough at your career choice, smarter than the ''average bear" and are the recipient of enough grace from God and have the good sense to be happy with what you have - you too will be able to be a retired gentleman with no need to chase wealth so you can spend your time doing what you like to do. One of the things I like to do is read about things that interest me. And, trying to understand the true value of earnings and the way we spend them is one of those things.

For instance the value of my annual salary of $8000 in 1962 can be calculated to be in a range of $48,800 to $214,000 depending on how you calculate it. The most common way says $60,700 (based on the published inflation rates). The lowest figues in a deflator. What I think of as the most realistic way says about $123K (this sort of compares life style possibilities) and for a lot of purposes a perfectly valid way to look at it says $214,000. I am still looking into the methods of calculating all but the CPI.

 

[jttheclockman]

The big thing though Smitty, as it may be nice to walk down Nostalgia lane as some of these past threads have done, I have no control over the past but do have control of the future to a point. So what was and what is or what will be is a far cry from one another. I hope I never have that much free time to do what you are doing. Good luck in your venture. I had enough of these type threads. They are getting boring.

 

[Smitty37]

I had enough of these type threads. They are getting boring.

Then don't follow them. When talking about the future, a wise person once said words to the effect "How will you ever know where you're going if you don't know where you've been"