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.

@gofg

Sure, and some workplaces have a subsidised canteen. Not really the point?

The point is there is no need to make thermoses of coffee, so why moan about the time it takes?????

Yes, of course you don't need coffee (or tea). But that's taking Puritanism to the extreme, I think.

My point was that people tend to blame things like a takeaway sandwich and coffee for the fact younger people can't save much money, and point out that you could easily bring your lunch from home. And of course you absolutely can (or you can just do without coffee, yes). But, TBH, the amount of time it takes to organise home-made substitutes isn't necessarily worth it for our time-poor generation.

My mum wouldn't understand that, because to her all of those little jobs were part of her standard day as a SAHM - five minutes making a few sandwiches or washing all the lunchboxes was nothing to her, because she had quite a lot of spare time once we were all in school.

@BarbaraofSeville

Well it depends.

For many, it's not just the single £3 coffee, it's a £3 coffee and a bought lunch, and a takeaway once or twice a week and the difference in the cost of the latest iphone replaced every 2 years, compared with a cheaper but still perfectly decent smart phone used until it breaks, and fast fashion and cocktails and a new car on PCP and tattoos, hair, nails and beauty treatments etc etc etc.

That can all add up to thousands of pounds a year and a couple of years of cutting down by 80% probably is a house deposit in much of the country.

Absolutely correct.

I’m in my early 50s, yet even I can remember a world before smartphones, Costabucks, deliveroo, Pret sandwiches, gym memberships, Netflix etc etc and in which a ‘beauty regime’ meant buying a few bits of makeup in Boots and getting your hair cut every couple of months. People spend many hundreds of pounds a month on this stuff and wonder why they can’t save up enough for a deposit on a flat. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sometimes though @SarahAndQuack when I top up the car and the petrol station has plainish: tuna, prawn, ham and cheese sarnies reduced to 29p, it does give me a thrill to buy half a dozen, bung them in the freezer and bung last night's leftover salad in them in the morning

@RosesAndHellebores

Sometimes though *@SarahAndQuack* when I top up the car and the petrol station has plainish: tuna, prawn, ham and cheese sarnies reduced to 29p, it does give me a thrill to buy half a dozen, bung them in the freezer and bung last night's leftover salad in them in the morning

That is much more organized than I will ever be!

@SarahAndQuack

One of the things that bugs me about the whole 'buying takeaway coffee is why young people can't afford houses' issue is that it presumes domestic life is still set up the way it was in the 70s/80s. If you're two working parents leaving the house at 7 or 8 am, which is lots of us, making x number of packed lunches and thermoses of coffee isn't necessarily a sensible use of time. It might be, I'm not knocking it, but it might actually be more efficient to buy a sandwich.

This is something my mum really doesn't get. She tries, but I think she forgets that our generation are often much more time-poor than hers was.

All very well, we have always been 2 working parents, and our children were born in the '90s. We absolutely did not have the money to buy lunch/coffee out, could not afford school dinners for the DC. It may be efficient to buy a sandwich, but we just didn't have the budget for it. And amongst our friends and colleagues in London suburbs that was pretty standard. My mum also worked, we were always skint until I was about 16, when she was able to gain a professional qualification. When I say skint, I mean no money for eating out, parties, coffee out. We did have a house that my parents had bought at the beginning of the 60's but it was cold, never new furniture, decorating and repairs were done by my parents ( or mum after they split up).Uniform and clothes were 2nd hand. We lived in what is now quite an expensive area of London, most of the houses were quite run down and shabby, lots of HMOs and squats. It was easier to buy a house not only because prices were comparatively lower, but you didn't need much of a deposit - we had less than a 5% deposit when we bought our first house. There was a point when you borrow more than 100% of the price .Mortgage payments were not cheaper than rent, as they are now. Child care was cheaper ( though still expensive) and maternity pay was less and for a shorter amount of time. Getting a council flat was possibility - if you put your name down for one you would eventually ( maybe 5 years down the line even) get one. These days, only those in the most urgent need are even considered for housing in London. I think that has had a big impact on housing costs all round. It's very difficult for young people today, even those with good salaries cannot afford to buy in large part of the country, and rents are spiralling upwards. Comparisons are not really helpful.

@DelphiniumBlue, I absolutely wasn't trying to make you feel bad, and I'm sorry if I did so. Nor to suggest that it's not difficult for young people. It's really difficult. But I think saying 'comparisons are not really helpful' is a problem, because of course families compare - it's human nature that you will think about what your mum did and what your own children are doing, and so on. IMO it's healthier to talk about it than not. My mum doesn't get everything right (who does? I'm sure I don't), but I do appreciate that she will have these conversations and will try to understand what's different for me than for her.

SarahAndQuack* I think it was the implication that it's only these days that working parents are time poor that riled me. I think things were much harder for working parents previously just because of things like 24/7 supermarkets and home deliveries. My mum really struggled with things like doing the shopping because the shops were closed when she got out of work, and only open half days on Saturdays. She used to have give up her job in the school summer holidays because there wasn't childcare, which meant she had to do fairly low level temp work until we were old enough to leave for the working day.
I felt your comment about your Mum having time to make sandwiches because she was a SAHM might be true in your case but we can't extrapolate about general conditions from that.
My comment about comparisons was from the point of view that some things are harder now, but some are much much easier, especially for single parent families. I'm not at all convinced that the current generation is more time poor than previous ones.
You didn't make me feel bad, just annoyed, and I'm sorry that tone came across in my reply. I agree it is important that conversations are had.

I'm sorry, that was really thoughtless of me, you're right. I don't think working parents have ever not been time poor. It's interesting, though - my gran worked full time, and she was a huge fan of any kind of consumer good that would save her time, even if it was really, truly crap. It bothers me that two generations later, there is still quite a heavy moral value attached to doing domestic chores rather than paying for them to be done for you. I think that is really gendered, and I think it's something that intersects with actual cost of living in quite pernicious ways.

@BarbaraofSeville

Well it depends.

For many, it's not just the single £3 coffee, it's a £3 coffee and a bought lunch, and a takeaway once or twice a week and the difference in the cost of the latest iphone replaced every 2 years, compared with a cheaper but still perfectly decent smart phone used until it breaks, and fast fashion and cocktails and a new car on PCP and tattoos, hair, nails and beauty treatments etc etc etc.

That can all add up to thousands of pounds a year and a couple of years of cutting down by 80% probably is a house deposit in much of the country.

But this is the avocado on toast argument isn't it which has been used by the haves about the have nots forever? If young people simply forwent their tattoos they could all live in detached houses in Richmond.

Working class women have always used takeaways to some extent because both parents would be working long hours and were time poor, they often lacked the fuel and cooking facilities to lovingly bake their own bread even if they wished to. The fact is they could fill their families with cheap loaves from the baker cheaper. In my day it was the cheap portions of chips from the end of batch for the kids when parents were working late hours. These days - its cheap chicken shops which fill up a family for a fraction of the cost of that healthy nutritious meal which assumes time, access to low cost goods and cooking resources.

The point is discretionary spending on items may be relatively cheaper but the cost of a roof over your head is astronomical compared to 40/50 years ago.

Deregulating the rental market has pushed rents up not down, as well as loading costs of moving with little warning on the renter. Buying costs massively more as a ratio of price to wages than when I was in my 20s. When I graduated in the 80s my first flat in a decentish area of zone three with good connections cost about 2.5 times my then public sector salary. Interest rates were high but we had double MIRAS tax relief on the interest which made quite a dent in that headline interest rate.

That same property is now 15 times the salary of the same job. Find a mortgage broker who can get you a mortgage of 15 times your salary. The capital deposit needed is also 15 times higher as it is still at least 10%. Whilst trying to save they have to pay much higher rents proportionately than we did and have less security of tenure.

I'd have to forego one hell of a lot of tattoos to bridge that gap.

My DC in the UK are all mid late 20s on professional salaries but their only hope of getting on the property ladder in the SE is with substantial family help toward large deposits. Eldest DC lives in Europe and was able to buy a decent property in a nice area for the kind of multiple we were looking at in the early/mid 80s. Before buying, good quality and affordable rentals were available to allow saving.

The housing market in many parts of the UK is a total mess at the moment and only serves those who own, it certainly does nothign to encourage or support those who aspire.

I remember new clothes being something you chose (occasionally) from a catalogue such as Littlewoods or Grattan and calculated the weekly cost and paid by bank giro credit.
We rented a TV for many years.
Eating out was a very rare treat and even then it was scampi and chips or chicken and chips in a basket in a pub. So whilst housing costs were cheap other things were not. Also interest rates were much higher. When we bought our current house in 1992 we had a 9.95% fixed rate deal which we thought was a bargain. (especially as base rate hit 15% the day before we completed).
So cheap house prices didn't equate to very cheap mortgage payments.

@bigbluebus

I remember new clothes being something you chose (occasionally) from a catalogue such as Littlewoods or Grattan and calculated the weekly cost and paid by bank giro credit. We rented a TV for many years. Eating out was a very rare treat and even then it was scampi and chips or chicken and chips in a basket in a pub. So whilst housing costs were cheap other things were not. Also interest rates were much higher. When we bought our current house in 1992 we had a 9.95% fixed rate deal which we thought was a bargain. (especially as base rate hit 15% the day before we completed). So cheap house prices didn't equate to very cheap mortgage payments.

I remember rental TV and clothes in weekly parts to reduce the initial outlay. But the key point of your post is that housing costs were cheap. Everything else pretty much is elective, a roof over your head is not.

In 1992 that 9.95% interest rate still benefited from MIRAS tax relief.

I also remember a dearth of private rental properties in the early 80s and what was available was dire. Compare now ro the choice available for 20 somethings in London. DS's gf rents a nice house in SW London with three others for about a third of her salary. I don't recall that being possible in the early 80s - not to the same standard at least.

Not sure if already mentioned but dress making and making your own home furnishing were the norm but sewing is now an expensive hobby.

BleuJay my DM and I loved dressmaking, my DM paid quite a bit for Vogue patterns and looked a million dollars in a camel coat and trouser suit she made.

On the time poor front.. if you didn’t have a dishwasher or a washing machine, and general labour saving devices Weren’t as efficient, and there were no supermarkets, there was less time, not more . Many people had one car or no car, no supermarkets, minimal labour saving devices. No take aways, no eating out and far fewer holidays. If a woman worked and had a family, there was far more to do and far less time to do it in. Usually with no help from her husband.

LookslovelyinSpringtime
I'm always in swe of how my mum kept a slick and span house with 4 of us and no washing machine, drier or dishwasher until we were all teenagers. She said cleaning just turned into her hobby. (I am the worst cleaner in the world so we obviously didn't share that particular down time)