So how much did it cost...

GeorgeHowell

PasturesNew wrote: »

To make them really exciting to buy .... the mystical and magical secret hidden boxes of treasure behind the big sliding doors.... every kid's gotta wonder....

It may indeed be a futile move. But if no young people did take up smoking, as someone previously alleged, then even a futile gesture would not be necessary, would it.

GeorgeHowell

ash28 wrote: »

We got married in the mid 1970s, I didn't have anything except my clothes. We had a stereo at home but it had been a joint Xmas present between 4 kids so I couldn't really take my share with me.

OH, however had a black and white portable tv, he'd rescued it from the rubbish collection his parent's neighbours had put out, he repaired it. And that was our tv until 1983.

When we bought a colour portable for £199 on hire purchase. We did rent a VCR (betamax) with the opener on the top of the machine - and the remote was fixed to the VCR by a cable. I can't remember how much it cost a month now. To rent a film video was around £3 a day and to buy a film on video was around £60 - £100 (we didn't own any).

We owned a tumble dryer - a small one - it cost around £99 in 1976, we had a twin tub washing machine until 1982 that cost about £150, our first automatic washing machine cost £200 - that was in 1982. (No idea of the cost in "todays" money). But you can buy all of those things (at the cheap end) for a similar amount of money today.

They were all bought on hire purchase. We couldn't pull that sort of money out of a month's wages. Today we could buy those things out of a month's money and not have to save or take them on credit.

In about 1987 we bought a 21" tv and video player - they were from Dixons and were the cheapest we could get at the time - the tv cost £200 and the video recorder cost £300. They were Dixon's own brand Matsui. We couldn't afford anything else.

We used to buy our kids blank video cassettes as part of their Xmas presents as they were quite expensive. They weren't something that you popped in your shopping trolley as you went around the supermarket.

In the early 1990s we bought an IBM home computer, it cost £2000, and the memory was 16mb (those were the days). It had 2 x 8mb chips we increased the memory to 48mb by buying a 32mb chip (fortunately the pc didn't need matched pairs of chips) the cost for the chip was about £100.

The internet used to cost us £20 a month in the days before broadband, it was cheaper for us to have a contract rather than pay as you go. And our early broadband used to cost about £30 a month.

Our phone bills in the 1980s used to be around £50 - £60 a quarter. Today for a similar amount of money we get unlimited calls and broadband. (We pay our line rental annually which gives a big saving). By the late 1990s our phone bills were like a mortgage payment - the kids had discovered mobile phones and used to ring their friends mobiles from the landline. We used to have our calls routed through Sky and Sky billed them monthly - it wasn't unusual for a months Sky and phone to be over £300.

I also smoked and drank, gave dinner parties, barbecues, New Year parties, kids parties and had holidays abroad. I also have all (well some) of the gadgets I guess, iphone, Galaxy tablet (don't like the ipad - can't expand the memory - cost extra to have a sim card slot and doesn't support flash player)

In 1987 we took the kids on holiday to Ibiza (I can remember that one because the day we travelled was one of the kids birthdays) and it cost about £800 for 5 of us. That was 2nd June. That was our first holiday abroad with the kids.

Just had a look and you can get a similar holiday at the same accommodation (wow) and from the same airport for a family of 5 for £1724 next year on 5th June. I don't know whether that is more expensive or not.

http://www.thomascook.com/product/?brandCode=V&searchId=1343030747829&trail=19012%3A2_3_0_0_5_6_7_1%3A19008%3A05312013-06062013_06032013%3A19010%3AfacetGroup_1900019_0%3A62010%3ABalearic_Islands_-_Any%3A19002%3AfacetGroup_1800011_0&tcSearchResultId=AIRHOL%40789484-&sortOrder=ASC&journey=normal&srpTrail=19012%3A2_3_0_0_5_6_7_1%3A19008%3A05312013-06062013_06032013%3A19010%3AfacetGroup_1900019_0%3A62010%3ABalearic_Islands_-_Any%3A19002%3AfacetGroup_1800011_0&productId=prod1392241&sortingBy=PRICE&resultsCount=91&pageNum=1&searchType=tc&roomCodes=62BSTZ%40&dd=06052013&accomIndex=1

Although the top of the page says Portugal - they are actually in Ibiza and if you hit "continue" it is Ibiza - I recognise the inside - we were there more than once.





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All pretty representative. But the anti-boomer wind-up brigade know that, they know that in many way the boomer generation was not better off in their youth than today's youth are.

What they resent is what many of the older generation have now.

Confronted with others who are better off than themselves most human being react it one of two ways : either (1) how I can aspire to and achieve what they have, or (2) how can I take it away from them, preferably to have it myself, but at the very least to stop them from having more than me.

These two stances encapsulate the two main political doctrines of the democractic world. #2 represents people who support what has been rightly called the "politics of envy". I would bet that the young turks beating on about the evil, greedy, baby boomers impoverishing successive generations are of that political persuasion.

Andy_L

mystic_trev wrote: »

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?

Just looking at inflation its £981.50

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

Carl31

So, based on what a few have said on here, technology and cost of living, utilites etc.. were a lot higher in the past, yet people still had them, and managed to buy houses?
But nowadays, if you have an iphone, you have written off any possibility of a financially secure future?
interesting

seven-day-weekend

mystic_trev wrote: »

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?

We bought our first home computer (BBC Model at about the same time, for the same price, it was run by a cassette tape deck and had instructions like 'now turn off your tape machine' and you connected it to your telly. Read about this miracle of Technology here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro

We also had a thick book called 'How to use your Pocket Calculator'.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

ash28 wrote: »

We used to buy our kids blank video cassettes as part of their Xmas presents as they were quite expensive.
.

I remember my brother and I having to share one VHS tape in the mid 80s. The only thing we could agree on was Bond films, so we had A View to A Kill for ages, arguably one of the worst Bonds. My best friend, her sister and I all got Walkmans (well, Argos own brand personal stereos) for Christmas in 1988 and had one cassette each.

The ease of access to such a wide range of STUFF is what strikes me about today's teens. I'm in my early 30s and as a teenager buying CDs and videos represented real effort. An ex-chart CD would be ~£13, and I'd have to either walk 40 mins to the nearest small town, or sit on an infrequent bus for 40 mins to a slightly bigger town (choice of Our Price or John Menzies). As I used to earn £1 per hour babysitting, a new album was a real investment at that price. Now everyone has bazillions of tunes on their fancy phones that they flick through without a thought, or you can click on play.com and order an album for less than a fiver.

My babyboomer dad loves his ipad though; I hope the thought of his pleasure gives RuggedToast a stomach ache.

ukcarper

Carl31 wrote: »

So, based on what a few have said on here, technology and cost of living, utilites etc.. were a lot higher in the past, yet people still had them, and managed to buy houses?
But nowadays, if you have an iphone, you have written off any possibility of a financially secure future?
interesting

No what you have to ask yourself how did people manage to save the deposit then and can't now especially in the periods when house prices were similar to now.

Graham_Devon

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

The ease of access to such a wide range of STUFF is what strikes me about today's teens. I'm in my early 30s and as a teenager buying CDs and videos represented real effort. An ex-chart CD would be ~£13, and I'd have to either walk 40 mins to the nearest small town, or sit on an infrequent bus for 40 mins to a slightly bigger town (choice of Our Price or John Menzies). As I used to earn £1 per hour babysitting, a new album was a real investment at that price. Now everyone has bazillions of tunes on their fancy phones that they flick through without a thought, or you can click on play.com and order an album for less than a fiver.

I'm not sure if it was just being younger, or whether teens still get a thrill out of buying an album today....but it certainly used to mean more to me after browsing in woolies and buying an album o game than it does now.

However, things have changed and I have changed. Instant gratification can be had via Itunes for films, videos etc. Should think it's a combination of the two.

Christmas used to be loads better as a kid too! Think things just change as you age.

ukcarper

I can remember buying an album in the sixties was a completely different experience. Thumbing through all the covers and then going into the booth to listen to your choice. I can’t imagine downloading the latest track can be as satisfying.

GeorgeHowell

ukcarper wrote: »

No what you have to ask yourself how did people manage to save the deposit then and can't now especially in the periods when house prices were similar to now.

If you look at house prices and the deposits usually required as a proportion of average income it is a lot more now. It's not so easy to save up for a deposit as it used to be-- and it was never easy. A lot of them need help from families -- and a lot of them get it.

However this reality of the supply and demand of the housing market does not justify the vitriol fired at a whole generation by certain members of younger generation/s.

I happen to believe that not all of the younger generation sees is that way, as is evidenced by some of the posts. The ones who peddle this c**p, on this forum and elsewhere, are no doubt the types with a big chip on their shoulder, an envious & embittered nature, and unwillingness to attribute any of their failures and disappointments to their own shortcomings -- it's always got to be someone else's fault. Such individuals transcend all generations -- there are baby boomers like it, and there are younger people like it. In my experience, thankfully, they are always in the minority.