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I Miss the 50's

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Brewman:

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It looks like everything pretty much went up by a factor of 10. Everyone always complaims about the cost of gas but it's such a relative thing.
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Bingo.

I was going thru some of my parents financial papers, and I found the purchase agreement for their first house.  This was a 1000 square foot tract house, built new for them in the mid 1960's.  Pretty plain, nothing fancy, not even a garage or paved driveway.  
Total price?  About $16,000.  Payment was about $100 per month, according to my parents.  
Dad made OK money, probably about median, maybe a stich more, but not much more, and the said that $100 payment was pretty scary for them back then.
The electric, gas and phone bill's were in the single digit range per month.  But they had money worries, even with those cheap looking prices.  We got by just fine, always had what we needed.
But we had one car, mom didn't work, no cable, central air, one phone, one TV, no fancy stereos, or boats, or other toys.  

We had 4 kids in my family, and got by with a standard full sized Chevolet Impala or BelAir, for the 6 of us.  Went on vacations all over tha place in that thing.  
Nowdays, a couple has one kid and the HAVE to run out and get an 8 passenger SUV.  Or at least a mini-van.
Dont' get me wrong- you can drive anything you desire- but we seem to have really raised the standard of living bar since I grew up.  That Impala had no a/c, cruise control, am radio only, nothing special.  

Bonibelle:
Spatech, Look at how the cost of many of those items are driven by the ever escalating cost of energy!
Oil prices are driving the entire economy and if we don't pay attention and just suck up these astronomical energy costs, we will never force the development of alternate energy sources.

My first car was our family's old "63 chevy Impala. I was still driving that as a spare car well into the '80's!
My Dad was in construction and he built our house for around  $13,000.00, complete with a two car garage. My father worked for DuPont and our house was constructed with steel beams like an industrial application. I still remember during the Cuban Missle Crisis, our house was a designated bomb shelter and the government sent rations and water that my parents had to store in our basement.  Most of you guys have never had an air raid drill, but as kids we had to learn what to do in the event of a bombing of our schools.
My parents never had a mortgage because they paid as they built. We had the first color TV of any of my parent's friends and I remember everyone crowding my living room to see football in color. My parents never had a credit card and didn't believe that you should borrow for anything. If you didn't have the cash, then you didn't have it. Life was so much simpler and as kids we had to depend on our imagination instead of PlayStation or Gameboy for amusement. I love technology and the wonderful advances in communication but I would love to be able to take my kids back for just one week to the real world that a grew up in! ;)  Think I had too much coffee this morning#

Chas:
And it was uphill both ways.

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