Quote Originally Posted by life on mars View Post
I was earning , buying and supporting a family in the 70 's and it was poor pay , and tough , commodities were way more expensive, then due to no real less competition on the high street .

School uniforms were pricey from specialist shops or M&S , now you have bigger supermarkets driving those prices down including M&S

TV'S were a premium,had to bust a gut to get one on HP , now everyone has one , plus many more in bedrooms ,plus cable TV costs , never-mind, I pads, tablets, mobile phones , PC'S , folk now have a lot more .


Myself and my colleagues cycled, walked , or got a bus to work , now the same car parks are rammed with cars some very top end , with some having more than one on the driveway, its all so much attainable and rightly so.

Holidays back then were a luxury , we had to settle for home based breaks at Butlins, Trecco Bay , now with a bit of saving you can fly your family to Spain within modest income earning families.

Things are way better now for the working person , in terms of wages and rights, and I'm only talking about factory workers, posties and rail worker type jobs .who were lower paid back then,not many having to walk to work now ,thank god .
I read the other day that to obtain the same standard of living as the average person at the beginning of the 20th century (can't remember when exactly but between 1900-1910 I think) we would only need to work 17 weeks of the year. I am sure you are right, the average standard of living is significantly higher now than the 70's but it is also true that people born in the 80's and 90's will find it hard to create financial security for themselves. House prices are absurd, the average house price in my area was 4x average salary at the end of the 70's, now we are talking well over 10x.