Was Life Really More Affordable in the Past?

Most of us have seen the memes about how life was more affordable in the past.

So lets get to the truth of the matter. Most of these memes reference the ‘50’s, ‘60’s, or even the ‘70’s. Most people who post these memes weren’t even alive during those times. with few others having reached adulthood. If they had been, they would know these memes are 80% BS and 20% half-truths. So let’s look at life “in the affordable good-old days”.

There were no home computers, smart phones, or internet with instant information seconds away. One had to do research in an encyclopedia which was usually years out of date. Most families couldn’t afford to buy them, so they had to use the set at the library or at school, often times fighting with someone else wanting to use the same book out of the set.

Families had a single, corded land-line phone, so it had to be shared with all other family members. If your family was well-off, they were able to avoid having a party-line (phone service that was shared with neighbors).

Most families had just one car as most couldn’t afford a second car. The only safety features were brakes and a shoulder-”less” seatbelt. Mechanical repairs often required guess work and took several attempts to fix because computerized diagnostic tools had yet to be invented.

The average house was half the size of a home today. Families were larger and most kids shared a bedroom with at least one other sibling. Many of the rooms only had two outlets because there wasn’t a need to have more. Families shared one television set, with the largest available being 23”. There were only four channels (NBC, ABC, CBS, and PBS). That was it. If you were lucky, your family could afford a color TV instead of boring black and white. There were no Nintendo, Xbox, or other gaming systems. Board games and cards were it for indoor entertainment.

Few families had a dishwasher or a clothes dryer. Mothers hung the wet wash on an outdoor clothes line to let them dry in nature’s breeze. Everyone saw your underwear and whatever stains existed in them.

Most kids didn’t go to college. They went to jobs in factories before those jobs got shipped overseas to pennies-on-the-dollar labor because people couldn’t afford to buy union labor products with their union labor retirement packages. Families didn’t divorce as often so a second home or rent wasn’t needed.

Junk food, while it existed, wasn’t nearly as prevalent. Colas came in one flavor, as did chips, pretzels, and most other snacks. Microwave ovens were for the rich. Bicycles were mostly one-speed, with no brakes other than slamming on the pedal in reverse to stop the chain from spinning the rear wheel. Cancer was an instant death sentence and aspirin was about the only over-the-counter pain killer.

People like to claim life is harder now, but for most of us, it’s only more difficult because keeping up with societal expectations has grown exponentially. Our grandparents were about one step up from being Amish. A lot more rungs have been added to the separation, with few willing to step back down to affordability.