- Thread starter Greeves246
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premmington
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1983 aged 16 - I worked for my Dad - I was spoilt - £130 a week. Aged 17 it was £180 a week. Age 18 I went to work for myself and really started to earn some money - I also did a few days for Dad as well if I was short of work at this time.... On top of my wages - odd customer would give you a tip or drink sometimes - this used to add up as well - Dad always let you keep these gratuities. He never got too many he was so rude and blunt with the punters - but I was young and polite and got my share of them.
Flat amount of money per week - as many hours as he needed to me work - some weeks I did a whole Sat (six days a week) - other weeks I got Friday afternoon off and Saturday - just depends on what he had on.... Most days were 8am till 6am - 10hrs a day.
Money was lots more than my mates were on - but I was doing allot of hours and allot of work for it - I must admit Dad always stopped for an hour for lunch - so it was not all that bad.
Dad paid me for Bank Holidays and Xmas break - but if I wanted a week or two off in the summer for a holiday - I had to fund this myself (think he was trying to teach me something here?). This was on a self employed basis - I used to invoice Dad and Mother did my books (saved my tax money up for me - paid my stamp)
Four shillings and eleven pence, equivalent to (just under) 25p
..the exact equivalent to 25p was five bob (five shillings)
Proper money that was
julianthegypsy
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4.5 litres.
So a gallon of petrol was 1/10th of your weekly wage?
As @Cato has pointed out the minimum wage for a 17 year old is now £302 a week and with petrol at about £6.75 a gallon thats 1/44th of their weekly wage (I think?).
Maybe we're not doing quite so bad as we think we are?
Cobbler
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At 17, I earned £3.50, 18th birthday came & my wages went down. The guy I worked for said he couldn’t afford to pay the increased N.I. stamp. When you look at the minimum wage for a young person, it’s no wonder that companies aren’t taking on trainees, they can’t afford it.
Cato
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Personally I think the drain on finances is all the 'other' stuff. Thinking back, insurance was cheaper relatively, no mobile phone contract, computer, broadband, TV subscriptions, smartphone, housing costs were lower and public transport was much cheaper. There is a massive (no doubt deliberate) increase in the number of 'must have' things that call on your money now which simply didn't exist back then.
Kram
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I'd disagree! I just bought and ate a bacon and sausage roll from local bakery, and it came up on the till at £7.80!!!
She did correct it, should have been £6 but luckily it was quite enjoyable.
How much would a sausage and bacon roll from a bakery or similar shop have been back then?
Cato
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I can't remember but if £4:38 now is the equivalent of £1:00 then your £6:00 would have been £1:20 which doesn't sound too far away.
Any bacon sarnies we bought then would have been on a Saturday morning at 10:00 AM and an apprentice would go with the list. One thing I am sure of is that the cut bread donkey choker you got back then is the equivalent of three you'd get now.
All that said, my point stands in that "everything costs more" isn't true. Some do, some don't, but overall living costs are higher now than ever which is due to supply & demand, changed tastes/standards, a larger number of things to spend money on etc.
roofman
Purveyor of fine English buckets and mops
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I remember in the 70,s before going on a good ride out on my Suzuki AP50 topping the tank to the brim and handing over 50 new pence...tank already had fuel in it but just the fact the attendant never bat an eye over giving me 50p worth of 5 star which must of been a fair bit back then. 
At risk of getting even further off topic, the changed tastes and standards is a big one for me.
In 1966 you went to work on your bike and took a flask of tea with you, had homemade sandwiches for your lunch and ate potatoes and cabbages from the farm down the road for your tea when they were in season, before settling down to listen to the shipping forecast on the wireless before bed. And you probably went to bed early, because there was no central heating and burning coal to heat more than one room was expensive.
Now the heating's on 24/7 and if we get chilly we turn it up. We get in our 30k car to drive to work, have a Costa on the way to work, and another mid morning, buy our sandwiches from the supermarket, along with a can of pop. Have green beans and peppers from Guatemala for tea and instead of listening to the radio for an hour before bed, we watch our 96" wide-screen TV whilst playing on our phones and browsing here on our laptops.
I really can't understand why the cost of living is so high.
Cato
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I remember how outraged my Dad was at the thought of diesel hitting £1:00 a gallon. Now it's closing fast on £10:00 a gallon.We have a trip coming up, I'm dreading filling up, the Sorento has a 21 gallon tank
I remember how outraged my Dad was at the thought of diesel hitting £1:00 a gallon. Now it's closing fast on £10:00 a gallon.
I remember when petrol was approaching £1 a gallon, and blokes I worked with saying that it couldn't go above a pound a gallon because the pumps couldn't work at costs over a pound.
Well, we all know how that worked out, all new pumps.....
Cobbler
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With the current situation & price of diesel, we are thinking of postponing our 8 week trip to France & Spain until the autumn. Luckily Mrs C got flexi tickets so can alter the crossing on Brittany Ferries. I also have horrible sciatica at the moment, which doesn’t want to clear up.
