Inflation, etc.

I found an old invoice today for work my Dad had done on August 4, 1949, at Byers' Motors Limited, which was then a Chrysler-Plymouth-Fargo dealer on Danforth Avenue in Toronto. The vehicle was his first car, a 1938 Hudson convertible.

This was back when Toronto phone numbers had two letters and four digits.

Go to [address] and bring in car, $2.00

Charge battery, $1.25

Lub[e], $1.25

Grease front wheel lugs [?], $1.25

Check charge rate and repair if nec.

Set voltage regulator, $2.25

Fill rear end with grease

Grease on RF brakes

Total labour, $8.25

Parts and material, 20 cents

Lubricants, $1.25

Total, $9.70

No sales tax in 1949, apparently.

Wow, big change.

I used to be able to reach into a bag of quarters from my dad's car wash, grab a handful, and pull out enough money to completely fill the gas tank of our '69 Bonneville wagon.

iadr wrote:

Datsun1500 wrote: 9.70 in 1949 is equal to $95 today. Sounds about what it would cost today.

Huh? Tow in $130 Various labour 2h x 135/hr (battery amp/h check and volt check with print out is $100-ish, and we have a line up literally around the block, so on that basis it's not enough. 15% shop supplies tax = ~$463.

you pay $135 an hour for labor?

I'm betting that that's what they charge ... not what they pay

The mechanic who did the work was probably making around $1.50/hour at the time.

The best part is that most of these items have been eleiminated by advances in tech. Grease wheel brakes? Not much anymore

Grease rear end? Not much.

Set Voltage regulator? Glad those things are gone.

Etc. etc.

Remember, this is when labour was cheap and parts were expensive.

I have a receipt that I found in my '48 Chevy for cleaning spark plugs and topping up a battery for around $2.50.

Shawn

I found my grandfathers budget book from 1936 where he had $1.40 per month payment on his account at a local department store. I had long heard of the scandal of my grandmother buying this huge set of Wearever cookware for $12.00 or so.

Granddads big joke was that his lovely bride could cook anything, but they could not afford food!

Bruce

One dollar today is equivalent to roughly two to three cents in 1913, when the Federal Reserve system was created to stop inflation. And that's using the officially published inflation numbers, not the real inflation numbers. The two started to diverge during Regan and then really started diverging after that to the point that the official number is pure fiction now. Unless dog food is the same as steak to you, or you can run your software on a PC XT.

I remember when I first started making $ 2.00 an hr. Before that, I was paid $ 55.00 a week with side benefits.

my first "real" job ... (IOW not mowing lawns) paid $1.25/hr .... pay envelope (cash, not check) was $44.xx

when I joined the Navy (class A school out of boot camp), I had a $25 savings bond coming out each mo (so $6.25 per pay check) my net was $22.xx twice a mo.