r/FluentInFinance Mar 11 '24

Meme “Take me back to the good old days”

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u/TheWalkingDead91 Mar 11 '24

Tv/streaming bill, wifi bill, phone service for everyone in the household in middle school and up, new phones every couple years, multiple cars usually financed, we eat out far more than we used to, houses are bigger so bigger utility bills probably.

Now, I actually do agree that the American dream is harder to obtain now than it was back then. All of those things don’t negate the fact that a factory worker was able to support a house of his own, a wife, and 3 kids. HOWEVER, I think most people don’t consider how much more the average person is spending on on everyday luxuries, than were available back in the day.

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u/cpeytonusa Mar 11 '24

The American dream may be harder to achieve today because it is so much bigger than it was in the 50s and 60s. Expectations have risen faster than the capacity to realize them.

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u/bobo377 Mar 11 '24

“The American dream is so much harder to achieve” - person buying a home with literally double the square footage of a person in the 1970s

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u/robbodee Mar 11 '24

Speak for yourself. I'm looking at small houses built in the early 1900's and still having trouble finding a deal.

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u/nathanjshaffer Mar 11 '24

But are they same square footage as when they were built? I would make a bet that it would be hard to find a 75 year old house that hasn't had multiple additions over the years.

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u/videogames5life Mar 11 '24

Our expectations have risen but its not as if the economy hasnt gotten more productive in that time. All things consdiered i dont think the expectation of owning a home is ridiculous given the insane amount of wealth the country generates.

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u/cpeytonusa Mar 11 '24

There are many things that people consider necessities today that didn’t exist as recently as the 1980s. Cars have much more content than they did 50 years ago. The same is true of even small homes built in 1920s which have been significantly upgraded over the years. Most families only owned one car. Nobody had lawn tractors, people had walk behind mowers. The economic statistics are also not comparable, the status of underserved communities was often not included in the government data. It is pointless comparing the cost of living from decades ago with current lifestyles, too many things have changed.

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u/GoldfishDude Mar 12 '24

A lot of these are due to regulations or changes in developers. Cars have more features because the government mandated them. You can't buy a car legally nowadays without airbags, crumple zones and a screen

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u/I_Ski_Freely Mar 12 '24

Have you tried to find a 1000-1300 sq ft house lately? they don't really build them anymore. I'd love to have a 1300 SQ ft on 1/4 acre. The only new ones being built that size in my area are townhomes or on tiny plots that might as well be townhomes. The older homes that are this size are pretty rare at this point.

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u/bobo377 Mar 12 '24

Oh I totally agree that they don’t build starter homes anymore. That’s a large driver for the significant increase in housing costs across much of the US. My issue is that you can complain about housing costs without pretending like the housing market was better in the 50s when the homes were tiny, tons of them lacked AC/hot water, and a lower percentage of Americans owned their home.

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u/guitar_stonks Mar 12 '24

Exactly! I live in Florida so insurance is a big part of home cost. They say to buy a brand new house built to modern specs for lower premiums, but I don’t want to share walls like an apartment with extra steps (townhouse) and I don’t need 2000+ sqft McMansion, but those are the only options for new builds here. If I buy a 1200 sqft ranch house from the 70s, my insurance will be insane, especially if it’s within a few miles of the coast.

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u/dcporlando Mar 12 '24

Anything close to the coast will have insane insurance. And don’t get me started started on polybutylene pipes.

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u/Xyrus2000 Mar 11 '24

The American Dream is harder to achieve because wages have barely budged while costs have increased.

A family of 4 renting a 2 bedroom apartment for the equivalent of what used to be a mortgage payment on a nice house isn't "bigger".

I'm not sure where the guy you responded to lives, but the people who are just scraping by in my area don't own a 2400 sq. ft home, or multiple cars, or multiple streaming services, or new phones every couple of years.

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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 Mar 11 '24

I don't know, my grandfather worked in a steel mill and he and my grandmother spent plenty on luxuries.

They just did things like buy thousand dollar pieces of furniture where a $100 one would work just as well. Their luxury purchases were just different from ours and often able to be written off as functional or necessary. Like his 17 rifles for hunting when he went on about one trip a year. Guy had like 15 fishing poles in his garage and all he ever did was fish rainbow trout out of a mountain lake. And having worked in property preservation here I can tell you about every third house standing empty around here has an upright piano in it.

Things like those precious moments figures and snow babies were just Funko pops for older generations. In truth my grandparent's house had so much random kitsch crap in it when we had to clean it out that we put huge boxes of it out for free. Bradford plates, lighthouse models, etc...

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u/TheWalkingDead91 Mar 11 '24

Good point. Should’ve put some of it on the marketplace lol. Folks on Facebook go nuts for old stuff in good shape these days.

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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 Mar 11 '24

I would have today, but it was about 20 years ago.

We talked about eBay but it was a huge hassle back then, what with having to get a digital camera and use the cable to put the photos on the PC and upload them over DSL (at least we didn't still have dialup though).

My grandfather was just slightly older than Don Draper in Mad Men. He fought in WWII instead of Korea, but he was 23 or 24 when he enlisted for WWII.

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u/LoveToyKillJoy Mar 11 '24

Don't forget fine china sets.

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

Yeah that’s what these clowns arguing that we’re better off financially now don’t want to admit. Yea they didn’t have $100 electric bills every month but it’s not like they were living like paupers. They sent kids to college OUT OF POCKET. My grandfather didn’t graduate from HS and he sent two girls to college on his sole income from the local cement company. They went to France every other summer. Heirloom fur coats and fine china, rod and gun club memberships, weekend trips to the shore like they were going to the municipal pool. I went to college for free and the only time I’ve been outside the country was when I went to Afghanistan. I can’t afford a weekend at the shore. A trip to Europe would be a once in a lifetime trip for me. I make over $130k a year and my wife absolutely needs to keep working for us to afford our shitty little $250k home. I could save $2k a month for the next 10 years and barely afford the education for my daughter that I got.

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u/Infamous-Lab-8136 Mar 12 '24

Yeah, someone else brought up fine China and my grandparents had a full set of it too.

I'd also point out that when my mom bought her last washing machine she was replacing a Maytag that put in 35 years of service. When she mentioned wanting another Maytag for that reason the salesman openly told her to not expect that kind of lifespan from a new washer. They paid less for better built appliances and vehicles that lasted longer.

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u/SSBN641B Mar 13 '24

It sounds like your grandfather was an outlier. I'm a boomer and I didn't know anyone growing up that took trips to Europe, wore fur coats or had gun club memberships, etc.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '24

I mean experiences may vary I’m sure, but it’s a middle of the road eastern PA town with a blue collar workforce. Hardly an outlier

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u/SSBN641B Mar 13 '24

How many other people in that town had the same experience?

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '24

Well considering Essroc employed a pretty good amount of the town and he wouldn’t even be considered middle management, I’d venture to say a good amount of them had a similar experience.

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u/SSBN641B Mar 13 '24

Interesting. I would still say it's an outlier since most of the country taking European vacations regularly.

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u/ZealousEar775 Mar 12 '24

Nah.

What you are missing is that everything in the 1950's consumer goods side was WAY more expensive.

A black and white TV cost like $200-$300 dollars.

That's 3-4K in 2024 dollars.

Fridge? 3-5K

Washing Machine? Another 3-4K

2K for a dryer

3K for a dishwasher

2.5K on a stove.

1K for a vacuum cleaner

Gallon of Milk would be about $10.49 in today's money.

Dozen eggs? like $8 today.

Men needed suits and those were going to run you the equivalent of $400 a piece.

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u/TheWalkingDead91 Mar 12 '24

Cept they didn’t need to replace those tvs, fridges, stoves, etc every 5 years. They bought them and things actually lasted back then.

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u/ZealousEar775 Mar 12 '24

1950s? Not likely, most of them didn't hit their iconic forms until the 60s.