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Life was much simpler before the digital boom. Kids found immense joy in playing outside instead of being fixated on gadgets, while adults enjoyed more basic pleasures, as seen in today's list.
We're exploring a question on the AskOldPeople subreddit: "What was a sign of being well-off in your neighborhood or community in the 50s, 60s, or 70s?" For younger individuals, this gives a peek at how people defined luxuries back in the day.
And if you've lived through these decades, this one's for you.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
In my neighborhood - two bathrooms. Pretty uncommon.
anastasiano70: My grandparents, born in 1912, were the first of their MANY siblings to have a bathroom INSIDE their house. Their siblings and spouses and nieces and nephews all came to admire and use it.
That cracks me up. They were considered the RICH ones
David 1 year ago
My stepdad's family homesteaded our family farm. Outhouse beside the house, weekly bath in a galvanized tub in the kitchen next to the wood stove. By the time I was there in the early 70s they long since had a 'modern' bathroom inside with toilet/tub but the outhouse was still there when I sold the farm about 2010. When I was a farm boy sometimes it was handy to use the outhouse if your boots were muddy or whatever.
Kali Chaos 1 year ago
Outhouse was fine during the day when we were all dirty, but we were pretty stoked when we got an indoor bathroom bc bears at night.
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Lavern Defazio 1 year ago (edited)
As a kid, we had an outhouse. Getting to it was a journey and this was out in the Arizona Desert, so you hoped there weren't any rattlesnakes, scorpions or black widows that took up residence in the corners. And this was in the 70s, which was just a few years ago.
ILoveMySon 1 year ago
We only had a bath tub and it felt decadent when we got a shower spout.🙂
Load More Replies... Damned_Cat 1 year ago
My dad told me that his family was the first in the neighborhood to have an indoor toilet. The other kids in the neighborhood didn't know how toilets worked so would make fun of dad's family because they assumed that their house would really stink like an outhouse.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
My husband's father had the same thing. He was born on a farm, felt rich when they got an indoor toilet and went to school in the last 1-room schoolhouse used in Oregon.
Major Harris 1 year ago
i never understood this. way back when, large families were the norm. yet, houses were built with only one bathroom?
RELATED:
#2
Meat with dinner every night.
MalibuClassicMan 1 year ago
Growing up with four brothers, me being the middle, we thought fish sticks and mashed potatoes was a big deal
Breadcrumb. 1 year ago
Eatting meat is expensive and if you're family could afford it this was considered something to be proud of in the day. Meat is politicized today. Separate the two experiences and stop and study that old photo..I think we are missing the bigger picture.
Keith Lancaster 1 year ago
Eating meat is a luxury in so many ways. If people are on a small budget them cutting out meat will reduce your grocery bill by so much.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 year ago
Reminds me of a scene in Robot Jox. "We're having real meat tonight". It's a single hot dog. One of those so bad it's good movies.
#3
Air conditioning.
rikitikilizi: My friends with air conditioners always only had one window unit, usually in the parents' bedroom, and that room always had the shade drawn and the door closed. We always felt so scandalous opening that door to duck into the room to cool off for a few minutes in the dark.
Jiji Kaiji 1 year ago
well, there was a whoopin' 104F last night in my flat. i was soakin' wet in the morning. sleepin' in your own sweat is the worst torture you can imagine.
LandAhoy (they/them) 1 year ago
You can get an excellent unit for £700, best investment ever. The UK is going to carry on getting hotter and hotter each year (along with most of the world) and our houses are designed to keep heat in, not cool down, like in warmer countries.
Load More Replies... Lavern Defazio 1 year ago
Ahhh. The smell of freshly wet swamp cooler filters made from that grass or straw. The cool breeze. Smelled like rain.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
I feel that one. My parents never had air conditioning (and they were middle-class). My husband and I got a unit because his co-worker was getting rid of one and gave it to my husband. I'm very glad we have it too. We've had more high-temp days (for our climate) in the last 5 years than we'd had in the previous 25 years.
Zaach 1 year ago
For the longest time no houses/condos had a/c - now that we regularly get over 90F - life's a b***h
JoNo 1 year ago
In 1986 my family (Australian) did an exchange to Texas at the end of summer. My mother was astounded by many things, one of which was air-conditioning right through the house instead of the box units in the windows. For the family who stayed in our house, during winter, could not understand why we didn't have effective heating.
Mare Freed 1 year ago
Yes! My parents had the only air conditioner in the house, in their bedroom, and we kids could just get heat stroke for all they cared. We were not poor.
Captain Awesome 1 year ago
My folks had AC but couldn't afford to turn it on. So we star fished with a 10" oscillating fan and windows open at night
Let’s begin this trip down memory lane in 1950s America. World War II had just ended, which ushered in the baby boom era. According to History, the U.S. gross national product grew from $200 billion to $500 billion to kick off “the Golden Age of American Capitalism.”
During this time, the government increased spending on the construction of interstate highways and schools. Inflation and unemployment rates were at an all-time low, giving middle-class people more financial leeway.
#4
Having extracurriculars, like ballet lessons. Most of us just had to hang out not at home.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
I wanted to be a ballet dancer for awhile. Mom put me in a 6 week class at the Y. At the end of the class, I didn't understand why I wasn't a ballet dancer. It never occurred to me that there were more advanced classes than an intro to.
StrangeOne 1 year ago (edited)
Even then, to make a career out of it you would have to enroll at a school for longer than 6 weeks. My mom put me in them for a few years when I was young. But we moved around a lot and, I don't know if it's still an issue, but it was hard to prove a new dance academy your kid is in a higher level. So, I was kept at the first level for a couple of years. I had one dance recital but quit in the 3rd level at 10 years old, or 9, around there, because it was getting daunting. I wasn't learning anything new. Just class after class of plies and bar warm ups, and some simple dance routines. Normally kids who have started at age 3, like I did, and continued classes at one school or been able to transfer transcripts, are further advanced and getting into pointe shoes. My mom said she was going to stop my classes, anyways, because she could no longer afford them, or something. This year I'm starting over again at the big dance school I've always wanted to go to. They have adult beginner to advanced classes. Thank GAWD.
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LizzieBoredom 1 year ago
We had extracurriculars in the 1960s. My favorite was 'Walk around with a stick , and find things in the gutter'.
lenka 1 year ago
Oh. That was a good one! My favourite extracurricular was 'swimming'.... in the 5 inch deep creek that ran along the back of the house that was basically a glorified mud hole.
Load More Replies... kath morgan 1 year ago
Is joke? Lessons are expensive! I have just started getting music lessons for the first time at 37 and it is a push to fit into the budget.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
For some reason, I was the only one who got ballet lessons (I think mom was trying to get some of the energy out of me). I liked them but hated those tights with a passion. Having to pull them up or down when it was hot and you felt really sticky, *shudders*.
StrangeOne 1 year ago (edited)
Saaame. I got picked on, showing up to class with a tight bun and wearing my leo and tights under my street clothes. I can relate to the tights. They kept going all crooked and tearing. But the tight buns were the worst.
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#5
Two cars in the driveway.
ujmrider1961: Born in 1961, lived in a suburban neighborhood in the Denver area all through the '70s.
When I was growing up, most families only had one car. Even though my mom worked when I was a kid and in school, we never had more than one car, and that was true of most of our neighbors as well.
We were solid middle class. Dad was a Federal government employee, Mom and Dad both had college degrees, and most of our neighbors were professional/white-collar families with both parents at home.
Two cars in the driveway were just starting to become more common by the mid-1970s, although even then, we never had two cars
Shaunn Munn 1 year ago
I never realized what a convenience it was for Dad to have a company truck. He was a paving foreman. That gave Mom the luxury of a car all day. She used to take us out of Cheyenne on any dirt road, trusting that she could get us home, searching for historical stuff. We met herds of cows and mustangs, who thought we were bringing food. They never saw any other type of vehicle. Good memories. 1960s.
LizzieBoredom 1 year ago (edited)
2 cars, and one of them wasn't up on blocks in the front yard.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
We couldn't have two cars in the driveway because we had no driveway.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago (edited)
Born in '63 here. My parents had 4 cars but we were middle class. Mom and dad each needed one for their jobs (so tax-deductable), us 4 girls had a 3/4 ton pick-up to share for school/jobs/volunteer work and dad also had a pick-up for his hobby- tree-farming (for the tools you'd need to clear brush, take down a tree snag, buck a log up to the logging truck or to harvest the mature trees) that us girls also shared when dad wasn't down at the land.
Onan Hag All 1 year ago
I was the first person in my family to own and drive a car. I bought it in 1984.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
Looks like that wasn't very common as BP has only been able to find a picture of one car, and it's in the street
#6
I remember when my neighbors got MTV. I went over there and watched it for hours. We never had any sort of cable anything.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago
We got cable TV when it became available in our city in early 1980. Prior to that we had two small dinner plate sized dishes on our roof. One was for “The Home Box Office” and the other “Movietime.” BOTH showed soft-core adult content after hours. I was able to completely confirm my assumed (self; everyone else) gayness by 10 years old thanks to Lady Chatterly’s super sexy lovers, et al.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
When I was little, cable TV meant middle class. Satellite TV meant upper middle class. And a TV with pay per view was big bucks....
Justin Tyme 1 year ago (edited)
When cable TV was becoming popular, my uncle was in charge of installing towers and cable in the region where we lived. He got my family free cable service for a few years.
JoNo 1 year ago
Cable TV wasn't in Australia, unless you count Foxtel? Yes, we do have streaming services (but not as many choices as USA).
Julie S 1 year ago
Didn't have cable in the UK either. We only had 4 TV channels till the mid 90's
Load More Replies... Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
I think my parents finally got cable in the late 80's, after we were all out of the house.
Laura Mortensen 1 year ago
My parents friend worked for a local cable company. He installed free cable for us when I was little. It's the only reason we had it while I was growing up.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
When cable first came out, sometime after that, got cable. Cost about $20 a month if I remember right. Very affordable at that time. No streaming services.
Alongside the baby boom of the ’50s came the suburban boom. Real estate developers like William Levitt bought land in the city outskirts and built cheap tract houses.
At the same time, the G.I. Bill helped veterans through subsidized housing, helping them purchase homes at a much lower price. At the time, houses were much more affordable than apartments.
#7
The poor folk all had unpaved, straight, short driveways. The rich folk had circular driveways. I'm sure this wasn't the majority of them but to this day when I see a circular driveway, I think wow those guys must be well off.
Yes I know this makes no sense, but funny how first impressions on a young person can last a lifetime like this.
IRL, having a TV was a sign someone was well off back in my day. Only one person in the whole neighbourhood had a COLOR TV, a very well off doctor. And if the mom and the dad each had their own cars, then wow they must have won the lottery.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Grandma promised my mom and her siblings that she'd buy a TV when they came out in color, thinking they never would. To her credit, she kept the promise.
Puck 1 year ago
My grandparents bought a tv and put it away in the attic for when they would be old.... When they died at the ages of 83 and 93 respectively, the tv was still in the attic..... 😁
Load More Replies... ItsFromJersey 1 year ago
It's not so much the circular driveway itself as having enough land to have such a large driveway!
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
Just as it's not the 12-foot stepladder, so much as having a big enough apartment to store one. City kid here.
Load More Replies... BoredPossum 1 year ago
Nowadays, most people struggle to find a place to live with a decent price.
JoNo 1 year ago
I remember being the last household among everyone I knew to get a TV. Then Dad had major surgery and someone lent him a portable black and white TV while he recuperated. After it went back he decided to buy a black and white one. We were then the last household to still have a black and white TV.
StrangeOne 1 year ago
If I see a gate to someone's property my instant thought is it's a magnificent manor.
David 1 year ago
I was in my teens before we had color tv. My stepdad had a big console color tv and from what I heard was one of the first ones in the area to have one. He wasn't "showy" but he had 7 sisters so it entertained a lot of family. When I moved there about 72 it was an older unit but it still worked.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Well, we had multiple cars and my dad was a doctor but we didn't get a color TV until well into the 70's. We had a small TV in our parents room and a large 50's era one in the basement rumpus room (rabbit ears, pliers to turn the knobs and all).
#8
In my neighborhood, it was having a father that didn't have to wear a shirt with his name on the front. Or having a father that worked in an office. An above ground swimming pool in the backyard was very rich too! Going out to eat for anything other than pizza was a huge deal too. Having a set of encyclopedias.
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
Same here; I grew up thinking it was normal to have wall-to-wall books, but never any trips to Disney[land|world]. One of my favorite entertainments was to walk up the street to the pizza place, and watch the guy make the pizza. Eating it was pretty awesome too.
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ThisIsMyDisplayName 1 year ago
Outside the USA, having a swimming pool is still a sign of being rich.
Nicole Weymann 1 year ago
Going out for anything INCLUDING pizza was a big deal, as pizza was one of the options with the local Italian restaurants, not a Pizza Hut. We did that (or the local Chinese restaurant) maybe four to six times a year. I still don't do it on a weekly basis.
ILoveMySon 1 year ago
Typically tradesmen wore embroidered shirts with their names and office personnel wore suits insofar as men were concerned. My dad was a machinist with the name embroidery who, frankly, was more mathematically inclined than his good friend who was the President of a few banks.😂
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Sven Horlemann 1 year ago
Oh, yes. I remember how important "Meyers Konversationslexikon" was for my grandfather (in Germany). I still got it...
#9
Having your own phone line. We had a party line, where four families were on one phone line. You just picked up the phone and if someone was talking, you hung it up and waited your turn!
tater72: I, too, had a party line (six houses). Boy, there were no secrets there.
Finally, that rich family paid for the phone company to run them their own, and everyone else got one too. I was a teenager
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
And if you had a phone line in your car, that was a sign of wealth...
David 1 year ago
Not a thing in the 70s (except maybe somewhere for an elite few). My dad had a lunch box style phone in his car (portable but package was about as big as a lunch box) in the mid 90s and even then people were still impressed with it. And he mostly just used it for business because they were expensive to use back then.
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Trisec Tebeakesse 1 year ago
I knew a place in Nova Scotia that still had a party line into the 1990s. Alas, all gone now. (It was a Scout Camp.)
We’re jumping forward to the 1960s in the U.K. The Guardian writer Patrick Collinson shared his father’s experience earning an annual salary of £1,357 as an accounts clerk from 1963 to 1964.
According to him, his father was able to purchase a brand-new three-bedroom home for a family of five. They also owned a Ford Popular and a Phillips TV. His father had no outstanding loans.
#10
I was told only about three years ago by a friend that they thought my family must be rich because we built a brick house in the early 1960s. All the other houses around us were made of timber.
Nicole Weymann 1 year ago
Not living in the US I don't think there are more than about 20 houses made from wood within a 30 km radius of my home. Building standards are brick and concrete, and the walls are ususally about 20 or 30 cm thick, both outside the house and between rooms.
Load More Replies... #11
An entertainment console: a big horizontal cabinet that held a radio, tv and a hi fi record player or, if you had really made it, stereo!
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
We had a record player and an old stand-up reel-to-reel tape player, but dad also played around with ham radio a bit. We were NOT allowed to touch that equipment (but the home built antenna on an iron/steel frame attached to the side of the house made it easy to climb out of the house (not that we ever really snuck out that often)).
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
We had the Blaupunkt radio that my parents received as wedding present. We also had a tabletop record changer - a Webcor? And we eventually got a TV when I was 7 or 8. I suspect that purchase was driven by my dad's powerful need to watch baseball.
Lavern Defazio 1 year ago
Bonus if the console had wheels on them because those things weighed a ton.
#12
Our rich neighbors had their basement finished in 1970s glory. Shag carpet, 8-track player, strobe light, extra bedroom for the maid, water bed, air hockey game, and pinball machines. And one of the very first VCRs (cost around $2K).
Also, an in-ground pool, and one of the earliest video game systems, where the graphics consisted of a cellophane overlay that you'd put on the front of the TV!
I don't remember what cars they had, but they were probably fancy.
BoredPossum 1 year ago
Yeah, who doesn't have a maid these days? Poor butler and personal massage therapist must be so lonely.
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Aussiegirl 1 year ago (edited)
In the 80’s we sometimes hired a vcr overnight from the video store. Then when we finally got our own video player we got a beta one 🤦♀️ hardly any beta movies to choose from
Lavern Defazio 1 year ago (edited)
They left out the stale odor of cigarettes and whiskey that permeates every strand of the shag carpets. Sometimes I would just kinda look closely at the rug and see all kinds of crumbs buried in the dark reccesses of shag carpeting. I had a " rich" aunt .
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
Well, sure. Carpets - shag and otherwise - smell of everything that's ever been spilled on them. And it might not have been whisky; my parents were of the martini generation. Gin and tonic in the summer. Cigarettes, yes. "We don't smoke, but some of our friends do." As in, it would be a hostile host who forbids friends to smoke in the house.
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Laura Mortensen 1 year ago
I went to South Korea to teach English a while and a relative game me a book about living there. It was geared toward people who work for the government or have a lot of money. It had advice for hiring local servants, renting a large house, and buying a car. I did none of those things.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
i had a neighbor like that, but without the pool. We were very impressed in our "just big enough for 2 adults and 4 kids" house.
Other people who lived in the ’60s revealed what it was like to experience some form of wealth. Pavillion Agency Vice President Seth Norman Greenberg shared some insights with Business Insider. Greenberg’s uncle founded the agency in 1962.
“Leading up to the 60s, maybe even the 70s, most wealthy families had a primary property. They possibly had a second home.”
#13
Going on vacation to somewhere other than visiting relatives; traveling by airplane; buying a new car instead of used; cable TV; air conditioning; kids having their own phone line; eating out at restaurants; buying clothing at mall stores instead of Caldor [local discount chain]; getting your hair cut at a salon instead of mom doing it at home; wasting food (i.e., not eating leftovers); having an expensive hobby like golf, sailing or skiing; buying new furniture vs. finding things at thrift stores...
My family was comfortably middle-class, but because my parents had both grown up extremely poor during the Depression they were very frugal and we did none of these things, with the exception of "buying a new car instead of used" because my dad drove a lot for work and couldn't risk having his car break down.
It was so ingrained in me that I still pretty much do all this except I do like to go on vacations (although we generally camp); and I am into mountain biking which is an expensive hobby. But most of our furniture came from Craigslist or the swap shop, and I cut my own hair, hate wasting food, and buy my clothes at the thrift store or on Poshmark.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Our vacations were either visiting relatives in California (both sides of the family lived there) or dad taking us to a medical convention and playing around in the hotel with mom watching us (I had my 8th birthday in a not-quite-built yet resort in some small town called Big Sky Montana. Lots of construction stuff around and my mom, trying to make us all little ladies and having to deal with us girls and MUD!!)
GPawesomeness 1 year ago
Being raised thrifty never goes away. My hubby and I are retired now and don't have to skimp but, now that I have more time on my hands, love hunting the deals. And never waste food!
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
Other than visiting family, we went on several long driving vacations, Chevy Chase-like. One trip was to Canada (from NYC). I was impressed at how clean the Ottawa subway was. The Quebecois thought my dad was from France, due to the way he spoke French. He was actually from NYC and Connecticut.
#14
Outdoor grilling became a postwar thing to show off people could afford lots of meat.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
President Dwight Eisenhower and Premiere Nikita Khrushchev, if I'm not mistaken.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 year ago
Half right. Dwight Eisenhower and former president Herbert Hoover.
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nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
To be honest, I have *never* worn a suit while cooking on the grill.
Ingrid Mackay 1 year ago
Summer 1954. Eisenhower, on the left, loved to cook. Here he is with President Hoover bbqing up some steaks on his brazier grill.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Oooo, I can taste one of my dad's burgers now. I've never been able to replicate the taste either, even after asking mom how she made them.
#15
In the 50s it would have been a window air conditioner. In the 70s it was whole house air conditioning.
Ge Po 1 year ago
We still have dutch 'ARKO' as in: Alle (all) Ramen (windows) Kunnen (can) Open (be opened).
nottheactualphoto 1 year ago
A new acronym! I love it. In the US, the automotive equivalent was "four-sixty air conditioning." That is, four windows open at 60mph (100kph).
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The 1970s were difficult because of what was described as “The Great Inflation.” According to Investopedia, rates rose as high as 14%, and people felt it in their bank accounts.
Many found it difficult to budget their weekly expenses, which led to many items being beyond their means. Meat and gas prices, for one, were at an all-time high.
#16
The ground pool and an intercom system in your house. My current 1995 build house has the original intercom system and I just cannon bring myself to tear it out.
Settled for Infamy 1 year ago
That's the year I finished high school. Also a year that produced relics apparently 😭
#17
My grandparents always said that having an American Express card was a sign that you had "made it" back in the day.
David 1 year ago
Credit cards were different back then. I remember honestly being appalled the first time I saw fast food place (Burger King I think but maybe McDonalds) that accepted credit cards. Credit cards were for big purchases you couldn't afford in the moment. Not for a hamburger. These days I put almost everything on my card but the mentality was different back then. As for AmEx - their slogan used to be "no preset spending limit". So yeah, it was mainly for better off people. By the time I had an AmEx there was a preset limit - just like with most cards.
Ripley 1 year ago
The thing with Amex is that it was (still is? I haven't checked) a charge card, rather than credit card. You needed to pay it off in full each month. So technically you could spend up big, but woe betide anyone who couldn't pay it - I think the penalties were pretty steep.
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Awesome At Being Autistic 1 year ago
IIRC, you had to pay off the full balance of the American Express card within 30 days. So it was different from other credit cards where you could carry the balance over. I think Diner's Club credit card was the same. I'm trying to remember what credit cards my parents had in the 70s.
Steve Hall 1 year ago
Yeah, I think it still is. Working class people usually don't make enough to qualify for american express.
#18
Well, according to my preteen sister, it was the fact that you had a TV guide, instead of the pull out from the Sunday newspaper, and, apparently, could afford paper towels. She went to someone's house who had those things and came back in wide-eyed astonishment at the wealth of this particular family. 🤣 In her defense paper towels were not yet a thing most people used cloth kitchen or some people call him tea towels. But we had a good laugh at that.
Jon Stafford 1 year ago
Were paper towels once absurdly expensive? Because my mother used to act like they were spun from gold fiber and starlight. She could hear one tearing off the roll from anywhere in the house.
The U.S. economy bounced back in the 1980s. Inflation rates reportedly dropped to 3.5 percent during the decade's latter half. It was also a time when the rich got richer.
In a 1991 report by the Chicago Tribune, the number of millionaires in Illinois soared by 4,000, from 157 in 1977 to 6,240 in 1988. The top 16 wealthiest individuals earned an annual income of over $50,000 (around $133,000 in 2024).
#19
I was in high school in the 70's. One of our classmates got her own "princess line" phone in her bedroom.
Zaach 1 year ago
The Phone Company would send out signals that were not enough to set off the ringer but it would tell them who had an extra phone they weren't paying for (oh, gawd - this was ages ago)
David 1 year ago
Had to do with impedance or something as I recall. Phones were powered by the voltage in the phone line (24V?) and more devices dragged down the voltage. I think that is part of why you paid extra for multiple phones in your house even if they were on the same number.
Load More Replies... Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Now THAT was rich! We had a 2 phone house that was shared with 6 of us and we couldn't be on the phone for long in case dad's office or the hospital called.
#20
Massachusetts coastal town: Yacht Club parking sticker, country club parking sticker, and a private beach sticker. An awful lot of very affluent people drove fairly nondescript cars, particularly old money. Anyone with all three stickers for sure was upper middle class.
BoredWolfe 1 year ago
Starting to think the name of the post has been changed from "signs of wealth in the 70s".
#21
The rich family on our block of middle class families would give out full size candy bars at Halloween.
lovessj: There was a house on my block when I was a child in the ’70s that gave out 50-cent pieces. That was five candy bars
laylay_thegrail: The one on my block had a Mercedes and gave out full-size boxes of Cracker Jack at Halloween
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
My mom, the school nurse, and my dad the doctor, gave out sugarless gum. Oh well.
The Fairy Dogmother 1 year ago
My grandparents, (disabled WW2 veteran and SAHM) with very little money, gave out pomegranates from their own trees… my grandmother was always so ashamed, but she LOVED seeing all the kids on Halloween so she pretended like she didn’t hear the neighbors complaining, apologized to her sons because they were teased for it, and cried into her pillow at night. Remembering her face when she would talk about it still brings tears to my eyes.
Cassie 1 year ago
We had "not Halloween" at church because "Halloween was a sin" and we got Chick Tracts with our "not Halloween candy" to remind us that "Halloween" and "D&D" and many other things were "the Devil's work." The hypocrisy of it was astounding to me even as a child and I played a lot of D&D and MtG in college just to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out they're pretty cool and we didn't manage to summon any actual demons.
Spittnimage 1 year ago
Back in the day there were no miniature or bite-size candy bars, just full size.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
If you can afford a Mercedes today, I still saying you are doing quite well today. I don know anyone who owns a Mercedes.
But while the people at the top only grew their net worth, those at the lower end of the totem pole struggled more.
“Highly skilled people of all ages are seeing real wages rise while lower-skilled people of all ages are seeing real wages fall,” said Rebecca Blank, former senior staff economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
#22
Each of the kids had their own bedroom, ice maker.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago
Why would each child need an ice maker in their room? There were 7 of us in a 5-bedroom and we only had the ice maker in the kitchen and the one in the in-law fridge.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago (edited)
Nah, us girls all shared bedrooms 'til we each left for college, 2 years apart. I didn't miss being awakened by my little sister practicing cheers in her sleep.
#23
Back in the 60’s if you had braces you were well off. Not so today.
lenka 1 year ago
Nope. Not by a long shot. Even in a lot of countries with social health it usually does not include dental. In our country, basic dental, check-ups, cleans, fillings are all free but braces are out of pocket.
Load More Replies... #24
Having a cabin at the lake that you spent time at during the summer.
Looking at these posts, you can see how starkly different people viewed luxuries decades ago. And whether or not you’re a fan of today’s technology, it’s probably safe to say that we’re living in interesting times.
#25
70s. If your house had a tennis court, you were *money*.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Tennis court? Wow!!! We had our yard and my imagination (yes, I was the kid who came up with the ideas for backyard shows or circuses. My parents, our neighbors, other kids were very patient with me about that).
Bec 1 year ago
We had an area of the yard we played tennis in. But once you lost 3 balls into the cornfield you couldn't play any more 😂 All hand me down rackets from aunts and uncles
ILoveMySon 1 year ago
We played "handball" with tennis balls against the brick wall of the grade school.
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#26
A dishwasher. A swim club membership. Central A/C.
lenka 1 year ago
lol yep. We were so wealthy we had a dishwasher, a dish dryer and a dish put awayer. lol
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#27
In the 50’s it was having a television. In the 60’s, a color television. In the 70’s, a color tv with a remote and in the late 70’s it was having cable with MTV.
Scott Rackley 1 year ago
How about a TV with the k**b still attached and not a pair of vice grips.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
I remember that my family alway had a TV. It was black and white until I was maybe late preteens.
Noyfb noyfb 1 year ago (edited)
Cable was a different system at first in the US. It was a community antenna that was hard wired à la telephone wire to subscribers’ homes. In mountainous areas where home antennas could not get any TV signals, the community receiving antenna tower was set up on a hilltop. Also set up in towns too far away from big cities with network TV stations to supplement the lame local station with a single network affiliation (in those days, there were three major US television networks and a couple of minor ones.)
Load More Replies... #28
During the 70s: In-ground pool. Cable TV. 3 cars, with the third one being some kind of little foreign sports car. A boat. An additional home somewhere or a cabin on some land. Vacations that required flying.
Allen Scherr 1 year ago
Still not a common thing. A boat, additional home, 3rd car is a sports car.?
David 1 year ago
The internet tells me cable tv started around 1950 but as a teen in the 70s I'd never heard of it. It wasn't available in our area on the farm until - not sure but at least the 80s. We had a big TV antenna mast with one of those rotary motors to turn the antenna depending on the station.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
We never had that sort of thing. We had a tree farm my dad made us work on (I found a invoice I drew up in the early 70's of the amount he owed us for I think 6 hours. I was trying so hard to be this 10 or 11 year old professional tree planter. Very funny).
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago
Only about 10% of US homes had access to cable in the late 70s. It wasn’t an issue of wealth, but simple existence.
#29
Wall to wall carpeting. A heat source that wasn't a wood stove.
Geoffrey Scott 1 year ago
And now, in Michigan it has come full circle with the outdoor boilers.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
When I was a kid and heard wall to wall carpet, I thought that the carpet wax on the wall. Later on I realize it meant that the carpet was on the floor and went to from one side of the room of the wall to the other side of the room to the other wall.
#30
Anything newly trendy. That was for “the Joneses” and we weren’t supposed to keep up with them.
#31
In the early to mid 70’s, a VCR at home. imagine your mind being blown as a fifth grader, when another kid says they’re gonna go home and watch the Three Stooges after school. But the Three Stooges are on in the morning! The Rich kid said, yeah, we record it so I can watch it after school. I thought he was a liar, that was impossible!
David 1 year ago
We had a VCR, but maybe not until late 70s? trying to remember. But true remotes were not so much a thing then so the VCR remote was tethered to about a 15 foot cable. So you could sit on the sofa an use it, but it was attached to the VCR.
Bec 1 year ago
We got a VCR in the 80s and it had a remote, which our TV still did not. My brother rigged it all up to connect the TV up so we could use the VCR remote for TV, and I no longer had to be the channel changer
Load More Replies... Julia Mckinney 1 year ago (edited)
I would not have been able to comprehend that sort of thing. Certain TV times were sacred, like mom's re-runs of Perry Mason (AKA the "other man" in our house). We had to be bleeding or have a fire/flood to be able to interrupt that show.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
I was pre modern vcrs. So you only watched what was on at the time you was home. There was no way you could record anything.
Richard Graham 1 year ago
I purchased a Sony Betamax about 1980. Beta Tapes went in the top, and the remote control was attached by a wire. I think I paid about $380 for that beast (about $1,500 now). Pre-recorded beta movies were hard to find, and cost anywhere from $40 to $100 ($150 to $360 now). Blank beta tapes were $20 ($75 now). The day I bought the machine I bought my first movie "The King of Jazz (1930)". I paid $50 for it. (The Sony Betamax was tossed out a long time ago, but I kept the movie as a souvenir.)
#33
A yearly trip to WDW.
Going to “the Cape” for a week during the summer.
Playing town league sports(soccer, softball, baseball)
Having a “job” at the local Catholic Church and school.
Blma1025 1 year ago
I think a yearly trip to Walt Disney World is still luxury. A trip for a family of four with plane tickets is quite expensive (to me at least).
linda harbin 1 year ago
Family of 4: 7 nights at Walt Disney World, accommodations, plane tickets, food, drink and 7 day passes— $10k+. Yup. You read that right. Been selling WDW for 40+ years. Complete and total ripoff. Not a Disney fan.
Load More Replies... #34
I grew up in a working-class neighborhood. Went to a classmate’s house after school one day (1970) and what a revelation. A housekeeper greeted us at the door with “Hi Miss Amy, who’s your friend? Will she stay for dinner?” and took my friend’s coat. The entry room was an atrium with light streaming in from above, lots of huge plants, and a big working circular fountain in the center. Her house was huge (they had 10 children, both parents were professionals). Her yard was vastly deep. But I was most impressed with the 5-gallon jug of milk in their enormous refrigerator with its own spigot. Amazing experience!
#35
Buying a microwave oven as soon as they were available for sale circa 1978-1981.
Central air conditioning. Getting cable TV circa 1981. Owning a summer cottage/boat.
Country club and/or golf club membership.
ThisIsMyDisplayName 1 year ago
Owning a second home and/or a boat and/or belonging to a country club are still signs of wealth here
Not Bored 1 year ago
Owning a house period in many places. Especially first one
Load More Replies... linda harbin 1 year ago
I came home from college for Thanksgiving break in 1978 and my parents had purchased a microwave. I was like “Oh sure! Wait til i leave THEN buy one!”
WindySwede 1 year ago
Got one as an present, in 2001? Still using that today.. though the light bulb broke some years ago..
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Sven Grammersdorf 1 year ago
The Amana RadaRange was the first microwave oven and it was first sold in 1947
Noyfb noyfb 1 year ago
I don’t think that’s a microwave above the stove in the photo (gross 1970s “avocado” color though). In 1982, there were stoves with a smaller oven on top and a large oven under the cooktop. Very useful, much more capable than a little toaster oven. Microwaves were heavy beasts more than twice as big as today’s.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
No boat, no summer cottage but we had a tennis club membership- pretty much so mom could leave all of us at the pool all day.
#36
AC, kids went to sleep away camp in the summer vs day camp, two vacations a year with one to Florida, high end stereo equipment, color tv, country club membership, Caddy that was traded in every 3 years, ivy league pennants decorating kids bedrooms, ate dinner in the dining room.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
Naw, we had a breakfast nook with a wrap-around bench with a VERY active jade plant and an equally active spider plant. Mom liked it because she could keep track of us doing homework while she was cooking.
Rob D 1 year ago (edited)
It's in the top couple spots for tourist destinations by sheer volume every year. The politics suck, but yeah as a Floridian it's a great vacation spot. No. 1 destination domestically, No. 2 internationally. So yes. On purpose.
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#37
Ooooh yeah … a color TV. A twenty seven inch color TV. I remember seeing my first 30” … then a 36” … believe me - childhood me would think people of the future must live in movie theaters if they own and watch movies on an 85” television. Which is larger than the pull-down-screen the grade school movies of my youth were projected on. The magic of the Jetsons came to life - siiiiigh.
mosselyn: My family bought our first color TV to watch the 1972 Olympics. It had a whopping 9" screen, and we piled on my parents' bed to watch it
#38
Children with braces to straighten their teeth. Having a boat on a trailer in the driveway. .
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago (edited)
Why would a boat be kept in a driveway? We’ve always kept ours moored/docked. Do they tow their boats to the sea when they want to go sailing/yachting? Seems tedious & time consuming. /s
Cat Chat 1 year ago
I missed your "/s" and let's just say you almost got a bit of a lecture.
Load More Replies... Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
My dad had a boat (basically a little rowboat) for about a nano-second. He decided it wasn't worth the time or the money.
#39
The richest kid I knew had a whole house vacuum cleaner system. That seemed a lot cooler than an intercom system.
#40
A new house. And bonus points if it had columns or a double front door.
Julia Mckinney 1 year ago
That was one of our neighbors! They had either 6 or 7 kids and were Mormon. The house looked like Tara but set in the Pacific Northwest.
#41
Color TV. Central heat n air. Two cars, garage. Maybe a pool. Fenced yard. Well-kept lawn. Well-dressed. Could afford USA vacation.
David 1 year ago
OP non American? We could "afford" a USA vacation because we were poor Americans. It was usually something like short camping trips. I did get to go to Disneyland once in the 60s. Probably seemed expensive then but even accounting for inflation, was not as ridiculous as today. No disneyland hotels, just there for a day. The rides still used tickets from the ticket book you bought when you entered.
#42
Air conditioning. Grew up in Southern Minnesota in the 50s & 60s - it got hot in the summer, but unless you were rich you didn't have AC.
#43
Not being on welfare asks food stamps. We were. Almost all my friends were. And no roaches. I didn’t know it was possible to not have them as a kid.
k1ddkanuck 1 year ago
Do you think of your sense of self superiority as a pet? Roaches weren't a problem for me when I was a kid, but I would rather have had them in my home, named them and made them little hats as opposed to my best friend being my own inflated ego.
Load More Replies... #44
At Christmas time the rich people would have huge trees with the white flocking stuff setting in the living room window. They always had their curtains open so everyone could see right in their house.
#45
In ground pool, canopy bed and HBO.
Richard Graham 1 year ago
In the 1970s when cable was new I rigged an HBO de-scrambler. Saved myself $10 a month. (Don't tell the police)
#46
Families that took vacations out of state or went to Disneyland.
#47
An extra living room for guests.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago
Why would guests need an extra living room? Sure, a guest bedroom or two & private baths, but an extra living room? They come to visit us. Not play house in a foreign family room or den. And can’t they just use the study/library if they need working/office space? Should they be visiting if they need to work in the first place?
Geoffrey Scott 1 year ago
Most successful families had a "formal living room". We were not allowed in there.
Load More Replies... #48
Having a perfect lawn and a lawn service to mow for you. Lawn services were not nearly as common as they are today.
#49
Mink coat, station wagon, pool, and of course a large, well appointed home. Memberships at the country club and Junior League. Sending the kids to Europe before Ivy League college.
David 1 year ago
agree with most of that but never considered station wagon = rich. Usually the other way around. Meant you had kids to haul around and were spending all your money raising them.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
There was 5 kids plus my parents, so 7 all together. We had a station wagon. There was third back seat that faced out the back window so you could see where you was leaving instead of where you was going.
Load More Replies... David 1 year ago
Yeah, except now it is often minivans. I've hauled the grandkids a lot of places in mine
Load More Replies... #50
Owning a second home, and taking elaborate vacations on top of that. Think beach house plus 3 weeks in Switzerland. Kids would go to sleep away camp for the whole summer.
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What do you think ?
Amy S 1 year ago
TIL that some people think an in ground pool, personal tennis court, three cars, a maid plus a spare bedroom for the maid are basic.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago
I think no matter the economic situation you come from, you’re acutely aware that others have more. Even growing up absolutely wealthy, you see those higher up on the economic ladder as “the rich” & may have trouble recognizing yourself as being considered the same by others. I didn’t think I grew up wealthy, I didn’t have private flights to private villas with “staff.” I grew up with a single mom in a 100yo house. In college we all were getting the same education, living in crappy college housing & working crappy part time jobs. It never occurred to me that so many of my friends were struggling & came from families that also were. I recognized our privilege; the access we had to an education. It wasn’t until I asked a friend to go to Catalina for the weekend that I realized *just how* privileged I was. And it brought on overwhelming shame. I was acutely aware of class divides. I just didn’t realize how far up that ladder I came from. Which was no where near the upper rungs.
Load More Replies... Bill Swallow 1 year ago (edited)
Perspective is a funny thing. I grew up on the family dairy farm in SW Pennsylvania back in the '60s, and I always thought of us as 'Poor'. We didn't have a lot of cash, we didn't constantly buy new clothes or new cars, and our farm equipment was decades old and a lot of it was clapped out. It wasn't until college, when I had some friends down for a weekend, that I realized that we owned 1.20 square MILES of property, with grass, trees for lumber and fruit, 22 head of dairy cattle and young cattle for beef, 200 chickens, *BIG* barn and a lot of outbuildings, grew vegetables in a half-acre garden, apple, pear, and chestnut trees, grew our own corn, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, currants, had our own water source, and so much more. "My GOD," I thought as the realization hit, "We're RICH!" I wanted to weep for my younger cluelessness.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
Here's our place in its later years, as seen from the highway - Home-66941...e01ffd.jpg 
Will Cable 1 year ago
These days being able to afford groceries, having a roof over your head or taking time off because you are ill seems like luxuries for the rich only.
DB 1 year ago
1970's. Hot lunch at school. The poor kids got it for free, but the middle-class kids had to brown bag it.
lenka 1 year ago
The middle class kids who were 'brown bagging' it presumably had breakfast at home and a home cooked meal in the evening. That hot lunch was probably the only meal the poor kids were getting that day.
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MoMcB 1 year ago
We didn't have a colour TV until 1978, and we got it for the World Cup. We didn't have central heating, just a coal fire, and the windows were aluminium. They'd be frozen on the inside in Winter. My parents grew up in houses with outdoor toilets, and bathed in the kitchen. Their first home as a married couple had an inside bathroom. My Dad died in 1980, and he'd be amazed at how far we have come.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
For me, it was just having clothes that fitted when you were growing up. I still remember the sneers I got for wearing clothes two sizes too big since I would be growing into them. Rich people could afford to give their clothes away once they became too small
Andrew Read 1 year ago
I look at these and realise that Australians were much better off than Americans in the 60’s and 70’s. In fact, perhaps even now we are more affluent.
Amy S 1 year ago
TIL that some people think an in ground pool, personal tennis court, three cars, a maid plus a spare bedroom for the maid are basic.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago
I think no matter the economic situation you come from, you’re acutely aware that others have more. Even growing up absolutely wealthy, you see those higher up on the economic ladder as “the rich” & may have trouble recognizing yourself as being considered the same by others. I didn’t think I grew up wealthy, I didn’t have private flights to private villas with “staff.” I grew up with a single mom in a 100yo house. In college we all were getting the same education, living in crappy college housing & working crappy part time jobs. It never occurred to me that so many of my friends were struggling & came from families that also were. I recognized our privilege; the access we had to an education. It wasn’t until I asked a friend to go to Catalina for the weekend that I realized *just how* privileged I was. And it brought on overwhelming shame. I was acutely aware of class divides. I just didn’t realize how far up that ladder I came from. Which was no where near the upper rungs.
Load More Replies... Bill Swallow 1 year ago (edited)
Perspective is a funny thing. I grew up on the family dairy farm in SW Pennsylvania back in the '60s, and I always thought of us as 'Poor'. We didn't have a lot of cash, we didn't constantly buy new clothes or new cars, and our farm equipment was decades old and a lot of it was clapped out. It wasn't until college, when I had some friends down for a weekend, that I realized that we owned 1.20 square MILES of property, with grass, trees for lumber and fruit, 22 head of dairy cattle and young cattle for beef, 200 chickens, *BIG* barn and a lot of outbuildings, grew vegetables in a half-acre garden, apple, pear, and chestnut trees, grew our own corn, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, currants, had our own water source, and so much more. "My GOD," I thought as the realization hit, "We're RICH!" I wanted to weep for my younger cluelessness.
Bill Swallow 1 year ago
Here's our place in its later years, as seen from the highway - Home-66941...e01ffd.jpg
Will Cable 1 year ago
These days being able to afford groceries, having a roof over your head or taking time off because you are ill seems like luxuries for the rich only.
DB 1 year ago
1970's. Hot lunch at school. The poor kids got it for free, but the middle-class kids had to brown bag it.
lenka 1 year ago
The middle class kids who were 'brown bagging' it presumably had breakfast at home and a home cooked meal in the evening. That hot lunch was probably the only meal the poor kids were getting that day.
Load More Replies... MoMcB 1 year ago
We didn't have a colour TV until 1978, and we got it for the World Cup. We didn't have central heating, just a coal fire, and the windows were aluminium. They'd be frozen on the inside in Winter. My parents grew up in houses with outdoor toilets, and bathed in the kitchen. Their first home as a married couple had an inside bathroom. My Dad died in 1980, and he'd be amazed at how far we have come.
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
For me, it was just having clothes that fitted when you were growing up. I still remember the sneers I got for wearing clothes two sizes too big since I would be growing into them. Rich people could afford to give their clothes away once they became too small
Andrew Read 1 year ago
I look at these and realise that Australians were much better off than Americans in the 60’s and 70’s. In fact, perhaps even now we are more affluent.
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