Grandparents love to brag about how inexpensive a chocolate bar was “back in their day” or how little they paid for their first home. And in a perfect world, it wouldn’t really matter how much prices had increased because our salaries would inflate on the same scale. But as we all know, that’s just not the case today.
Costs of living are soaring all over the planet, and it seems like every year, things that were once basic necessities or little treats are turning into luxuries reserved only for the rich. Redditors have recently been discussing some of these things that have become unattainable for most of us, so we’ve gathered some of their thoughts below.
Read More: “Chicken Wings, Nobody Should Be Paying $2 Per Wing”: 30 Things People Can No Longer Afford
#1
Health care. Dental visits. Glasses.
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#2
Tickets for events.
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#3
A house
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#4
Groceries.
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#5
University tuition.
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#6
Uh, life.
*Vaguely gestures*
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#7
Stay at home Mom with a family that has food security, social activities, and family vacations.
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#8
Disney has gotten crazy expensive.
Going to sports or concerts.
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#9
A summer house. I know many families that have an old house on a lake that they go to in the summers. It’s been passed down for a couple generations. Nobody in the current generation could afford one but some how a family with a single income bought it 50 years ago and the man’s wife and wife and kids would spend the whole summer there and he would go up on weekends.
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#10
Very large families, as in having 4 or more kids
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#11
Healthcare that covers whatever you actually need done including surgery, imaging, childbirth, etc.
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#12
A middle income starter home.
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#13
Housing, the younger generation are being forced to rent. sad to see
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#14
Automobiles. My first car cost me $3255. My current one cost me nearly $40,000
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#15
Chicken wings, nobody should be paying $2 per wing
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#16
Privacy
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#17
Housing, education, most high quality food, vehicles etc etc.. you can still get those things but you will die in debt
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#18
Well, more than 50 years ago, but lobster. In New England It used to be used by prisons to feed inmates. Plentiful, cheap, and kinda gross, so no one else was going to eat it.
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#19
Reasonable living standards.
Edit: apparently people aren’t able to put the original question and answer together. My point is that having reasonable living by today’s standards is something fewer people can afford compared to 50 years ago. The difference between living standards of wealthy and poor was far narrower than it is today. Sure, we didn’t have internet and fancy TVs and take away deliveries from our phones back then, but *nobody* had that, so that’s irrelevant. 50 years ago you didn’t have to be rich to own your home, to work reasonable hours, to have some leisure time. Now you simply cannot afford to even rent somewhere in some places unless you’re earning well above minimum wage.
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#20
Cod in Sweden. When I grew up, it was the staple fish, the base for most traditional fish dishes and you’d eat it several times a week. With a dwindling cod population in Swedish waters, it has now gotten so expensive that I can’t remember when I last had cod.
In 1980, according to Statistics Sweden, one kilogram of cod was 15 SEK (US$1.42 with today’s FX rate). In 2024 money, that would be $5.60.
But in the stores today, one kilogram of cod will cost you $29.70 (cheapest cod at Hemköp).
(Apparently Statistics Sweden stopped tracking the price of cod in 2012, which I guess is just proof of its loss of importance as a staple food in Sweden)
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#21
Lego
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#22
Medical surgical care. Prescription medication.
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#23
College education
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#24
Owning a dog!
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#25
Organic or specialty foods that were once more affordable have become increasingly expensive compared to processed or unhealthy alternatives, making access to healthy food more difficult for lower-income individuals.
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#26
A ski trip. It was still expensive but now it’s just crazy thanks to large corporations decreasing competition by buying all the resorts.
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#27
1960’s Gibson or Fender guitars. The dentists/surgeons and “collectors” have wrecked the market for the common musician.
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