[Drivingforfun]

I thought it'd be fun...What stuff can others think of?

I calculated first class stamps today are 10 times the price they were in real terms (inflation accounted for) when they were introduced. Second class have gone up by 3 times which is quite a difference – in other words 2nd are much better value today than in the past.

Milton Jones: "My Dad came round the other day moaning about inflation like old people like to. 'Two pounds for a cup of tea!? One pound fifty for three biscuits!!'. I said 'but you just turned up dad, I didn't invite you'."

[Santa]

According to the BoE calculator, 1d (for a penny black) in 1880 would be around £1 now.

A First Class stamp today costs £1.65, so only around 60% more, not ten times.

[Lily]

@Drivingforfun a Tesco meal deal. Used to be 3 quid, not it's almost 4 and that's with the Tesco card.

Maybe this example is way too recent, but it's the one I could think of.

[Drivingforfun]

@Santa

As controversial as it sounds, there are so many things an inflation calculator doesn't compute that it's useful (with several pinches of salt) over a 15 year period – over a 145 year period it's pretty much just a random number. Like any statistic, you'll see it cited by organisations when it suits their agenda but not when it doesn't.

If you put the average unskilled wage in 1880 (~£30) into that same calculator, it'd probably come back with ~£3,000; an unskilled worker today earns in the mid £20,000s.

In other words, £1.65 today may well be 60% more than 1p in 1880 using raw inflation, but the amount of earnings you'd use to buy a stamp (or the amount if minutes you worked to buy the stamp) will be significantly higher

The inflation basket also doesn't take into account direct taxes like income tax or NI, which matters if you're using money to represent how many seconds/hours/years you've had to work to buy something

These are only a few variables... in 1880 the idea of unearned income (dividends, rent, interest, or more recently benefits) was unheard of to all except the super rich; unemployed people in 1880 couldn't comprehend the idea of being paid to sit at home! The tax burden is totally different and has shifted differently depending on demographic. Also the personal burden is higher – more people today being forced to pay for fuel duty, insurance or even private healthcare, which isn't really discretionary even if it's technically so.

There are hundreds of essays written on this, probably thousands. It's an interesting read if you are ever interested 👍

[Santa]

@Drivingforfun, I have read some of the literature and am well aware of the various ways of calculating the present value of money from time past.

If you use incomes, you have to make some attempt at a mean wage for the time. A farm labourer would value a penny more than a lawyer, but farm labourers didn't write letters.

I use the BoE calculator, which attempts to give realistic estimates.

[olduser]

In times gone it was possible to exist without a full time job, especially in rural areas.
In the 1940's I was brought up in a rural area, very few of the farm workers had permanent jobs, they were hired according to the season's, harvest being the time to make money.
Just about everyone grew their vegetables, a few had a pig, or chickens (fed on household waste), and as always when growing your own everyone would have surpluses to pass on.
Wild Rabbits were easily caught, so existing while being in, and out of work was possible but I doubt it could be described as living by today's standards.

Because it suits the finance sector, governments set 2% inflation as the target but this is designed to fool the rest of us, we are adjudged to be too stupid to work out a 2% pay rise with 2% inflation = 0% increase. Certainly the 2% rise in the very short term feels like a rise!

The economists say that inflation means, when we pay back a loan we gain because we pay back the amount borrowed with money worth 2% less, so we win.
Of course, they forget to mention the interest on the loan is adjusted to cancel out the loss in value of the amount borrowed + of course the real interest.

Just at the moment world trade is in disarray, due to the war in Ukraine, the effects of Trump, and the aftershock from Covid, the UK can add leaving the EU, all combining to reduce employment.
And there is more to come from global warming yet, man made or otherwise.

As far as employment is concerned, we have priced ourselves off the world markets, investment goes elsewhere cause our wage are too high, and we try to maintain reasonably civilised, hard won standards.

Looks gloomy to me!

[Seal]

@Drivingforfun — Dentistry! Now there’s something that has become very expensive and don’t get me started on whatever happened to mobile dentists. Back in the day, you have to be of a very specific age to remember this, in the East End of London, I can only offer my own experiences, when you reached age 21 you were very likely to be given, as a coming of age thing by your family, a sum of money to be spent on having all your teeth removed and receiving a beautiful set of false teeth 😳
I on the other hand choose to buy a Galaxy 500

Yes it’s true. Dental care was then as it has become today, a rather hit and miss affair. We hadn’t quite reached the point where we had free universal dental treatment back then and even into the 60s and the ten pound Pom, I knew people who would pay to have all their teeth removed before embarking upon their Australian odyssey! I suppose the up side to this practice was that they couldn’t bite the natives upon arrival and there was far less gnashing of teeth.

Some 70 years later there are less well off people who are, once again, taking voyages of discovery to Turkey and the like to have their teeth removed or repaired because it’s cheaper than paying a private dentist in their own country! Progress! It’s a wonderful thing isn’t it 🤭 Happy New Year everyone.

[Rolebama]

All I can add to this is that at the start of last year I used to draw £250 on alternate weeks, and £100 in the intervening weeks. By the end of the year I was having to draw £350 and £150. All to pay the same expenditures.

[NMNeil]

Seeds.
I bought a packet of artichoke seeds a few days ago. Cost me $6.35 and there were only 9 seeds in the packet. 🤨
I normally collect seeds from my plantings but last year I screwed up and lost my artichokes early on, so no seeds.

[Seal]

Does that, losing one’s artichokes, may I ask, come under the NHS for treatment or does one have to go private ! Asking for a friend you understand. 😉

[Lily]

@Drivingforfun Houses. Childcare. Train tickets. 😓

[olduser]

Originally Posted by NMNeil

Seeds.
I bought a packet of artichoke seeds a few days ago. Cost me $6.35 and there were only 9 seeds in the packet. 🤨
I normally collect seeds from my plantings but last year I screwed up and lost my artichokes early on, so no seeds.

We had Artichokes growing, for years, we trimmed them back late autumn, fed them, and arranged protection from frost. They would start to grow in spring getting bigger and more productive each year or they could be lifted and divided to share with neighbours.

[NMNeil]

Originally Posted by Seal

Does that, losing one’s artichokes, may I ask, come under the NHS for treatment or does one have to go private ! Asking for a friend you understand. 😉

Unfortunately no, but I may be able to get Medicare coverage for my Avocado's AKA the testicle fruit. 😎
https://www.rd.com/article/avocado-origin/

[NMNeil]

Originally Posted by olduser

We had Artichokes growing, for years, we trimmed them back late autumn, fed them, and arranged protection from frost. They would start to grow in spring getting bigger and more productive each year or they could be lifted and divided to share with neighbours.

Problem for me was I sharing them with the gophers, who just ate all the roots. 😥
My new artichoke bed has chicken wire buried about 12" down and around the perimeter to stop the little buggers from future dining.

[Seal]

@NMNeil
I’ve always felt that golfers should be controlled more forcefully than they are. Penalising them a couple of strokes is, in my opinion, insufficient ! We should take away their balls at the very least.

[olduser]

If there is a Golfers protection society, they will have you marked up on their score cards, look out Seal!

[NMNeil]

Don't they have sand traps for golfers?

[Santa]

It's sad that you guys have to live such frugal lives. I was under the impression that, like me, most of you were beneficiaries of the boom years and would have paid off your debts, and be living off substantial pensions.

I certainly do not consider myself "well off", but our shopping is delivered twice a week, and our car is serviced regularly. I also note that, despite the doom and gloom, my investments appear to be at least keeping pace with inflation.

[NMNeil]

@Santa It's funny that life can be so much better with the things you don't have; mortgage, car payments, credit cards debt etc.
And with my Government pension and my police pension I'm enjoying what Dickens pointed out a long time ago in David Copperfield.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

[Seal]

Originally Posted by NMNeil

@Santa It's funny that life can be so much better with the things you don't have; mortgage, car payments, credit cards debt etc.
And with my Government pension and my police pension I'm enjoying what Dickens pointed out a long time ago in David Copperfield.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

I can introduce you to a chap I know who will be more than happy to put a little more money your way for very little effort ! Name of Fagin, but watch out for one of his regular suppliers, goes by the name of Bill, Bill Sykes, nice chap but an extremely short fuse him and his dog both and have nothing to do with Nancy. Bullseye, come here boy.

[NMNeil]

@Seal No need, I have plenty of people offering to make me rich even though I don't need any more money.
The last time was when an old acquaintance had a 'friend' who wanted to sell his auto repair business which was supposedly profitable and rapidly growing.
"Sure I said; arrange a meeting and tell your friend that he needs to bring the last 3 years of his audited tax returns so I can run the numbers"
My acquaintance was visibly shocked but said he would arrange the meeting.
Never heard from him again 😏

[Seal]

@NMNeil Yep, that sounds like Fagin.

[Rolebama]

I work off the amount of what I could buy then, with what I actually received on payday, and how much the same amount would cost today. Most things work out that I would need a weekly take home pay of between £900 and £1200. Per week.

One thing that tells me about the cost of living is when I go out between 7 and 10pm is the amount of cars parked up in residential areas. Not that long ago there would be very few because people went out.