When my Mother was 37, it was 2004 and Myspace was still all the rage. Flip phones and brick cell phones were all the rage. There was no Smartphones, no Pandemic, no Youtube, AOL was still all the rage, People weren't really trying to go Viral yet. Janet Jackson Superbowl wardrobe malfunction was all the rage, Ashlee Simpson was dubbed the New Milli Vanilli for being caught lipsynching to her own voice on Saturday Night Live and doing a weird impromptu hoedown jig :lol:, and blaming the band for the lipsynching fail and was ragged and dragged hard
Having a DVD and DVR meant you were on top of the world television and movie wise. :)

Oh, I wouldn't begin to go there, if my mom were still alive today, she would be 112.

When my mom was my age, Sitcomsonline did not exist, such dark, dark times ;) :lol:

When my mom was my age, Sitcomsonline did not exist, such dark, dark times ;) :lol:

The Horror!:eek::crazy:

Well, that would have been 1989. So, lets see? Pre 911, so the US Bill of Rights was still semi sacred, no Google, no Amazon, the internet had not yet become ubiquitous. Biil Gates was still a stooge. Bill Clinton was still a relative unknown. The Sears catalog was still a rage.

An RCA "Small wonder" camcorder would cost you $994.00
An NEC 41" widescreen TV would cost you $1995.00
A Sears home water heater was $89.99
A movie ticket was $2.00
Ground beef was $.99/lb
A Dove bar was $1.45
Kraft American singles cheese slices were $2.79 for a one pound package
Michelob beer was $9.95/case 12 oz bottles
100% cotton men's dress shirts were $15.88 at Sears
Women's hose were 3 pair for $8.07
T-bone steak at the grocer was $5.00-$5.99/lb
Chicken was less than a buck a pound
Coffee was $3.00/lb
Eggs were around a buck a dozen

And Average annual pay by position:
Insurance Claims Adjuster $19,000/yr
Accounts Receivable clerk $15-17,000/yr
Staff Attorney (non partner) $60,000/yr
Secretary $18-22,000/yr
Industrial Engineer $26-30,000/yr
Media Manager (TV station production head) $42,000/yr
Carpenter $11/hour

Well, that would have been 1989. So, lets see? Pre 911, so the US Bill of Rights was still semi sacred, no Google, no Amazon, the internet had not yet become ubiquitous. Biil Gates was still a stooge. Bill Clinton was still a relative unknown. The Sears catalog was still a rage.

An RCA "Small wonder" camcorder would cost you $994.00
An NEC 41" widescreen TV would cost you $1995.00
A Sears home water heater was $89.99
A movie ticket was $2.00
Ground beef was $.99/lb
A Dove bar was $1.45
Kraft American singles cheese slices were $2.79 for a one pound package
Michelob beer was $9.95/case 12 oz bottles
100% cotton men's dress shirts were $15.88 at Sears
Women's hose were 3 pair for $8.07
T-bone steak at the grocer was $5.00-$5.99/lb
Chicken was less than a buck a pound
Coffee was $3.00/lb
Eggs were around a buck a dozen

And Average annual pay by position:
Insurance Claims Adjuster $19,000/yr
Accounts Receivable clerk $15-17,000/yr
Staff Attorney (non partner) $60,000/yr
Secretary $18-22,000/yr
Industrial Engineer $26-30,000/yr
Media Manager (TV station production head) $42,000/yr
Carpenter $11/hour

About Dove being $1.45 in 1989, do you mean Dove the Candy Bar or Dove the soap? :)

About Dove being $1.45 in 1989, do you mean Dove the Candy Bar or Dove the soap? :)

Ice cream bar

In 1993, my mother was my age. IMDB had just moved to the Internet, and was still known as Cardiff Internet Movie Database. That was the year of the World Trade Center truck bombing, which killed six and injured over 1,000 people. It was also the year of the Waco slaughter, the Storm of the Century which killed 300 people, the Battle of Mogadishu, and the year Bill Clinton came into office. That was a baaaaddd year!

Ice cream bar


:) I forgot that Dove also makes ice cream bars. :)

My dollar figures come from this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Value-Dollar-1860-2004-Prices-Incomes/dp/1592371736

And it's really interesting going back to any particular year and developing a composite of costs based upon items you normally buy, and then compare them to what popular wages were at the time....as far as what percentage of people's total income was going to utilities, for example, or for rent, groceries, etc.

My dollar figures come from this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Value-Dollar-1860-2004-Prices-Incomes/dp/1592371736

And it's really interesting going back to any particular year and developing a composite of costs based upon items you normally buy, and then compare them to what popular wages were at the time....as far as what percentage of people's total income was going to utilities, for example, or for rent, groceries, etc.

I remember telling my Cousin when we were Teenagers in the late 1990's that if we traveled to the past with today's (1990's) money, we'd be REALLY rich. She agreed. :)

You'd likely end up in jail. Think about it. Look at the dates printed on all your money, and then tell me how many would NOT be counterfeit in 1960?

Oh, I wouldn't begin to go there, if my mom were still alive today, she would be 112.. My mom if alive today, would be 103 years old. I will say in her day more smokers, social drinkers, but also she walked a lot more to get to places when she was teen and in her early 20's. Less process food and in her teens, food was a bit scares. Her father was a fish business and they ate a lot of fish for morning, noon and night. My aunt my mom's sister went out to fancy restaurant with a group of people, the bill might have been paid for her, and on the menu was Filet miglon. My aunt knowing the word filet meant fish passed. Later, she was told, she passed up a good piece of beef. Small markets and store were within walking distances. Busses and trains to take were common and less cars on the roads.

Oh, I wouldn't begin to go there, if my mom were still alive today, she would be 112.Wow that would be something :)

The world wasnt much different when my mom was the age I am now......

That would have been in 1985, when I was a baby.
So yeah, the Cold War was still going on and everything.

I am 55 so my mother was my age in 1986 and my father in 1987. My father was much more successful than myself in a career and my mother stayed at home. It is somewhat strange seeing them outside my house in my "cap and gown" in 1985 and them being younger than I am now. My mother died at the age of 86 in 2018 and my father is still alive at 90.

I have always thought of my parents as old. They grew up as children of the Depression. I doubt either have even seen a television until they graduated high school (maybe in late high school). My father told a story of the family listening on the radio of a Joe Louis fight which lasted one round. I think my parents knew of people killed in WWII. His cousin was shot in the butt by the Japanese. My mother because my father was an airline pilot and they had the money, she got to travel to five of the six inhabited contents (she never went to Australia). She told me that she never wanted to go to Japan even decades later because what happened in WWII. The war was only about 40 years ago when they were my age. I live in China and have never been to Japan except at the airport and would love to go there. Drink Saki, sit on the floor and watch the Sumo. Japan was bombed by two atomic bombs and surrendered and all the criminals responsible for it are all dead. I have no problem going there but have heard lotd of Chinese resentment.

My father was much more successful than me at my age. Much more. He had a career. I was never successful. I drift from low paying job to job and moved overseas to job to job. He had a career, built his home and has an incredible pension (and it is incredible). I have nothing. He is 90 and waiting on an inheritance and have to deal with my "step-mother" who is the executor when he (if he does) dies. But the step-mother is kind with her own money and told her privately what I want and she will give me give me my father's house I dont want and will sell, and momey to support myself. Thankfully she has no children and family and stayed single all of her life until she married my father. I want to ask her why she would do that instead of being free to live her own life. Maybe she just always wanted to be married.

Life is short, it really is. I am 55 and will be lucky to live another 15 years, 25 at the most and then death. I am scared of death. I asked my father at around 88 years old and he told me he isnt scared of death at all, he lived a good life and it has to come to an end. Me dying and nothing, an eternity of nothingness is scary, but at my age, that time will come soon and maybe anytime.

I think there is a similar thread which can be followed by my name but.....

My mother was my age in 1986. She lived a nice life. She was married to my father who had a very successful career and she hasn't had to work since the early 1950's. In the 1970's she got to travel to travel the World somewhat because my father was an airline pilot and had the money to do that. By the 1980's she didn't travel overseas anymore and settled down.

For some insane reason my parents instead of buying a house, built a house in the suburb if Memphis. There wasnt one of dozens of houses they didnt like. I was a child then but used as labor to build their stupid house. This was in 1981-82. What you need to know about my father was he took the hard way to do anything. If it was hardest, most complicated way to do anything at all, he was all for it. It saved him a nickel, or something. By the 1980's however he didnt do that mostly.

In 1986? I think my mother was happy. Very happy. She lived in a safe suburb outside the city in her own home. I was in college. I guess you can call her a housewife. But in a family with three people and a child in college, it didnt get too dirty.

My father was an airline pilot in a very successful career and made a lot of money. The only thing tasked to her by my father was make dinner when he was home. While not a gormet, she was decent cook. Cooking always fell to her even as a small child in the 1970's, and 99 percent of her cooking was good exceot in the 1970's when she made this disgusting vegetable soup my father liked. Fortunatly she quit making it. But her food was very good.

The 1980's were pretty problem free from her except my bad grades from college. She got what she wanted, a secure life. She didn't have to work making billionaires a dime, her and my father loved each other and never got into arguments ever (in their relationship, I remember them getting into arguments literally twice, both in the 1970's, one as a little child and we stayed in a hotel for a night when I was about four, and another time in the oldhouse when I hears them yelling about some bull***** and spent the day with my father. Other that, no issues whatsoever. Neither rarey drank Z(saw my father drunk once after a Christmas party with another collegue and never with my mother, although she drank a "screwdriver" once in a while).

My parents were Ok, and the 1980's were mostly the best times of our lives.The problems was when I came from Las Vegas, living in their home and drug addicted. Off of that, and wish I could take the 1980's back and me standing up to my father and his demands (who was a year younger than my mother)

Interesting stories told here with posters are opening up about their lives. My mom entered the service, the Army in 1942. Prior to entering the service she trained to be a nurse. She told me that in her teenage years she waitressed to help pay for tuition for nursing school which I tend to think was ? $50.00 a year . I never did asked but she waitressed 4 years during high school. After 4yrs in service spending time most of her work aiding the wounded and learning a lot about death , she bought a house for her parents back in her home town.They were being evicted from their home. . She was in her mid to late 20's this time. She was a young woman who had a lot of gumption which I have little of.

Do you wonder why people are so different??