What your parents and grandparents spent their money: must-have items from previous decades

How your parents and grandparents spent their hard-earned money

Every generation, from the Silent Generation to the Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers, had its own lifestyle aspirations, and its own must-have products and popular sources of entertainment. From the everyday to the bizarre, read on to find out what your parents – and maybe your grandparents – chose to spend their hard-earned cash on from the 1920s to the 1970s.

1920s: Radios

In the 20s one big invention shook up the entertainment scene: the radio. During World War I it had been used to contact ships at sea and send Morse code messages, but in November 1920 the first commercial radio station, KDKA, was launched in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

1920s: Telephone

While many of us are now getting rid of our landline phones and just using smartphones, in the 20s the telephone was introduced to households for the first time. Although the invention had been patented by Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell as far back as 1876, with the first international call taking place between London and Paris in 1891, phones only started to enter the mainstream in the 20s. During the decade, the number of American families that owned a telephone went from 13% to 35%, while those who couldn’t afford to own one paid to use public telephones.

1920s: Ready-to-wear clothing

Given the ubiquity of fast fashion nowadays, it’s hard to believe that ready-to-wear clothing didn’t exist until 100 years ago. Standard sizes were invented to create army uniform more efficiently during World War I, and the practice was passed on to the commercial world, allowing people to buy off-the-rack clothing for the first time. Before then, people had either made their own clothes or had them made for them. 

1920s: Movies

The ultimate pastime in the Roaring 20s was going to the movies. The rise of 'talkies' meant that cinema became a real challenger to live entertainment. In America, attendances soared from 50 million a week in 1920 to 90 million a week in 1929, and out of every dollar that Americans spent on entertainment, 83 cents was spent on the movies. In the days before television the movies certainly had a captive audience.

1930s: Alcohol

In America the 30s brought the Great Depression, pushing more than 12 million people into unemployment. But it was also a decade that saw significant legislative change: the end of Prohibition, a 13-year ban on alcohol that lasted until 1933. On the night of 5 December that year, people came out in droves to drink their first legal tipple in over a decade. 

1930s: Comic strips

The 30s were when comic books took off as big names such as Marvel (then called Timely Comics) launched. For a decade characterized by the Great Depression, and later the start of World War II, the cheap and accessible form of entertainment comic strips provided had an avid audience.

1930s: Board games

As many households’ budgets were stretched to afford food, housing and clothes, entertainment could hardly be as much of a priority. Board games, such as Monopoly, were relatively cheap and provided entertainment for the entire family, which is why they proved so popular in the 30s.

1930s: Tinned food

Although refrigerators had begun to enter homes in the previous decade, they were only affordable for a small proportion of people, so tinned food was ideal. In America, Campbell’s Soup rose to popularity throughout the 30s as a cheap, easy way to eat healthily: at around 7 cents a can, the condensed soup cost about a third as much as making your own. 

1940s: Homes

Many people rented their homes in the 30s, but in the 40s that was starting to change. In the US, thanks to the after-effects of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, legislation was passed to help homeowners so that bank loans for mortgages would be guaranteed. In the following decade mortgages became affordable for large chunks of the population, who moved into newly-built suburbs.

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1940s: DIY and crafts

During World War II, a make-do-and-mend attitude prevailed. Households didn’t have much money to spare so it was far cheaper to repair items than buy new, plus clothes rationing limited the amount of clothes that people could buy. In America, a number of craft stores such as Jo-Ann Stores were established and quickly became successful.

1940s: Washing machines

It’s hard to imagine how most of us would cope nowadays without a washing machine – but many people didn’t own one until the late 40s. The first electric machine was actually invented in the 30s but it wasn't until a decade later that you could buy a fully-automated machine. However, it came at a price: the Kenmore Automatic Washer sold for $239.95, which works out at around $4,000 in today’s money.

1940s: Toys

The late 40s brought the baby boom, when veterans returned home after the war and there was a sharp rise in the number of births, which would last for some 20 years. Clever toy manufacturers anticipated the rise and there was a corresponding boom in the number of new toy stores opening in the latter half of the decade, with big names Mattel and Toys 'R' Us founded in 1945 and 1948 respectively.

1950s: TVs

TVs had been around since the 40s but they became extremely popular in the 50s, with 77% of American households purchasing their first TV set during the decade. Costing around $200 – which works out as around $2,100 today – they weren’t cheap, but nonetheless transformed family life and leisure time. 

1950s: Credit cards

In the 50s, the post-war economic boom was taking hold, and credit cards changed the way we bought goods. The American Express card was launched in 1958 and allowed people to pay for purchases at the end of the month. After just five years there were one million of the cards in use, revolutionizing the way that people spent their money. But along with credit cards came an inevitable rise in consumer debt.

1950s: Plastic products

Today we are waking up to the environmental dangers of plastic, but in the 50s the pitfalls of the new miracle material were not known and it soon became widespread. Providing us with everything from car parts to raincoats and Velcro, it revolutionised household products and played no small part in the consumer culture that was gaining traction.

1950s: Cars

In the 1950s more and more people were buying their own cars, and this impacted not only daily life but the landcape of countries as governments built more roads to accommodate them. In the US the interstate was authorized for construction in 1956. But just owning a car wasn’t enough anymore: people wanted the latest model. From about 1955 the Space Race brought futurism into a lot of American designs, with large tail fins, flowing designs and radio antennas that imitated Sputnik becoming popular.

1960s: Microwaves

Today it's hard to imagine where we would be without microwaves. Yet the time-saving appliance only entered homes 50 years ago, when it became small and cheap enough for domestic use (microwaves had been used in commercial kitchens for over a decade). Yet, at $495 a pop in 1967, which is around $3,300 in today’s money, they were by no means cheap.

1960s: Lava lamps

The height of on-trend décor in the 1960s, lava lamps were a symbol of the psychedelic consciousness that embodied the decade of grooviness.  During their peak, more than seven million lava lamps sold each year, before the craze faded as the world entered a new decade. By the 1980s, original lava lamps from the Swinging Sixties were collectibles, and the chic wax-filled lamps also made a brief resurgence in the early 2000s.

1960s: Cameras

Color photography really came into its own in the 60s, when it became more common to own a camera. The Kodak Instamatic was launched in 1963 to huge success, selling 60 million units over the next two decades. At $20 apiece, around $170 in today’s money, it was reasonably inexpensive to own one of these cameras too. 

1960s: Portable radios

Think portable music and the iconic Walkman might spring to mind – but it had a significant predecessor. Transistor radios, which came into mainstream culture during the 60s, are in fact the most popular electronic communication device of all time, with billions having been manufactured during the 60s and 70s.   

1970s: Entertainment

In the 1970s, American personal spending on recreation averaged $708 a year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is $4,660 a year in today’s money – the highest amount for any decade in the past 75 years. This was partly down to a very young population, with the median age being just 28.1 at the start of the decade, so there was higher demand for concerts, movie theaters and bars. 

1970s: Walkman

The ability to walk down the street listening to music without everyone else having to listen to it too is something we take for granted nowadays, but it’s a fairly recent phenomenon. The Sony Walkman, with its small and compact design, was a revelation when it was released in 1979, going on to sell 200 million units. 

1970s: Video games

The 1970s saw the arrival of the first commercial video games. When Atari released the game Pong in 1972 it had the first commercially successful game on its hands, making its Atari 2600 console the one to buy. The company was sold to Warner Communications in 1976, and Atari was reportedly the fastest-growing company in the US at the time. But sadly it suffered in the video game crash of 1983, where market saturation and falling interest in video games impacted sales.

1970s: Pocket calculators

It might not sound very exciting today but when the pocket calculator was launched people went crazy for it. The first pocket calculator was released in 1970 and sold for a staggering $395 – that's $2,600 in today’s money – although the technology soon developed and they became cheaper and more widespread. 

1970s: Vacations abroad

It might be bizarre to think that what we now call a “staycation” was the typical vacation back in the day. Only in the 1970s did traveling abroad really catch on, with flight and hotel packages making foreign trips affordable to the masses for the first time. Americans sought out sun in Mexico, Cuba (briefly while the travel ban was lifted), and the Caribbean.   

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Now see what the American Dream looked like the decade you were born