Time travel trip through living costs
As we live through a period of fast escalating inflation, all of us are facing rising costs - but just how much have they gone up over the decades?
From days out to houses and even attending university, a time-traveller from just 30 years ago would struggle to comprehend today’s prices.
Take, for example, the price of stamps. In April, Royal Mail hiked the price for a first class stamp to
95p and a second to 68p. In 1980, an era when a first class stamp did normally deliver on its next-day promise, it would have set you back 12p.
Petrol and diesel is another thorny topic, with rates among the highest ever seen. Today, a litre of unleaded is going to set you back, roughly, around £1.59 at the county’s pumps. Of which, coincidentally, around half is made up of fuel duty and VAT.
So you probably won’t want reminding that a mere 15 years ago it retailed in Kent for 88p. That’s a price hike of 80%. Probably best to blame the Russians.
Dial back 20 years and it was 70p. And for those of us for whom 1990 seems like just the other day, well then it was just 40p (the equivalent today of £1.06).
In fact, in 1970 you could buy an original Fiat 500, new, for a few pounds less than £500 (about £8,700 in today’s money - buying one today will probably set you back close to £14,000).
According to Right Move, the average price of a property in Kent last year stood at an eye-watering £414,458.
Yet, just 20 years ago, that figure was closer to £146,500. Rewind further to 1995 and you could be a proud house owner for a rather more modest £69,089.
In 1970, a three-bedroom “picturesque period cottage” in the verydesireable west Kent village of Goudhurst, set in oneand-a-half-acres would have cost you a mere £7,500. That equates to about £131,500 today.
For renters, a two-bed house with garage and gardenin Birchington would have set you back a whopping £26 a month.