Those Were the Days

Ah, work... it's what we do, whether we want to or not-to get that next paycheck. I am tired of work, really I am. But in figuring out my years to retirement, I figure I have about 30 more to go, maybe more by the time I am ready to retire if they keep passing laws raising the retirement age.

So I will be working well into my golden years. Paying bills, worrying about fuel costs, and remembering the good old days when gas was $3.65 a gallon. I honestly DO remember it at .99 a gallon, and fuel oil was .79 a gallon and kerosene was .99 a gallon. What prices do you remember gas and home heating oil at? I can remember when a buck bought lots of candy (OMG remember PENNY candy, where you could get a bagful for a quarter?) and I can remember my great grandmother crabbing about having to shell out $2.50 for a 10 inch pepperoni pizza AND 2 ltr bottle of soda for our weekly pizza night at grams. Now to her, that was expensive. Funny how times change, huh?

I just came home from Wendy's-almost 18 bucks for two small value meals (1 was a dbl burger tho') and a kids meal and twisted Frosty my daughter wanted to try. I can remember feeding a family of four on $10 not very long ago. (and I still can if I stick to the basic dollar menu items) I like to save money with coupons and refunds, but it has been so busy at work that my poor coupons are neglected and I am forced to eat out way too much instead of preparing something at home. So looks like I had better spend weekends making some meals ahead...

What about any of you? What can you remember of prices long ago? Just think, our kids will probably think the price we paid for food, gas, oil, etc... was a bargain compared to what they will be paying in the future. I think there will be alot more co-living-actually I am seeing that now-kids and their families have moved back with their parents, elderly parents moving in with their kids, college kids returning home to live with mom and dad because they can't make it on their own, etc... As we do applications we are seeing this trend, which isn't very noticeable now but I think it will be as time goes on. (and the mortgage crisis continues to hit, forcing people to lose their homes and if ya haven't noticed, lenders have really tightened up the purse strings lately) I really don't mind having my daughter and her family live with me, a couple of Jose's sisters and their kids live with his parents and his brother and family live upstairs. I had hopes for my son too, but with his current issues I don't know what will happen with that.

Geez, it has been fun reminiscing about prices in the past-but depressing too. I miss those prices, but also realize that the pay was lots less too. Hmmm, I can see me right now, like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future returning to the past and heading to the betting parlors in the past and giving all the right bets, and getting rich in the process, haha. Now that would be an adventure. So, what is your all time favorite thing you could buy in the past for $xxxx amount of money? And what is it costing now?