So how much did it cost...

Graham_Devon

In the 1970s/80s to:

- Rent a TV
- Rent a VCR
- Rent a washing machine
- Have a landline telephone

Then how much would that be in today's money?

Anyone?

It's just all kicking off on a guardian article between the boomers and the 20/30 somethings. You know the score, every 20/30 something just see's "ipod, iphone, trainers, fags, booze" and nothing else. Apparnely we use said iphones to book our 3 foreign holidays a year.

Though many will admit to "only" having a rented TV, washing machine and VCR, and had to make do. Apparently no one in that age smoked if they owned a house either...yer...really!

So wondering how many iphone contracts you could get compared to the VCR, TV and BT landline payments.

mystic_trev

I bought my first VHS recorder in 1982 and it cost......wait for it.....wait for it.......£325 :eek:Don't know what that would equate to now, £1,500?

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

In the 1970s/80s to:

- Rent a TV
- Rent a VCR
- Rent a washing machine
- Have a landline telephone

Then how much would that be in today's money?

Anyone?

It's just all kicking off on a guardian article between the boomers and the 20/30 somethings. You know the score, every 20/30 something just see's "ipod, iphone, trainers, fags, booze" and nothing else. Apparnely we use said iphones to book our 3 foreign holidays a year.

Though many will admit to "only" having a rented TV, washing machine and VCR, and had to make do. Apparently no one in that age smoked if they owned a house either...yer...really!

So wondering how many iphone contracts you could get compared to the VCR, TV and BT landline payments.

I didn't have any of those before I got married or for the first year after I did, mind you I don't think VCR were available.

Rented a black and white tv and got phone installed after about a year can't remember cost.

I don't know anyone who rented either a washing machine or VCR.

James_N

Graham_Devon wrote: »

In the 1970s/80s to:

- Rent a TV
- Rent a VCR
- Rent a washing machine
- Have a landline telephone

Then how much would that be in today's money?

Anyone?

It's just all kicking off on a guardian article between the boomers and the 20/30 somethings. You know the score, every 20/30 something just see's "ipod, iphone, trainers, fags, booze" and nothing else. Apparnely we use said iphones to book our 3 foreign holidays a year.

Though many will admit to "only" having a rented TV, washing machine and VCR, and had to make do. Apparently no one in that age smoked if they owned a house either...yer...really!

So wondering how many iphone contracts you could get compared to the VCR, TV and BT landline payments.

I remember saving to buy our first child's shoes, and the struggle to buy School Uniform.

Generali

I don't remember anyone having VCRs in the 1970s. They first sold in large numbers in the early 80s for the Charles & Dianna wedding. Whatever happened to her BTW? She seemed like such a nice girl.

These guys reckon that a TV cost £290 in 1977 (equivalent to about £1600 now). That would have cost about a ball park £8/month to rent I would guess on the basis that you pay the outright cost of the product in about 3 years when you rent. It might have been a bit more though as inflation was high at the time.

A basic fridge cost £200 (£1100 today) so perhaps £5 a month.

Let's not forget the reason that people rented TVs etc was that for large periods during the 1970s, hire purchase was not widely available by Government diktat. This was a misguided attempt to control inflation without tackling the money supply. During the 1960s, plenty of people bought furniture and consumer goods on HP my parents amongst them.

My father was a smoker when he and my mother bought their first house in 1967/8. They got a subsidised mortgage from ILEA as Mum was a teacher. The house was furnished with G Plan and Ercol (very bourgeois) bought on HP. They rented a black and white TV.

It was illegal for a private individual to own a phone at the time. You had to rent one from the state owned monopoly (Post Office).

abaxas

You are probably right. The iphone is the new cigs.

Graham_Devon

What I'm trying to gather is what the equivalent rent vs the equivalent phone contract.

It's unfair really to compare a low cost rental item in the 70/80's to the top of the range iphone contract. So we'd need to compare say a mid range TV to a mid range Phone contract.

But then apparently, as us 20/30 somethings are all self employed freelancers avoiding jobs as were too idle (hence why so many more are now self employed apparenlty), were all putting our iphones and pads through the books and claiming tax back....so apparently we've got even more money as were not paying the same amounts of tax as people did in the 70/80's and with mortgage payments compared to income being the lowest ever, none of us have any excuses when it comes to buying a home.

Anyway, just thought it would be interesting to compare some real world figures. Though it may not be interesting at all. Just found the war on the guardian pretty amusing. Anyway, I'm off now to chuck my iphone that I don't owninto my local river for a bit of fun....I'll be back later when I've been to the ishop to buy another in order to book my 3rd exotic holiday this year.

Generali

Quarterly phone and line rental was £8.25 in 1976 (£33/year). That excluded VAT so would be £35.64 including VAT. (LINK)

In 1976 the average wage was about £72/week (link) so a phone (excluding calls) would take you 2.5 days work per year to earn (gross).

Now the average wage is about £26,000/year or £500/week. Let's assume a smartphone will last you 2 years (mine is almost 3 years old and still going strong-ish). An iPhone 4s is £500 or 2.5 days wages per year! (link).

mystic_trev

Can't help you with the rental figures Graham, although (like many people) our Television came via Radio rentals in the late 50's. No upgrades then, you were stuck with the tele you got, and ours only had 425 lines which meant we couldn't get BBC2 when it started, as that only transmitted with the more modern Tele's wot had 625 lines :mad:How envious we are of those who had an additional channel:rotfl:

Graham_Devon

Generali wrote: »

Quarterly phone and line rental was £8.25 in 1976 (£33/year). That excluded VAT so would be £35.64 including VAT. (LINK)

In 1976 the average wage was about £72/week (link) so a phone (excluding calls) would take you 2.5 days work per year to earn (gross).

Now the average wage is about £26,000/year or £500/week. Let's assume a smartphone will last you 2 years (mine is almost 3 years old and still going strong-ish). An iPhone 4s is £500 or 2.5 days wages per year! (link).

So comparing the standard phone with the high end phone, the cost is the same!

I know it won't stop the condeming, but I just got so bored of it, so wanted to know if theres actually any relevance in it. It's prevelant with a lot of people supporting the view on the guardian, that people could afford a house if they didn't have an iphone, a frapachino twice a day and didn't spend £100 every weekend on alcohol.

I'm wondering what makes that view so prevelant, and get such a backing.

The whole "we didn't have central heating" thing is going on too. But it wasn't even available, and comparatively, it doesn't cost more now. Heating cost is heating cost, regardless of the process used to create the energy. I don't for instance go around thinking I'm £10 a week better off as I don't have to buy coal to burn on the fire. But it seems many appear to believe that they never had to even buy that coal, didn't need warmth, and that people want it all today with central heating. They just write the central heating down as a cost and see the coal as a total irrelevance.

grizzly1911

- Rent a TV
- Rent a VCR
- Rent a washing machine
- Have a landline telephone

Not many of my friends or relatives rented Tv/VCR/ Washing Machines.

As Gen says therewas only the BT rented phone for the average Joe.

One reason TVs and VCRs were rented, apart from the purchase price, was that they were more unreliable certainly in the 70s early 80s and needed fixing more.

I will look out the records but for our first purchases. I can remember buying an AKAI separates hifi (25RMS good middle range) for £275 in around 1980 with one of my first pay cheque.

When we got married in September 87 we tried to make do with a B&W portable but gave in quite quickly. first colour TV was a Toshiba 21/22" manual for around £250. We brought a cheap manual VCR Hinari for about £200 from the "real" COOP one of the few supermarkets to sell electrical then.

Back then you tended to buy something and it would last many years as far as model specification went. We didn't have the 12 monthly upgrades and varying platforms. We also didn't have the amount of choice for brands of any sort in clothes, for example, it tended to be Levis and Adidas.

Another difference was that you tended to save up more and buy it outright if you didn't go down the rent or more relatively tight HP route.