You watch old movies where the characters go out to dinner and the movies and it only costs a few dollars. You hear stories from parents or grandparents about how they paid a few cents for a piece of candy when they were kids.
You hear stories about how a single income could support an entire family comfortably decades ago. You wonder why and how prices have become so high that the idea of something costing just a couple dollars doesn’t feel real.
The short answer is inflation. While many of us are making more money that generations in the past, it is not necessarily going as far because the cost of everything else has also gone up.
Food, housing, gas and transportation, clothing, etc. The costs of goods now would probably seem entirely outrageous if we were able to show someone from 1940.
Let’s take a look at some old photos of menus, markets, housing and vehicle adds, and gas prices over the last 100 years.
An old McDonald’s menu showing all their meal options. Nothing was over $4An old diner menu where nothing costs more than $1.00A grocer’s window display showing oranges for a penny and grapefruits for 5 centsA hot shave for 10 cents and a restaurant menu on the window next door1969 and 1970’s cars for well below $3000Grocery store signs. Nothing over $1.00 in sightLess than $1000 to furnish an entire, brand new house in ChicagoA deli menu with sandwiches that cost a few dollarsFresh eggs for 19 centsA gallon of gas for 22 centsA beach stand snack and food shop. The sandwich bar menu shows sandwiches and burgers for around 30 centsLess than $1000 for all the materials needed to build a brand new homeA Led Zeppelin concert ticket in 1973 for $5.00Full homes for less than $17,000Stylish new pants for less than $5.00A butcher menu showing the low cost of meatThe cost of delivery a baby and a hospital stay in 1957A $59.00 hospital discharge receipt from 1933A very old McDonald’s menu A coupon menu Monthly mortgage payments for $47.00A $2.00 ticket to the orchestra in 1960$170 for the cost of one semester at Harvard in 1869An old-school KFC menuThe cost of living breakdown from 1938 A cocktail menu with drinks that cost around $1.50
