Published: May 03, 2008 02:47 pm            

Teach kids the importance of spending less

Answers-To-Go

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Q. With food and gas prices on the rise, I was trying to talk to my kids about the need to spend less. Can you help me find information on the cost of specific items in the past?



A. I recently ran across an amusing article that we’d clipped from the February 16, 1977 issue of the San Marcos Daily Record. Neighbors editor Judy Ulvestad had interviewed 72-year-old Hilmar Scheel.

Scheel married his wife Frieda in 1926. He held down two jobs, one for the railroad and the other delivering mail and made $63.33 a month.

Scheel said, “I did real good, money-wise, considering bread was only five cents a big loaf and three pounds of hamburger was 25 cents. Everything was cheap back then. When a person bought a big box of groceries to last at least a week, you could get it for $2.50.”

Scheel moved in 1933 and took a dairy job near Martindale, close to the river. While living at the dairy, the couple got the house, milk and water free. Scheel said, “I used to deliver milk in San Marcos to people’s doorsteps. Milk was only 15 cents for two quarts, and we used to deliver it to stores for 4 cents a quart.

“When we moved to San Marcos, we rented a house on Lindsey Street for $10 a month. In 1938 I bought a two bedroom house for $1.400. I had to pay $50 down and $9.21 a month. I sure got a good deal.

“San Marcos was dry back then, but I knew the owner of the grocery and drug store and he’d ask me if I wanted a drink. We would come into the store and the other employees would know to hold up a finger as a signal, and we would go into the back and drink some prescription whiskey.

“During prohibition, I was never out of beer. I was an expert at the home brew. Using malt, yeast, and sugar you could make about 72 bottles of beer for about $1.50.”

Why not come in to scan the grocery ads in the old San Marcos Daily Record? You could choose dates with family significance such as the wedding years for yourself and for their grandparents.

Federal government statistics tend to have a time lag, but they paint a different picture of the ‘good old days.’ In 1933, food expenditures represented 25.2% of disposable income.

The chart stops at 2006, but in that year food expenditures stood at 9.9% of disposable income.

(Source: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/Data/table7.htm)

        

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