Life was much simpler before the digital boom. Kids found immense joy in playing outside instead of being fixated on gadgets, while adults enjoyed more basic pleasures, as seen in today's list.
We're exploring a question on the AskOldPeople subreddit: "What was a sign of being well-off in your neighborhood or community in the 50s, 60s, or 70s?" For younger individuals, this gives a peek at how people defined luxuries back in the day.
And if you've lived through these decades, this one's for you.
#1
In my neighborhood - two bathrooms. Pretty uncommon.
anastasiano70: My grandparents, born in 1912, were the first of their MANY siblings to have a bathroom INSIDE their house. Their siblings and spouses and nieces and nephews all came to admire and use it.
That cracks me up. They were considered the RICH ones
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#3
Air conditioning.
rikitikilizi: My friends with air conditioners always only had one window unit, usually in the parents' bedroom, and that room always had the shade drawn and the door closed. We always felt so scandalous opening that door to duck into the room to cool off for a few minutes in the dark.
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Let’s begin this trip down memory lane in 1950s America. World War II had just ended, which ushered in the baby boom era. According to History, the U.S. gross national product grew from $200 billion to $500 billion to kick off “the Golden Age of American Capitalism.”
During this time, the government increased spending on the construction of interstate highways and schools. Inflation and unemployment rates were at an all-time low, giving middle-class people more financial leeway.
#4
Two cars in the driveway.
ujmrider1961: Born in 1961, lived in a suburban neighborhood in the Denver area all through the '70s.
When I was growing up, most families only had one car. Even though my mom worked when I was a kid and in school, we never had more than one car, and that was true of most of our neighbors as well.
We were solid middle class. Dad was a Federal government employee, Mom and Dad both had college degrees, and most of our neighbors were professional/white-collar families with both parents at home.
Two cars in the driveway were just starting to become more common by the mid-1970s, although even then, we never had two cars
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Alongside the baby boom of the ’50s came the suburban boom. Real estate developers like William Levitt bought land in the city outskirts and built cheap tract houses.
At the same time, the G.I. Bill helped veterans through subsidized housing, helping them purchase homes at a much lower price. At the time, houses were much more affordable than apartments.
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#8
Having your own phone line. We had a party line, where four families were on one phone line. You just picked up the phone and if someone was talking, you hung it up and waited your turn!
tater72: I, too, had a party line (six houses). Boy, there were no secrets there.
Finally, that rich family paid for the phone company to run them their own, and everyone else got one too. I was a teenager
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We’re jumping forward to the 1960s in the U.K. The Guardian writer Patrick Collinson shared his father’s experience earning an annual salary of £1,357 as an accounts clerk from 1963 to 1964.
According to him, his father was able to purchase a brand-new three-bedroom home for a family of five. They also owned a Ford Popular and a Phillips TV. His father had no outstanding loans.
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Other people who lived in the ’60s revealed what it was like to experience some form of wealth. Pavillion Agency Vice President Seth Norman Greenberg shared some insights with Business Insider. Greenberg’s uncle founded the agency in 1962.
“Leading up to the 60s, maybe even the 70s, most wealthy families had a primary property. They possibly had a second home.”
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The 1970s were difficult because of what was described as “The Great Inflation.” According to Investopedia, rates rose as high as 14%, and people felt it in their bank accounts.
Many found it difficult to budget their weekly expenses, which led to many items being beyond their means. Meat and gas prices, for one, were at an all-time high.
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The U.S. economy bounced back in the 1980s. Inflation rates reportedly dropped to 3.5 percent during the decade's latter half. It was also a time when the rich got richer.
In a 1991 report by the Chicago Tribune, the number of millionaires in Illinois soared by 4,000, from 157 in 1977 to 6,240 in 1988. The top 16 wealthiest individuals earned an annual income of over $50,000 (around $133,000 in 2024).
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#21
The rich family on our block of middle class families would give out full size candy bars at Halloween.
lovessj: There was a house on my block when I was a child in the ’70s that gave out 50-cent pieces. That was five candy bars
laylay_thegrail: The one on my block had a Mercedes and gave out full-size boxes of Cracker Jack at Halloween
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But while the people at the top only grew their net worth, those at the lower end of the totem pole struggled more.
“Highly skilled people of all ages are seeing real wages rise while lower-skilled people of all ages are seeing real wages fall,” said Rebecca Blank, former senior staff economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.
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Looking at these posts, you can see how starkly different people viewed luxuries decades ago. And whether or not you’re a fan of today’s technology, it’s probably safe to say that we’re living in interesting times.
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#36
Ooooh yeah … a color TV. A twenty seven inch color TV. I remember seeing my first 30” … then a 36” … believe me - childhood me would think people of the future must live in movie theaters if they own and watch movies on an 85” television. Which is larger than the pull-down-screen the grade school movies of my youth were projected on. The magic of the Jetsons came to life - siiiiigh.
mosselyn: My family bought our first color TV to watch the 1972 Olympics. It had a whopping 9" screen, and we piled on my parents' bed to watch it
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#50
Meat with dinner every night.Having extracurriculars, like ballet lessons. Most of us just had to hang out not at home.I remember when my neighbors got MTV. I went over there and watched it for hours. We never had any sort of cable anything.The poor folk all had unpaved, straight, short driveways. The rich folk had circular driveways. I'm sure this wasn't the majority of them but to this day when I see a circular driveway, I think wow those guys must be well off.
Yes I know this makes no sense, but funny how first impressions on a young person can last a lifetime like this.
IRL, having a TV was a sign someone was well off back in my day. Only one person in the whole neighbourhood had a COLOR TV, a very well off doctor. And if the mom and the dad each had their own cars, then wow they must have won the lottery.In my neighborhood, it was having a father that didn't have to wear a shirt with his name on the front. Or having a father that worked in an office.
An above ground swimming pool in the backyard was very rich too!
Going out to eat for anything other than pizza was a huge deal too.
Having a set of encyclopedias.An entertainment console: a big horizontal cabinet that held a radio, tv and a hi fi record player or, if you had really made it, stereo!I was told only about three years ago by a friend that they thought my family must be rich because we built a brick house in the early 1960s. All the other houses around us were made of timber.Our rich neighbors had their basement finished in 1970s glory. Shag carpet, 8-track player, strobe light, extra bedroom for the maid, water bed, air hockey game, and pinball machines. And one of the very first VCRs (cost around $2K).
Also, an in-ground pool, and one of the earliest video game systems, where the graphics consisted of a cellophane overlay that you'd put on the front of the TV!
I don't remember what cars they had, but they were probably fancy.Going on vacation to somewhere other than visiting relatives; traveling by airplane; buying a new car instead of used; cable TV; air conditioning; kids having their own phone line; eating out at restaurants; buying clothing at mall stores instead of Caldor [local discount chain]; getting your hair cut at a salon instead of mom doing it at home; wasting food (i.e., not eating leftovers); having an expensive hobby like golf, sailing or skiing; buying new furniture vs. finding things at thrift stores...
My family was comfortably middle-class, but because my parents had both grown up extremely poor during the Depression they were very frugal and we did none of these things, with the exception of "buying a new car instead of used" because my dad drove a lot for work and couldn't risk having his car break down.
It was so ingrained in me that I still pretty much do all this except I do like to go on vacations (although we generally camp); and I am into mountain biking which is an expensive hobby. But most of our furniture came from Craigslist or the swap shop, and I cut my own hair, hate wasting food, and buy my clothes at the thrift store or on Poshmark.In the 50s it would have been a window air conditioner. In the 70s it was whole house air conditioning.I was in high school in the 70's. One of our classmates got her own "princess line" phone in her bedroom.Outdoor grilling became a postwar thing to show off people could afford lots of meat.Well, according to my preteen sister, it was the fact that you had a TV guide, instead of the pull out from the Sunday newspaper, and, apparently, could afford paper towels.
She went to someone's house who had those things and came back in wide-eyed astonishment at the wealth of this particular family. ?
In her defense paper towels were not yet a thing most people used cloth kitchen or some people call him tea towels. But we had a good laugh at that.The ground pool and an intercom system in your house. My current 1995 build house has the original intercom system and I just cannon bring myself to tear it out.My grandparents always said that having an American Express card was a sign that you had "made it" back in the day.Massachusetts coastal town: Yacht Club parking sticker, country club parking sticker, and a private beach sticker. An awful lot of very affluent people drove fairly nondescript cars, particularly old money. Anyone with all three stickers for sure was upper middle class.Each of the kids had their own bedroom, ice maker.In the 50’s it was having a television. In the 60’s, a color television. In the 70’s, a color tv with a remote and in the late 70’s it was having cable with MTV.70s. If your house had a tennis court, you were *money*.Back in the 60’s if you had braces you were well off. Not so today.During the 70s: In-ground pool. Cable TV. 3 cars, with the third one being some kind of little foreign sports car. A boat. An additional home somewhere or a cabin on some land. Vacations that required flying.A dishwasher. A swim club membership. Central A/C.In the early to mid 70’s, a VCR at home. imagine your mind being blown as a fifth grader, when another kid says they’re gonna go home and watch the Three Stooges after school. But the Three Stooges are on in the morning! The Rich kid said, yeah, we record it so I can watch it after school. I thought he was a liar, that was impossible!Wall to wall carpeting. A heat source that wasn't a wood stove.Buying a microwave oven as soon as they were available for sale circa 1978-1981.
Central air conditioning. Getting cable TV circa 1981. Owning a summer cottage/boat.
Country club and/or golf club membership.Having a cabin at the lake that you spent time at during the summer.A yearly trip to WDW.
Going to “the Cape” for a week during the summer.
Playing town league sports(soccer, softball, baseball)
Having a “job” at the local Catholic Church and school.Anything newly trendy. That was for “the Joneses” and we weren’t supposed to keep up with them.I grew up in a working-class neighborhood. Went to a classmate’s house after school one day (1970) and what a revelation. A housekeeper greeted us at the door with “Hi Miss Amy, who’s your friend? Will she stay for dinner?” and took my friend’s coat. The entry room was an atrium with light streaming in from above, lots of huge plants, and a big working circular fountain in the center. Her house was huge (they had 10 children, both parents were professionals). Her yard was vastly deep. But I was most impressed with the 5-gallon jug of milk in their enormous refrigerator with its own spigot. Amazing experience!Having two or more phones or TVs.AC, kids went to sleep away camp in the summer vs day camp, two vacations a year with one to Florida, high end stereo equipment, color tv, country club membership, Caddy that was traded in every 3 years, ivy league pennants decorating kids bedrooms, ate dinner in the dining room.Color TV. Central heat n air. Two cars, garage. Maybe a pool. Fenced yard. Well-kept lawn. Well-dressed.
Could afford USA vacation.A new house. And bonus points if it had columns or a double front door.At Christmas time the rich people would have huge trees with the white flocking stuff setting in the living room window. They always had their curtains open so everyone could see right in their house.Not being on welfare asks food stamps. We were. Almost all my friends were.
And no roaches. I didn’t know it was possible to not have them as a kid.Families that took vacations out of state or went to Disneyland.Children with braces to straighten their teeth.
Having a boat on a trailer in the driveway. .An extra living room for guests.Air conditioning. Grew up in Southern Minnesota in the 50s & 60s - it got hot in the summer, but unless you were rich you didn't have AC.In ground pool, canopy bed and HBO.The richest kid I knew had a whole house vacuum cleaner system. That seemed a lot cooler than an intercom system.Having a perfect lawn and a lawn service to mow for you. Lawn services were not nearly as common as they are today.Owning a second home, and taking elaborate vacations on top of that. Think beach house plus 3 weeks in Switzerland. Kids would go to sleep away camp for the whole summer.Mink coat, station wagon, pool, and of course a large, well appointed home. Memberships at the country club and Junior League. Sending the kids to Europe before Ivy League college.
