Saturday, March 5, 2011

How much are you paying for your haircut?

How much are you paying for your haircut? Or a hotel room when you go on holiday, a packet of ciggies, or gasoline for your car? Let's take a look at how much these cost 55 years ago. Comments in bold italics are comments made then. This came through email.

A haircut..
‘If they think I’ll pay 30 cents for a hair cut, forget it.’


Hotel room..
‘There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay in a hotel.’

A pack of cigarettes..
‘If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit; 20 cents a pack is ridiculous.‘

Gasoline..
‘When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.’

These are just some examples from an email. Here's one more...Talk about how inflation has drastically reduced purchasing power of our currency..

‘I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $10.00.‘

I wonder what will it be like in another 55 years. You might want to leave some meaningful quotes/comments for your children or grandchildren to quote you in 55 years from now. LOL!

Of course, life is not the same now. We are doing things differently which is a far cry from those days. I want to think we are better off now than before. Progress and technology have seen to that. We certainly have come a long way.

5 comments:

  1. The more human the higher the inflation. The higher the inflation the higher interest rate. And so these two combine, kill everyone in return. How cripple is the financial systems?

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  2. When I was in primary school, my 50sen pocket money sure can buy a lot of stuff. Try giving a kid just 50sen now!

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  3. Anonymous8:56 PM

    My regular hairstylist doesn't charge me more than RM50 for a simple haircut and wash.

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  4. Mine only RM8 plus washing. Ha :D

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  5. Of course, these quotes are not adjusted for inflation. But even if they were, they would seem cheap relative to today.

    Prices today also include a lot of taxes - cigarettes and gasoline especially. And then there is the fact that demand for oil is much larger due to developing economies while oil production itself has peaked in 2006....

    So, it's all and "apples and oranges" kind of comparison.

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