cost of living - then and now

[EmmaGrundyForPM]

I'm really conscious of how expensive houses are now compared to when my parents bought their first home (in 1963). However, I'd not realised how expensive other things were back then.

I've just found a copy of "Good Housekeeping" magazine from 1955 in a box of stuff in our loft. There's an article about refrigerators and it says they start from 66Guineas. I Googled wages for that year and the average manual worker earned £10 per week. So a basic fridge would cost about 7 weeks salary. Now, a basic fridge is about £120 so maybe 13 hours work for a manual worker?

I also read an article online about Christmas food through the ages. Apparently in the 1930s, a turkey cost the equivalent of a weeks wages for the average family. Now, a turkey costs maybe 3 or 4 hours of work.

I think we concentrate on house price rises without thinking about how other costs have dropped.

Our mortgage interest was 15% at one point
But there was miras to mitigate the effects of high interest rates. Miras was taken away from owner-occupiers by Gordon Brown.

Goods and wages cheap

House prices high

Or cheaper housing

And

Higher wages and expensive s goods

House ownership wasn’t considered essential as renting was widespread through council housing & rents affordable

Our mortgage interest was 15% at one point

1992 the interest rate was 15%

The whole takeaway culture is interesting. As children in the 70s we weren’t allowed to eat or drink in the street as it was considered “vulgar” by my mum. We had to take it home and have it there. 😁

Its true about buying things to last. The furniture we found the receipts for has been kept/ given away or sold . We also kept a gplan dining table and chairs and bureau from the same era. I imagine they were even more expensive.

As a uni student over twenty years ago, t shirts and tops were about £20...now you can buy them in primark for a couple of pounds. I wish there had been such cheap clothes when I was younger!
But clothes lasted longer then. I said to my mum about wishing I could see better to mend clothes and keep using them and she said the materials now were too flimsy and it wouldn't work. She said she used to darn holes in socks but it's not possible now hence it's so cheap. Also on the cost of washing machines etc, our washing machine is still going after 25 years, our drier 30! my dads old record player still works after 50 years!! Totally different times, rubbish quality now

I don't understand how people are saying things aren't made to last. All our furniture is Ikea and some of it is over 20 years old and showing no sign of needing replacing.

I wish some of it would break so I could justify getting something new, because it's not really suitably sized and shaped any more and they seem to have some nicer things now, and when we bought the things, budget dictated that we got the lower priced items they sold.

Likewise our appliances, average lifespan seems to be at least 15-20 years and our fridge freezer is at least 22, all mid range brands like Hotpoint and Zanussi. I'm currently internally debating getting a new fridge freezer, because it is probably not quite as efficient as new ones, and the fridge part is a bit small for our needs, but it still works fine and I'm curious as to how long it will last, left to it's own devices.

Prices in comparison to wages haven't really changed that much, somethings are cheaper some dearer, it's just expectations that have changed!

I disagree completely when talking about house prices , which is most peoples main (and continuous) expense . House prices have risen far more sharply than wages. A quick Google tells me in 1980 the average salary was 6k and the average house price was 19k. Now the average house price is £240k . Wages have not gone up 12 x as much. The average MN wage might be £72k but in real life it isn't.
My parents bought a doer upper semi detached house in Outer London in the 1980s when my dad had a very average job and my mum was a SAHM. In 2018 their neighbours house sold for over £650k (it too was a doer upper) .That's over 20 times the average salary.

A quick Google tells me in 1980 the average salary was 6k and the average house price was 19k. Now the average house price is £240k . Wages have not gone up 12 x as much. The average MN wage might be £72k but in real life it isn't.

True, but nowadays it's typical for a couple to both work, a household income of £72k is not that unusual.

We used to rent our ansa machine. First video player was £100 which seemed a lot of money at the time. I can’t quite believe how much prices have gone up with houses. I know it’s supply and demand but it seems bonkers really. Is there really that much more demand for housing? Surely people have always needed houses.

@BarbaraofSeville how do you manage to get that long out of a washing machine. I got 7 out of a Bosch when the DC were teenagers and but I was doing 12 washes a week. Hoping to get longer now we are down to 5 or 6.

People always need houses but there used to be a lot of reasonably priced council houses which had the additional benefit that a private landlord would look stupid if the rents were too high , which prevents excessive house prices

Also I think we want more , people are more likely to want a house on their own when quite young , so the demand pool has grown quicker than the population

The population has grown and more people live alone, so the number of households has grown faster than the number of houses needed.

There's probably also been an increase in the number of people moving to London from other parts of the country. This was probably far less common before the 1980s?

This is illustrated by the difference in increase in house prices, the gains talked about in London and the SE are far greater than in other parts of the country, some places have barely even made it back up to pre 2007 crash levels.

In a way, counting both salaries in a couple for mortgages has not done anyone any favours, as it's normalised house prices against two incomes. Obviously women should be able to buy property on their own, but you don't have to count both salaries if two people are buying together, just the highest, then perhaps prices wouldn't have increased so much.

Because two full time salaries for the life of the mortgage probably isn't the norm anyway, due to redundancy, SAHP (or high childcare costs), separation, single people buying etc etc.

The population has grown and more people live alone, so the number of households has grown faster than the number of houses available.

Absolutely agree with @BarbaraofSeville. It's the dark side of equality.

We have a miele washing machine and tumble dryer. Both are 14 years old. Tbh the tumble dryer can often go months without being used and even in winter is probably used once or twice a fortnight. The washing machine was used on a daily basis when kids were little but now they are teen/tween we do 3 or 4 loads per week.
However the last fridge we had (admittedly nowhere near as expensive as miele) only lasted 2 or 3 years and we did have it repaired twice in that period, and the last dishwasher (Bosch) also only lasted about 3 years. The current dishwasher we bought second hand 2 years ago for £75 and is still doing ok (I've probably jinxed it now!)

@BarbaraofSeville

The population has grown and more people live alone, so the number of households has grown faster than the number of houses needed.

There's probably also been an increase in the number of people moving to London from other parts of the country. This was probably far less common before the 1980s?

This is illustrated by the difference in increase in house prices, the gains talked about in London and the SE are far greater than in other parts of the country, some places have barely even made it back up to pre 2007 crash levels.

In a way, counting both salaries in a couple for mortgages has not done anyone any favours, as it's normalised house prices against two incomes. Obviously women should be able to buy property on their own, but you don't have to count both salaries if two people are buying together, just the highest, then perhaps prices wouldn't have increased so much.

Because two full time salaries for the life of the mortgage probably isn't the norm anyway, due to redundancy, SAHP (or high childcare costs), separation, single people buying etc etc.

DM has no idea why DH and I both work when he (and actually I) are in well paid professions. Apart from her confusing civil engineering and building, she cannot grasp that the mortgage our modest hiuse in rural Wast Yorks was 4 x our joint salaries when we took it out, or that childcare for 2 effectively cost one salary for 2 or 3 years.

My first mortgage had an interest rate of 15%. It meant an entire salary from a couple was taken up with the payments. When interest rates went so high thousands of people lost their homes because they couldn’t afford the mortgage. House prices tumbled because people couldn’t afford to pay the interest rates. Many people found themselves in negative equity , where the house they’d bought was worth less than the mortgage . It caused a lot of misery and homelessness. I’ve had to delay having family because the mortgage was such a huge portion of household income. Just imagine this happening again if the interest rates increase from 5% to 10% and your mortgage payments double. This was in the early 90’s. There were some winners who bought a cheap house but a lot of losers s as well who were made homeless or trapped in a home worth less than they paid for it.

The price you paid for your house is published on the internet and she will have an idea about how much of a deposit you had, even if you really didn't talk about numbers, as she will likely know if you've had an inheritence, or you've had to save for years etc.

She must have some idea as to how much typical salaries are and what you earn compared with house prices? She'd only have 'no idea' if she's not thought about it at all. It's basic maths.

But then my DM told me yesterday in a surprised voice how the house down the road had sold in days for what she thought was a very high price (which was actually a good 10-15% less than I thought, so either someone's got a bargain, or it's gone for more than the asking price, time will tell) but she does generally know that there are barriers to house buying, DSis is in the classic rental trap of being unable to buy because she can't save a deposit because she's paying rent that leaves little available to save a deposit to buy.

@Dinosaurwoman

My first mortgage had an interest rate of 15%. It meant an entire salary from a couple was taken up with the payments. When interest rates went so high thousands of people lost their homes because they couldn’t afford the mortgage. House prices tumbled because people couldn’t afford to pay the interest rates. Many people found themselves in negative equity , where the house they’d bought was worth less than the mortgage . It caused a lot of misery and homelessness. I’ve had to delay having family because the mortgage was such a huge portion of household income. Just imagine this happening again if the interest rates increase from 5% to 10% and your mortgage payments double. This was in the early 90’s. There were some winners who bought a cheap house but a lot of losers s as well who were made homeless or trapped in a home worth less than they paid for it.

At his mother’s funeral, one of FIL’s memories of her was that when the interest rate went up to 20%, she sent him a cheque for £500 (unpromted), so he could the mortgage for a few months. Late 70s that was a heck of a lot of money. DB and his brother were both under18 mon to Ed old. FiL later found out that his mum had borrowed that money.

DH and I were astounded at that interest rate. Our mortgage is 21 years old this month, and we’ve never paid more than 5%, currently far less.

I'm not a smoker but it always staggers me how expensive smoking has become. I understand it's over a tenner a pack these days - not even for 20??
When I was a kid in the 80's, I remember going to the local Spar and seeing the cigs behind the counter. Packs of 10 Marlborough were £1.20!

It’s supposed to be a deterrent. Plus some of the money goes to the Treasury!

@SMabbutt

I think people need to remember wages were often very low for the average working man and worse for women. There was no minimum wage and I remember working a waking overnight shift in a nursing home for £1.10 an hour in 1992. Yes house prices were relatively cheap, but borrowing was very expensive in the late 80s and early 90s. In fact our mortgage interest rate was in double figures when we bought our 1st home. When my parents bought their 1st home in 1960 they only got a mortgage because the lender agreed to take my mum's wages in to account, which was quite unusual then. On the other hand people didn't expect to have all the mod cons as soon as they moved in to a home. We had second hand furniture and no washing machine in our first couple of years. A dishwasher wasn't an essential in a kitchen and you knew you had to save up to get things. Having said that our 1st washing machine and hoover lasted years, unlike todays appliances. It was just a different world. Weddings weren't the masively expensive production people demand today, many honeymoons were in the uk in a bnb unless you had a good career and any hen or stag do was a few pints down the local or a trip to the local night club not a weekend/ week of major expense. For me given the choice between spending £20k on hen, stag and wedding productions, or putting it to a house deposit there'd be no contest. Not that either was an option for us anyway. Everyone has the right to set their own priorities but I can't be overly sympathetic when people blow so much cash on such things but moan they can't save for a house deposit.

The thing is though people aren't spending their own 20k on the wedding/holiday etc. They are probably borrowing it. So it's not like they could use that on a house deposit anyway because they didn't have it in the first place.

We are a consumption driven economy now. Plain and simple.

When I was a kid in the 80's, I remember going to the local Spar and seeing the cigs behind the counter. Packs of 10 Marlborough were £1.20!

When I was a teenager in the 70s, the local shop used to sell us one or two cigarettes. At university in the late 70s, we didn't have anywhere near as many clothes, as young people seem to have nowadays - maybe 3 pairs of jeans/cords, 3 blouses, 3 jumpers, a pair of trainers, a winter coat and for the summer a dress, a skirt, a pair of sandals and a t shirt! I never had any smart going out clothes, like a dress for a uni ball or a nightclub. (We didn't have to wear one, we just wore our every day clothes.) I was blown away when I started work, and I bought my first sweatshirt!

DH never had a takeaway or any foreign food as a child - he had his first pizza at 21, as his sister bought it. He had 2 jumpers when I met him!

We have the most expensive childcare in the developed world and some of the lowest quality. Go UK!

I think you'll find that NZ wins the trophy for most expensive childcare in the developed world. We are the 2nd.(latest figures 2018/2019)