How things change

[kelliem]

The other night we had a family get-together, and as is her wont upon occasion, my mother couldn't resist being critical of my weight and my spendthrift ways. When I commented that it was very hard to save money while being the sole support for my kid-unit, she shook her head and said "Well, you know, the most your dad ever made in his life was $2200.00 and he supported 4 of us on that and still managed to save. You make more than that now." I gritted my teeth and pointed out that inflation makes a big difference. When I got home, I was still seething a bit so I went online and found an inflation calculator. The first one I found gave me this information:

What cost $2200 in 1973 would cost $9713.88 in 2005. Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1973, they would cost you $2200 and $498.26 respectively.

The second one I found, on NASA's site, gave me a slightly different result of $2200.00 = $9116.800000000001, but that's still a HUGE difference.

I make approximately 1/3 of what my dad made at his earning peak. No wonder I am always broke, rent instead of own, cannot save, and generally feel stressed about money most of the time. :-P

Comments

[silme.livejournal.com]

Sheesh -- she really needs to start singing a new tune.

{hugs}

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

After this long, I don't hold out much hope of that, but it was nice to email her the results of that search. :)

[silme.livejournal.com]

I bet it was!

I still remember my mother the Christmas before I was going to start applying for teaching jobs. Back then, I had long hair. It was cold and very windy outside, so my hair was kind of a mess when I entered the house. My mother took one look at me and told me I'd never get a teaching job with hair like that.

Um, Mom, I will comb it first.

*sigh*