General Chat

I cant recall the actual cost but for example the price of a double bounty bar after decimalisation (1971)was a covert price rise after conversion!

think it was originally 9d after decimalisation became 4p...= 10d

In 1975 a typical builders estate starter home in southern England was around £ 11 000. Large numbers of people had no trouble buying these houses. As I remember the mortgage repayments were around £ 120 month. The mortgage was based on 2.5 times my pay and a half of my wife.

Today around Southampton a small 3 bed house in Lordshill or Hedge End is a bit over £ 200 K - 20 times 1975. Starting money for, say, junior engineers is around £ 22 K . Thus in real terms houses have doubled in price even outside of London. It is much the same in Nottingham and Sheffield.

There are several reasons why this has happened but it is not the fault of the baby boomers. The two driving forces have been builders who sit on their land banks and commercial banks willing to lend unsafe mortgages at low interest rates. Private landlordism has not helped either. The market is rigged.

It would not take a lot for the whole merry go round to come flying apart. Millenials with big mortgages could even end up winning if sterling dropped enough. For baby boomers an effective cut in their house value of over 20% would be stressful. Yet commercial banks have been subjected to stress testing for that scenario and worse.

enjoy brexit if and when it happens

AnninGlos.
And the price of houses?
Are we - the Baby Boomers - responsible? Or is it merely a case of "Supply vs. Demand"?

When I retired, and having had the term Manager in my job title for many years and paid off the mortgage, I knew that there was NO WAY that even on my final salary I could have afforded to buy our house. House prices were then, and still are, ridiculous.

We pushed/supported all of ours through uni. Even so, the youngest (30+) still has not managed to get a salary sufficient to get a mortgage.

BTW: What would happen if interest rates shot up to the sort of level that we had way back then????????????????????

Allan. I stopped doing my round in 1958. I often bought records in those days, they used to cost about 6/-.

I started working on petrol pumps in 1969 when 2star was 6/3 a gallon, 4star 6/7 and 5 star 6/9. Diesel was 6/7.

I was earning 3/- per hour.

I do think about it sometimes but your last post is more relevant Sue, It appears that the cost of public transport has increased more than food in proportion to salaries and maybe petrol/diesel as well.

Sue, no one was mocking your income.

I married in 1970 and we bought our first house in 1971. It was on the market for five thousand pounds.

We offered four thousand eight hundred, which was initially accepted.

The vendors came back and said that they had received an offer of four nine and if we could match it the house was ours.

We did, but it was a struggle

You can mock but my income in 1970 enabled me to start buying first house, commute from Stortford to Central London and enjoy myself.

How many young people can do that today? The season ticket would be financially crippling on it’s own.

Kense, I think that I got 10/- a week from my round, and the tips at Christmas were an extra bonus, as it were :-D

That would be back in about 1961 or thereabouts

Good point Allan.

I liked getting 240 pennies to the pound and being able to buy things that only cost 1d, even if I only received 9/- per week from a paper round.

Whilst nothing to do with the cost of tea in China, don't the clocks in the UK get turned back annually? ;-) :-D

Pat, I agree. If you convert the cost you also have to do the same to income. We can’t turn the clocks back!

If the prices aren't raised, the sizes get smaller! Maybe I will lose weight lol

Lizx

You can't say a thing is far more expensive until you take wages etc. into consideration. I read an article how to work out the difference and it was based on the cost of Mars bars.

e.g

In the early 70s a loaf was 1/- so 2 mars bars I think a loaf is now about 3 Mars bars

same era 1 litre of petrol was 1 Mars bar today about 4

I don't convert much nowadays, but when I used to think of the price of a single pot of yogurt, it was unbelievable.

.........and who would have paid over £1 for a loaf of bread ??

...and I bet eating lambs you raised yourself tasted better !
I know our free range (free range in that they had the woods and most of the huge garden - but then, they frequently got through the fence and demollshed our small veg patch) ducks tasted better than any I've bought since. :-(

Aaah lamb, costs an arm and a leg except when on offer and we stick joints in the freezer.

When we raised lambs thought nothing of eating it twice weekly, got a real shock when we were looking at buying it.

I don't need to convert it to realise it's a ridiculous price - especially lamb! :-|

I can remember old 5p's :-D

Shut up Madge :-P :-P :-P :-D :-D