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The Cost of things now/then

G

Gun guru

Well-known Member
My how inflation has changed the price of goods and services.

In 1973 my grandfather bought a new 73 Ford LTD for $3,700. My wife and I priced out a new 2010 Ford Escape truck.....$23,000.

In the late 50's a new winchester lever action .30-30 rifle was $81. My excellent condition used .30-30 was $300, a year ago. (still a good price) Winchester closed their plant 5 years ago.

Before 1974 gasoline was 30 cents a gallon or there abouts.

My first new truck was a 1990 GMC S-15, $7,650. No frills on that truck.

My parents first house was in the city and a bungelow house, they paid $10,000 for it in 1964.
 
That's the way the government solves its debt problems. I paid $2250 for a new Ford Fairlane in 1957. $3750 for a new Olds 98 in 1964. A lot of things have increased in price about ten fold. Houses included.
 
In 1964, I had an ulcer operated on. I had no insurance, and the total bill, hospital and surgeon both, totalled $940.

This last summer, I had to have a large kidney stone blasted with ultrasound. It was an outpatient procedure and I was in the hospital less than 8 hours. Total bills, a bit over $14,000. (Thanks to insurance, I paid a bit over $400).
 
i paid 800 dollars for a 4 year old olds cutlass in 1973, i was making a whole dollar per hour back then and that was a fair wage in the day
 
in 1980 a pauch of cigarette tobacco was 89 cent,today i seen it is $25 for the same size pauch.

In contrast, calf prices where around $1.08 in 1980,today $1.18

You go figger.
 
I paid $3.99 for antifreeze for a big tractor about 5 years ago. Remember it because I needed 7 gallons and I bought it at the Speedway station. Now it's over $10 dollars for the 50/50 blend! The good Prestone is about $14 a gallon. Motor oil has gone from about $1.29 a quart to $3.50 for the regular stuff. Synthetic is around $9 a quart. Some items have gone crazy. My wages were higher 5 years ago than they are now. Company I work for has slashed about every item they can from the bone.
 
in 1972 a chevy pickup no frills 6 3 speed on the column 2000 brand new the same truck in 1980 was 4000 I wish they still made that straight six it was a good truck!! Drove the 1980 until it had too many holes in it ,but it still ran good!
 
In 1952 a bottle of Coke at the JD dealer was $.05. Loved going to town with my Dad. Just think, inflation is how our country operates and the money you save for retirement will worth about half in 12-15 years. Don't out live your retirement income!
 
In 2009 dollars that LTD would be $17,700, the 30-30 would be $594, the .30 gallon of gas would be $1.29, the house would be $68,400. The gallon of gas is the only thing I'd say was cheaper then than now.
AaronSEIA
 
In 71 I purchased a 72 4 x 4 pickup with all the trimmings except air.

I had to insist I wanted a 4 x 4 because the dealer had never ordered a 4 x 4. He said I did not need a 4 x 4 etc. There was a Ih 4 x 4 in our county--other than that none.

Total price was $4,300.00 with tax. A Otonna 330 skid loader was almost the same money at the time.

You could trade up a year for a thousand dollars a year.
 
Circa, 1956 I rode with a rural newspaper delivery man and stuffed boxes for 2 hours every evening
PAY 25 cents (12 1/2c per hour)

Circa early sixties I worked at the local Doyle lumber yard sweeping the aisles (Loogootee Indiana)

PAY 50 Cents/hour

Circa mid sixties I ran the motion picture projector at our local Ritz theater then E 50 Drive In

PAY $2 per hour

At that theatre admission was 15c for kids and 25c for adults, popcorn was 5c bag or 10c box, cokes were 10 c. In mid sixties it raised to 25c for kids and 50c for adults. Two men owned the theatre and raised a family off its earnings. Two men also ran the barber shop and cut hair for 50c a head and put their kids through college

Circa late sixties bought a 1962 Ford from OD Neff & Son

$650

Circa early seventies married n bought my first farm, a 100 acre farm with a nice home

$30,000

Circa 1970's n 1980's n 1990's bought and sold a few farms having farmed them for attempted positive cash flow (yeah right lol)

See why theres no way Im gonna pay $30,000 for a new vehicle when my first 100 acre farm with home was only $30,000 Its not in my religion or genes

Ol John T Conservative Fuddy Duddy
 
In 1979 I bought my first new pickup, a F150 XLT with every available option except 4x4 was $7200. I was working at the Case dealership and a 2590 was around $38000, a 580C backhoe was $25000 and a Heston 5500 round baler was $5500
 
Friend of mine was telling me about his
Dad selling their soybean crop in the early 70's He bought a new plain pickup and half share in a new1550 Cockshutt. We figured to grow the same acres of beans and buy the equivalent goods in 2009 the beans at the same $/bu would have to yeild in the 80 bu area.
 
Just met with seed salesman. 2011 seed corn list for $310 per bag and seed beans are in the mid $40's per bag. Wonder what seed costs were 30 years ago??????? Gonna need a guard dog at the seed shed this spring!!!!!
 
You just reminded me, long ago my dad told me that right after WW II with a good crop of soybeans you could pay for land in one year! (now I'm curious, what was the price of soybeans back then?)
 
In 1975 the GMC dealer I worked for sold a new 3/4T 4x4 loaded with every option available and the sticker was 10,000.00 and change.
 
AW - You just had to remind, didn't you.

Back in 1971, Dad was going to help buy half of my first car. Chevy dealer (girlfriend's Dad) had a NICE used SS-396 Chevelle that I really wanted. Was going to college the next year and my Dad's thoughts were "gas is at $0.50 a gallon" and you need something more economical.

Ended up getting a new Vega GT for the same money ($3200) BUT still had to carry a 5 gallon gas can with me to get back to school on Sundays when I came home - 250 miles +/-. (Remember the oil embargo?).

Oh Well, still like him and coming to our house with Mom for Thanksgiving.
 
So .30 per gallon gas would equal 1.43 gas today.

In other words, energy prices have gone up more than inflation.
 
Inflation works both ways- what was your hourly wage back then? In a lot of cases, the ratios are the same. I"ve never been impressed with how cheap everything was years ago...when looking at what wages were. Late 60s, I paid 28-30 cents per gallon of gas, worked my way through college in a machine shop at 2.15- 3.10 per hour . Do the math. Johnny Carson used to talk the same way on his late-nite show...how cheap things were...he told only half of the story, ignoring income.
 
True, but energy prices were low for a long time.

Milk is (was) $2.39 per gallon for years.
I dont drink milk anymore due to lactose intolerance. But gas was $1.30 for years and milk was over $2.
Gasoline should be $2/gallon, IMO.
 
consider yourself lucky am 62 worked on the farm all my life & have never been able to buy a new car or truck ...went to HS in a 50 Plymouth...only 3 people out of 56 in HS had cars...thought I was lucky at that time... take care
 
I heard that in 1960 you could go into some banks and lay down a dollar bill and get a 1 ounce silver coin. (is this true?)

That silver coin is now 26 George Washingtons!

I wasnt born yet in 1960 so I dont know if its true.
 
Also consider the huge increase in taxes in more recent years. If you go back around 100 years there wasn't any income tax-- and I can remember when I bought my new '65 Chevy sales tax was just starting.
 
I bought a 1970 VW convertible in October 1969 for a shade under $2,400 (I made them take the white walls off to get the price under $2,400 - the WW's were $32.00).

I remember in the 50's cokes went from a nickel to 6 cents. It was a real topic of conversation. I remember the adults at the local ESSO station discussing it (it was a 20% increase) and the guy who owned the station told them he remembered cokes costing 7 cents in Roanoke (VA). The comments were, NO, no one would pay 7 cents for a coke!!
 
First digital watches in 1977, $500.00. Now less than $10.00
Microwave oven 1980 was over $1000.00. Now less than $100.00
Chest deep freeze units in the 1950's $330. Same price now 40 years later.
Colour TV with a crummy 24" screen and mono sound in 1976 was $500. Now a 40" wide screen sterio TV with HDMI for $500.00.
How about wages then and now?
 
Don't remember the cost but, a neighbor of mine bought a new John Deere model M with all the attachment's in 1947. He worked his land and did tractor work for his neighbors & paid it all off in one year. Anyone think they could do that today? lol

I used to work at a service station back in the sixties. $1 a day plus a soda water & a Moon Pie. Soda's were 9 cents, Moon pies and candy bars were a nickel. Gas was 19 cents a gallon of kerosene was 9 cents. Big Buick's and Desoto's were the only cars out there that would hold $5 worth of gas & not many of them. I remember when a carton of cigarettes went up to $2 & the old timers had a fit!

Delivery fee for my first child was $300. My first grandchild was $2000. My how times have changed.
 
Yep. 1965 was the year they started phasing out silver coins. Silver dollars were actually minted again in 1964 but by the time they shipped silver was worth more than a dollar so they were recalled and melted down in 1965. Find one of those & you can retire as long as the government doesn't catch you. lol
 
I remember many years ago my neighbour used to buy a new Massey 135, work the heck out of it ,then trade it in for a new one the following year. He said it cost him about £100!
Oil prices have made a real mess of things. 15 years ago diesel was 12p a litre here, now it is 50p ( about a dollar )Fertilizer prices have about trebled.
 
My grandmother gave me a silver dollar every year for my birthday. Like an idiot I cashed them in, probably for date money.

Larry
 
Hi gtractorfan: I grew a small field of soybeans about mid 1950s and I seem to remember about $3/bu. You have to remember that WW-2 ending caused prices of many things to change quite a bit both up and down for a few years. That War was a BIG factor in many ways. I remember Flax straw was in demand all through the War und then crashed as soon as War ended. The huge Flax straw piles near Windom MN were burned to get rid of the straw since nobody wanted it.. at all. We could see the glow of the fire all nite and we were 12 miles away. Several rows each maybe 12 foot high by 20 foot wide and 500 foot long made for a BIG fire with all that lindseed oil in Flax straw. Flax straw was used to make linen. Father had to hide new tires (and other items in short supply) in the hay barn during the War.. Supply and demand varied quite a bit on some items. Soybeans were not grown near as much back then. ag..
 
And don't forget ball point pens. $19.98 a pop when they came out back in the late 40s. If a working man made $45 a week then he thought he was doing pretty good. I bit my tongue in a post below where I alluded to things increasing tenfold because I knew, right along beside that, my income has increased around 75 fold. Right now, I think I have enough "stuff" to last 20 years although I might look kind of funny in some the clothes I have now. I've always been known as a tightwad but when I see 20% off MSRP on a $49000 truck, it's starting to look like a pretty good price. That first car I bought for $2250 had no AC, no PS, no PB, things started to fail at 25K, tires lasted about 10K as did the brakes. Now, spark plug change @ 120K, 300K showing and it runs like a swiss watch. I think we've become spoiled but I love every minute of it. My rant. Happy Thankgiving.
 
In 1940 my dad worked at grain elevator for $.50/hr, $20.00/week. In 1967 I worked part time at a gas station for $1.00/hr.

My first contract in 1973 wouldn't pay my property taxes today.

A person making $10/hour couldn't pay my income taxes, property taxes, and insurance. BTY, I've been retired for 7 years.

Go figure, inflation will get you.
 
When I picked strawberries in about '60 or '61, the guy we worked for paid in silver dollars. He thought it was a cool thing, but the kids thought it was a PITA. Heavy things, merchants didn't like them (not enough compartments in the cash register). Everybody complained, long about the 2nd week, and he went back to regular paper dollars.
 
I don't think they were an ounce- the other denomimations (dimes, quarters, halves) are about 720 ounces per $1,000 face- or .72 oz per dollar. Not sure if the dollars are the same ratio.

But you could get a silver dollar for a paper dollar, at any bank.
 
After i got out of the Army, in 1946, with an artificial leg, the guvment gave all of the amputees a new car, of our own choice, but no more than $1600! I got a new Pontiac Coupe, 6 cylinder, maroon in color, but i had to wait for it to be delivered.
After we got it, my mother and i decided we ought to drive out to California, to visit relatives there. We took my Aunt and her son along, too.
We each took a big pile of money, to pay for our expenses--$200 each. Were gone a month-saw all of the tourist traps, met the relatives, saw most of the USA, and returned with money left over! Cousin had enough left over, to buy a Model T Ford Roadster he saw on the road to home.
Yes, they were the good old days. I can remember filling the gas tank for way under $5! And, later on, when going to work, in my Renault sedan, of buying a dollars worth, or maybe two, of gas, to last all week. That was 40 miles a day, to work and back home. That car got 30 MPG!
My pay-check didn't bring in a lot of money, as i was learning a trade on the G.I.Bill. I did auto repairs at home for many years! And now, i do lawn tractor and mower repairs, for extra cash. How old am i? 86+. At least, i am staying active and healthy!
 
(quoted from post at 21:58:23 11/24/10) I heard that in 1960 you could go into some banks and lay down a dollar bill and get a 1 ounce silver coin. (is this true?)

That silver coin is now 26 George Washingtons!

I wasnt born yet in 1960 so I dont know if its true.
Click to expand...

Until 1964 the dollar bills were Silver Certificates. After that they are Federal Reserve Notes. Until 1968 the Silver Certificates could be redeemed for silver coin and later silver bullion. Today any Silver Certificates are still legal tender but cannot be redeemed for silver.
 
I have about 40 of them that I paid $5.50 for in the mid 1990's. The last I bought were around $17.00. I haven't bought any since then, too high I think. The last gold I bought was around $560.00 an ounce.

Watch to see what the majority of the folks are doing, then do the opposite.

Gene
 
When I was perhaps 5 years old, the bank tellers had coin trays with a row of silver dollars in them; bottom row. I though they were really neat, but never had any money to buy a few. That was back in the days that a silver certificate could be redeemed for a silver dollar. (not anymore though.) Our federal reserve notes are now about as worthless as "teats on a boar," but as long as the mindset continues wrt money, it still works.
 
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