What One Dollar Could Buy 1945 -1954

https://pixabay.com/en/dollar-bill-hand-grass-money-cash-1088855/
@HazySue (39269)
Gouverneur, New York
August 18, 2016 8:15am CST
In todays time when a one dollar bill doesn't buy much it makes me wonder just what a dollar bill could buy way back when. Actually what made me wonder was an article on MSN about what one dollar could buy on the year you were born. So, being the curious person that I am, I put together this post using information from that article and from what I learned by perusing the internet. Ok, here goes: 1945 - Four paperback copies of Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' or 10 gallons of gas for just over a dollar. 1946 - A men's flannel shirt or a woman's manicure. 1947 - Eight cans of Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup or a man's sweat shirt. 1948 - Five boxes of Kellogg’s corn flakes or twenty-four grapefruit. 1949 - Seven loaves of bread or 6 dozen donuts. 1950 - Four pounds of frozen green beans or 2 pounds of American Cheese. 1951 - One package of 25 thrift Christmas cards or two bottles of aspirin. 1952 - A little under three pounds of coffee or Hunts Fruit Cocktail. 1953 - 24 pounds of potatoes or Pork and Beans. 1954 - One pound of T-bone steak, two dozen eggs or four pounds Sunnyfield sliced bacon. Once I started researching and writing this it began to become a longer post so, I decided to keep it to wo years. If you would like me to do more years let me know in the comments. I found it fascinating the difference between how much a dollar could buy then and how much it buys now. Don't you find it amazing?
13 people like this
15 responses
@LadyDuck (454987)
• Switzerland
18 Aug 16
If only the wages had grown so much during all those years, but this is not the case.
2 people like this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@LadyDuck isn't that the truth. The cost of living is way out of sight,.
1 person likes this
@OneOfMany (12150)
• United States
18 Aug 16
Certainly the value of a dollar has fallen as more and more people have come around. I would love to make the value go up by slowly eliminating the various need for money. That's the only way to do it with populations increasing. Back in the 80s $1 could buy 20 little candy suckers or 100 pieces of penny candy. A penny still had value in my youth. Today it's just something that's there. I would love to see it have value again.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@OneOfMany I would love to see the dollar hold the same value that it used to.
1 person likes this
@OneOfMany (12150)
• United States
19 Aug 16
@HazySue We'd have to reduce the world's dependency on money, which is possible but very difficult to achieve. It probably wouldn't come about for 5 generations unless something big happened to force it along.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
20 Aug 16
@OneOfMany too little too late for us. We would also have to reduce the dependency on material things.
1 person likes this
• United States
18 Aug 16
Yes, they could buy more for that buck, but they also had to work harder to get it.
1 person likes this
• United States
19 Aug 16
@HazySue It's all relative - back then they only made a little money and things were cheap. When we lived in Hawaii my husband made $80 a week, but, as an example, cigs were 25 cents a pack. I
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@AbbyGreenhill I don't know, I feel like some work hard today.
• United States
18 Aug 16
'tis amazin', but then one needs to look 't the wages back then :)
1 person likes this
• United States
19 Aug 16
@HazySue i reckon that depends'n the thingie? groceries 're ridiculous, but most're imported fer whate'er reason. that "supply 'n demand" 'tis what keeps the prices 'f all jacked so high. if'n folks quit buyin'n large 'nough sectors, such nonsense'd stop. alas, they'll not do such.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@crazyhorseladycx true, still the cost of things has gone up much quicker than wages.
1 person likes this
@just4him (303377)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
18 Aug 16
I wish we could still get ten gallons of gas for under a dollar. Yes, very interesting.
1 person likes this
@just4him (303377)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
22 Aug 16
@HazySue True. It would be so nice to have a cost of living we could actually afford to live with.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@just4him what we couldn't do if we still had those prices.
1 person likes this
• Jacksonville, Florida
18 Aug 16
I was not born quite yet. But yeah... There is not much left to the value of a dollar.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@teresatrotter The value of a dollar certainly has gone down.
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@teresatrotter that's ok. My mind sometimes automatically puts in the word think should be there.
• Jacksonville, Florida
19 Aug 16
@HazySue - I meant to say "not" born yet...and forgot the world "not." LOL Anyway... I added it so my sentence now makes sense.
1 person likes this
@skysnap (20154)
18 Aug 16
These days it's hard to even have dinner or lunch for 1$. Old days were good it seems.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@skysnap they were at least cheaper.
1 person likes this
@CinnamonGrl (7083)
• Santa Fe, New Mexico
18 Aug 16
I was 3 in 1954 so I don't remember this. But I remember not long after that, my sister and I would each be given a dollar at the store, I'd usually end up with paper dolls, a coloring book and a candy bar.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@CinnamonGrl a dollar did go further back when we were kids.
@jaboUK (64363)
• United Kingdom
18 Aug 16
Yes, it's interesting but it's all relative of course. The wages of the average person would be a fraction of what they are now.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@jaboUK true, but here the cost of living has skyrocketed while wages seem to creep along falling behind.
1 person likes this
@Inlemay (17714)
• South Africa
18 Aug 16
however we worked a lot harder for that first dollar than we do for todays dollar
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@Inlemay you think so? Some did.
1 person likes this
• United States
18 Aug 16
If I remember correctly my mom used to spend about $30 for our family for groceries for the week and it was a cart load of food. Now i'm happy if I can get a bag of potato chips at the dollar store for that buck
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@Marilynda1225 I can't find potato chips for a dollar.
@JohnRoberts (109865)
• Los Angeles, California
18 Aug 16
And a postage stamp was a couple cents and a quarter got you into a movie. You did indeed get more bang for your buck but to put things into perspective income and wages were far less than today though today nowhere keeps up with inflation and corporate greed.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@JohnRoberts what you say is true but the cost of things seem to go higher and higher while wages seem to creep up.
@rina110383 (24497)
19 Aug 16
Indeed, they are very interesting!
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@rina110383 I'm glad to hear you say that. I'll keep on writing them then.
1 person likes this
@JustBhem (70601)
• Davao, Philippines
18 Aug 16
Everything change.
1 person likes this
@HazySue (39269)
• Gouverneur, New York
19 Aug 16
@JustBhem that's true. And they call that change progress.
1 person likes this
@JustBhem (70601)
• Davao, Philippines
20 Aug 16
@HazySue Haha. And here, we have this phrase "Change is Coming" lol
1 person likes this
@Hannihar (129114)
• Israel
24 Apr 18
@HazySue Susan, thanks for that. I was born in 1950 and it shows that a dollar would buy 4 pounds of frozen green beans or 2 pounds of American cheese.