I keep hearing how the baby boomers had it so much easier than now. It is just not true. We had a very high period of inflation that lasted into the 1980’s. Inflation peaked in 1980 at 14.6% and mortgages were at 16%. We had a neighbor who moved in that we became very good friends with. When she told me their home interest rate was at 16%, I was shocked. Ours at the time was 8 and 1/2% because we had had our home built in 1978 and that was high enough. The mortgage rates just kept rising. Inflation reared it’s ugly head during the Carter administration because of high unemployment, rising oil prices, and government spending. It lasted just over 10 years from the 1970’s through 1980. Sound familiar?
Our salary in 1970 was around $11,500. We were a one income family. I was a stay at home mom to two sons who were born in the early 1970’s. It was cheaper to stay at home rather than pay a babysitter. My mom worked and Hubby’s mom was older so there was no one to help. You were on your own. Hubby was offered a different job in 1971 which he took that paid a bit more.
But we survived. It was not any easier than it is now. After taxes, social security, health insurance, etc., it was a small amount that you had to live on each month.
When we were a couple, I had $25. a week to buy food when we were first married. I squeezed every penny. When the boys were born, we upped that to $ 80. every two weeks. It stayed at that amount for years until they were teenagers. I shopped once every payday which was every other week. That included food, diapers, personal care, and household products. We had one of the first “warehouse clubs” called GEX at that time. I would go there and buy the needed items that were on sale. Then I would fill in with fresh produce in season at the farmer market stands. When produce wasn’t in season, I would meticulouly research what was cheaper: fresh, frozen, or canned. Meat was purchased on loss leader at the grocery store when we could afford it. I remember trying TVP(textured vegetable protein) plant based that mimicked ground beef because we could not afford regular ground beef. It was the worst tasting food ever. I only used a 1/4 to a 1/2 lb. at that time in a casserole. To finish up the lb. I had to doctor it up with sauces to make it edible. We never purchased it again. I have never purchased plant based meat today and never will.
I portion controlled all of our food and we never wasted a scrap. I would look over the food ads for the sales and cut any coupons that I could use. I shopped with a list and didn’t buy anthing that wasn’t on it. We would have a sweet dessert about once a month and we rarely purchased junk food. We ate a lot of spaghetti back then because it was cheap. I would sprinkle some ground beef into the sauce. Many meals were meatless. Peanut butter and jelly or eggs for lunch along with some fresh fruit. We ate lots of homemade soup, stews, and chili for dinners. You could stretch the meat in those things.
We had a small garden with strawberries and vegetables when we lived in our first home. Then we planted and enjoyed blueberries in our next one.
I washed cloth diapers for two babies and hung them to dry on our outdoor clothes line.The only Pampers I would use was when we would go out visiting at someone’s home. I got a box at GEX for $.99 for 12 and they would last us a few months. I used my washer to clean all of our clothes but I hung them to dry outside. I did not use the dryer. We were an all electric house until they lifted the ban on installing natural gas. Our electric bills back then in the winter in the late 1970’s were $600 or over for 2 months.
Gasoline was very expensive and we had shortages for a very long time. Hubby and a friend carpooled to work to save on it. They would alternate weeks. Work was 30 minutes away. On the week that our car stayed home, I would only go out to get needed groceries, take a child to the doctor, and sit in line to fill up the car. Many, many times I would sit in line for an hour and they would run out of gas before it was my turn. Then you would have to keep trying to find a station that had some gas again. I did this with the babies with me. It was so much worse than it is today. We did not go anywhere else with the car until they were old enough for nursery school and we carpooled that with 5 other families.
We cut down on Christmas gifts when they were babies. Only necessities were purchased and perhaps a stuffed animal or small rattle or toy. Many of those years we did not exchange gifts with anyone outside of our own little family.
We bought absolutely nothing that wasn’t a necessity back then. When the boys were born, baby showers gave us many items. I was offered many hand me downs and I took full advantage of those. Then I passed all of their clothes down to my cousin when she had a boy. I had a sewing machine at that time and made some of their clothes too.
Necessities were not wants. They were you can’t go without these items.
The difference I see today is all the tech stuff that costs a lot of money. Many children when they grow up want everything their parents had and more right away. They aren’t willing to save for it and then buy it. They charge these items and then get into a cycle of debt that many never get out of. We, baby boomers, always saved for the things we needed. Then we bought them.
The other difference I see from the 1970’s to now is that we always made savings a priority. Each and every paycheck had a portion set aside for emergencies. The savings rate today is abysmal.
Perhaps the way to survive everything going up today is to go back and live the way we did from the 1970’s through the early 1980’s. It’s your choice.
An example: We need some furniture. We have the money to buy it but I refuse to pay the prices today. Will it come down in price? Eventually, it will but not to the prices it was in 2020. Experience has shown me that.
I will say that we did have one advantage. We had TV’s but they weren’t on all day. There were commercials but not many and there were only a few shows a day. Every night, the TV stations signed off at midnight. Today, you are bombarded with commericials on TV, on You Tube, on Facebook. They are everywhere. I hate them so I ignore them. We DVR our shows so that we can fast forward through them.
