I've used this frequently to make comparisons both for myself and for discussions about cost.
Are you living better? Put in your wages from 1970 and see how it compared to now. Or the $200 car you bought in 1965.
Bought my first house when I was making $110 a week. Have to make more than that now.
The trouble with all inflation calculators is that the inflation rate is radically different for different items like houses, cars, aircraft travel, technology, food, heating, gasoline etc.
In 1998 I was making 71,000 a year. Today I am at 45,000. I was living it up 25 years ago.
There were 200 million americans in 1970. There are 340 million now.
That's a lot of competition for a limited housing pool.
I didn't have wages in 1970, so I used 1980.
I beat inflation by almost a factor of two. Of course, getting a degree in computer science about halfway through that period helped a lot.
My first new car was in 1984. I think it cost $3000. The inflation- adjusted price in December 2022 was a little under $9000. I'm not sure I could have bought a used car for so little in December 2022. IIRC we paid more in 2014 when we bought our most recent vehicle. OTOH, my 1984 car was a Chevette and my 2014 car was an SUV, so it's not a direct comparison. Still, it reflects my expectations of what I wanted to drive in 1984 and what I wanted to drive in 2014.
Then don't use it. Do you have a calculator for each of the items mentioned?
I think the Chevette was more like $ 5000 than $ 3000. I had a 1981 and do not remember the cost but the payments was $ 99 a month.
The 1974 Ventura I had was about $ 3500. Probably about equal to a Toyota Corola today in size.
Not really ...
Even my first car - '62 Comet was smaller than the Ventura.
John T.
I don't.
Not possible even with those, most obviously with food and heating which varyies even more.
I was surprised. In the late '60s $9000 was the high end of the spectrum for a newly graduated engineer. That translates to $75,032.95. While I don't believe the salary surveys that may be a little low for a STEM graduate.
I bought an Audi 100LS in '72 for $4300 iirc which would be $29,958.38. Audi has a lot more models now but the A3 is around $37,000. That was a cash, no trade deal. I don't remember the MSRP on the Mustang, Camaro, or Firebird after the haggling was done.
otoh I bought an Osborne I CP/M computer in '81. Z-80, 64K of RAM, and 2
90K 5 1/4 floppies for $1800. $5,665.27 would buy one hell of a computer today. The one I'm writing this on was $380 for a 8 core Ryzen 7000 and is as big as two packs of cigarettes. The keyboard, mouse, and display was about another $250.We won't go into eggs. I don't pay attention to prices in the market anymore but I think i paid $7.50 for 18 large eggs tonight.
It isn't that easy. The computer comparison in my other post obviously is apples and oranges. I'm assuming the Audi A3 is a lot better car than the
100LS. How do you take that into account? Even houses are difficult. The trend for new construction here is a lot more house than the '50s ranch house style.1st '52 Hudson Wasp My mother let me use it for the summer of 1964 2nd 50 Olds 88 My 82 yo cousin gave it to me. 3rd 65 Pontiac Catalina Convertible My brother gave it to me. 4th 67 Pontiac Catalina Convertible $650 ~1974 5th 73 Buick Centurion Convertible. $2300 ~1980 terrible gas mileage 5th 84 Chrylser LeBaron Conv. this plus next 2 under 5000 each 6th 88 Chrysler LeBaron Conv. all ~7 years old when bought 7th 95 Chrysler LeBaron Conv 8th 00 Toyota Solara Conv. 9300 around 2010 9th 04 Chrysler Sebring Conv 3000 in June 2017 10th 05 Toyota Solara Conv. 4000 in Sept 2017 ----------- about 34,000 Very few repairs.
Adjusted for inflation I probably peaked in the mid '80s. Moving to Montana isn't a good plan for maximizing salary but there's a lot of things money can't buy.
For me it was 1989.
I think the Camaro I bought in '80 was about $9,000 iirc. The LT1 is $35,800 which is about the adjusted $34,333 with the 4 cylinder about $25,000. That's as close as I can come to apples and apples.
Comparing my '86 F150 to anything today would be apple and pomegranates.
I had a '62 Falcon Futura that I called the Thunderchicken since it looked like a shrunken T-Bird. That was a fun little car that had illusions of being a Jeep. I made it from Jersey to upstate NY in a blizzard that had the Thruway shut down. The Taconic Parkway was still open.
It was a very, very long trip, not because of the weather but my mother was having an anxiety attack. She was sure we'd die in a snow drift and not be found until spring but the Falcon motored on.
I sense a convertible fan. Personally, I've never quite understood the attraction, which judging by the apparent lack of diversity in models, might be the prevailing attitude. I'm glad you've been able to scratch that itch.
I had one, '64 Karmann Ghia. It was a fun car that I paid $15 for but had to rebuild the engine. There are days it would be nice to have but I really like the climate control in cars today.
Much of the summer here is 90 degrees and humid. AC is far superior to putting a top down.
You're probably right. I couldn't remember; Google told me it might be $3000. It was pretty basic; stick shift, no air-conditioning, AM radio.
Depends where you are. That's about what the poky little company I worked for paid. Given the relatively low cost of living in the Midwest, they were able to hire. Tech isn't all Silicon Valley with guys playing video games in the break room.
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