17 Replies to “Nickels and Dimes”

  1. Thank you Woodrow Wilson. The roots of most, if not all of our current woes start with him. FDR only accelerated the conflagration.

  2. no income
    taxes considered in the following.
    in 1954 ,I could buy 3 gallons of gas for
    on hour’s wages..
    now in 2022 ,I can still buy 3 gallons for
    one hour wages..
    one buck then, 15 bucks now..

    1. I well remember buying gas in Vancouver BC for 49.9 cents/gallon in 1973. I also remember my Dad buying gas in the mid sixties in Toronto for less than that and also going up to the corner store to buy his smokes for less than 40 cents a pack in the early/mid 60’s. Pop was 7cents warm or 8 cents cold in the 50’s in Richmond Hill. Bread was 19 cents a loaf and a quart of regular milk would cost you 24 cents. Beer on tap in the bars was 20 cents a glass and pitchers were $1 dollar.Heck no wonder anyone with a brain doesn’t drink in bars anymore.

      Minimum wage was a dollar an hour when I entered the workforce part time in 1966.

      1. When I finished my B. Sc. 45 years ago (yeah, I’m that old…..), a week’s groceries cost me $15. Now I’m lucky if it’s under $100, though it was somewhat cheaper a year ago.

        I paid around $5000 for my new 1977 VW Rabbit back then. In 1991, I traded it in on a brand new Golf and paid about $15,000. Mind you, it was wider, had a bigger engine, and I got a 5-speed standard instead of the 4 in my earlier car. I have no idea what a VW costs now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s close to twice that now.

        Here’s another comparison. In 2013, my father bought the truck that I inherited from him for around $50,000. Nowadays, the starting price on a new Dodge TurboRam would be at least 50% higher.

  4. My metric has been the chocolate bars near the cash registers.
    A nickel when my dad was a kid.
    A dime when I was a kid.
    Now a dollar or more.
    It’s been a fairly reliable indicator for a hundred years.

    1. All the other commodities illustrated on the graphic are really, really, odd … and don’t make for a sensible comparison of the dollars drop in REAL purchasing power.

    2. I like the price of a bottle of beer in the bar. Draft was $ 0.20 and a bottle was $ 0.50 when I started. $ 2.00 worth of draft would make you dizzy and usually sick as well.

  5. Another version of that is the Big Mac index. What’s the price of a Big Mac over time or what’s the price in different countries at the same time.

      1. Shrinkflation is just as devastating as shrinkage! I don’t know how we walk around with these things!

  6. Today’s loonie toonie stores are yesterday’s nickel and dime stores, except the stuff then was better than now. And imagine that it was all made in Canada, the US or the UK back then and not in Chyna.

    People had decent wages, women didn’t have to work, children didn’t have to have daycare. A single income family could afford a house. With frugality they might be able to get a cottage lot. Communities looked out for each other and they didn’t rely on government handouts.

    When I was a kid a chocolate bar was five cents. A ten cent bar you would share.

    Back in the early seventies a Harvey’s cheeseburger, fries and coke cost seventy-five cents. Today you’re lucky to get change back from fifteen dollars.

    1. Very few people took winter vacations to Maui or Mexico or St Kitts or Thailand back then. A big tri was to Banff in the Mac Tac station wagon. No need for the wife to work if you don’t fly off to Europe or the pacific twice a year.

  7. An ounce of gold was worth US$20.67 in 1913.

    It’s now worth US$1943.09 as I type this.

    In other words, it costs a US dollar today to buy what it cost a US cent to buy in 1913.

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