What was cheaper in the 1970s?

[zabadak]

Re: What was cheaper in the 1970s?

Even in around 1978 a pint beer was just 30p, I believe - I sure that a Rovers scene from a Corrie episode which was made in that year, and someone ordered a pint and was quoted that price thereabouts.

69p a pint in Swansea during my Uni days, '81-'84! :cry:

[Arran]

I have been verbally informed that, on average, fish and chips from a chip shop was notably cheaper in the 1970s but eating out just about everywhere else was more expensive.

Tea was also cheaper - if you factor out the supermarket economy brands today - but coffee was more expensive.

The hourly rate of (British?!) car mechanics, builders, plumbers, etc. could also have been cheaper.

One thing that was significantly more expensive were telephone calls.

[beccabear67]

Most food seems to have risen lately due to the pandemic. I definitely remember some large telephone bills from long-distance, so definitely saving there!

[Arran]

We had time metered telephone calls (blame Ernest Marples MP) and the injustice of peak rate in the morning back in the 1970s.

[Arran]

Also with phone bills back then you had to rent a phone from the GPO / BT until the system was deregulated in the early 1980s.

A lot of people rent mobile phones where the phone is included in the contract.

Something my mother could never understand was why anybody continued to rent (a rather basic) phone from BT after you could buy your own phone.

[amethyst]

Utility bills

[beccabear67]

Not cheaper in the '70s was any kind of technology, even pocket calculators. The first Atari home video game machines and the individual games cost too much for most kids to afford. Computers and most things tech related seem to have gone way down in price adjusted for rate of inflation. I remember buying a 1986 Tandy Model 4 computer second-hand circa 1989 with daisy-wheel printer being a big purchase for me, and a couple years later how a third-hand, large size, two-colour photocopier with a service contract still in effect almost felt like buying a car! Now you can get a high resolution full colour printer very cheaply (it's the ink that costs).

[George 1978]

Also with phone bills back then you had to rent a phone from the GPO / BT until the system was deregulated in the early 1980s.

BT (or British Telecom) didn't probably exist until the start of the 1980s - prior to that it was the GPO (the Post Office) which ran the telephone services in the UK. The Busby adverts were a GPO thing rather than a BT thng.

[Arran]

Not cheaper in the '70s was any kind of technology, even pocket calculators. The first Atari home video game machines and the individual games cost too much for most kids to afford. Computers and most things tech related seem to have gone way down in price adjusted for rate of inflation. I remember buying a 1986 Tandy Model 4 computer second-hand circa 1989 with daisy-wheel printer being a big purchase for me, and a couple years later how a third-hand, large size, two-colour photocopier with a service contract still in effect almost felt like buying a car! Now you can get a high resolution full colour printer very cheaply (it's the ink that costs).

The declining costs of electrical machinery and durable goods over the past 40 to 50 years has raised questions whether they should be removed from the shopping basket used to calculate Consumer Price Inflation.

My mother believes that the shopping basket should centre around food, utilities, services, and consumables - like ink cartridges for printers.