Buried in the bottom of a box lot I recently bought at an auction was an advertising booklet from the 1950s, 1003 Household Hints and Work Savers to Help You Beat the High Cost of Living. The title caught my attention because it mentioned a “high cost of living” in an era many of us now view as a good time economically, the time when many modern conveniences became affordable for the average American household. I suppose we always see the cost of living as high.
The ad for a funeral home just inside the front cover provided another smile – the cost of living may have been high then, but the cost of dying was not (at least by today’s standards). The ad promised “a beautiful funeral service” done “with highest regard to dignity regardless of cost…whether you spend $100.00 or $1000.00.” The advertiser is no longer listed in the phone directory; I was tempted to call and ask if they still offer beautiful services for $1000 or less.
Most of the booklet focuses on household tips for housewives (and yes, the term “housewives” is used regularly). Some of the tips would save money, but some would not. Some of the advice is actually the opposite of money-saving advice common today: use an automatic dryer instead of a wash line (with the argument that it saves ironing time and wear on clothing); eat cereal because “few foods supply so much nourishment at such low cost.” (Of course, “cereal” probably did not mean the sugared, boxed-with-a-toy stuff we buy now.)
The most outdated tips, of course, were the most interesting. Tips #580-583 are devoted to filling and draining the washing machine and using the wringer. Tip #41 recommends boiling handkerchiefs with a muslin bag filled with Orris Root in order to perfume them. The title of one chapter, “
Ironing a bra, lol, thats to much! I definitely do not remember my mom doing that in the mid-sixties.
I DO remember my mom doing this in the sixties! All her bras were cotton!
Cereal is still pretty cheap…when you consider how many servings or ‘meals’ you get out of one box. Also even the sugared cereal does have added vitamins, so it could be better than some of the other traditional high fat breakfast foods. Bring on the Fruit Loops!!
Wow! I wish funeral services were that inexpensive now as well. It seems that dying costs more than it used to in the fifties.
According to some quick internet research, funerals may not be a lot more expensive today than in the 1950’s. Use an inflation calculator, $1,000 in 1955 comes to $7,633 in 2007 dollars. According to MSN article ‘Plan a Funeral for $800 or Less’, the average price of a U.S. funeral is $6,500. This is still below the upper range of $1,000 cited in the 50’s book. However, the MSN article says that they can easily cost as much as $10,000.
LOL! This was great. It reminds me of one of my own vices – Old Time Radio programs from the 40’s and 50’s. I listen to them on the Internet at work, and occasionally they still have commercials. Some of them are hysterical by today’s standards. Some are quite clever and I must admit that an original jingle is far more preferable than abusing (and ruining in my opinion) pop songs!
Sometimes I’ll Google the company to see if they’re still around and a surprising amount are, albeit in a different form. Yesterday I heard one for something like Personal Home Finance or something (I can’t remember it exactly or find it now) and when I Googled it I discovered it was now a subsidiary of HSBC!
I remember my mother ironing my dad’s underclothes and starching his handkerchiefs then ironing them.I don’t remember my dad complaining of a raw nose. Tee-Hee.
I remember ironing pillowcase and hankies! I have seen in fairly current sewing publications have a how to retro-fit a man’s suit jacket into a woman’s suit jacket. Sewing can be a very viable way to save money depending on how you go about it. Sunday evening I chopped up some cloth and in less than an hour I had a new summer top out of an old curtain. Granted this was a pattern I’d often made and the curtain was just a long stretch of fabric that had been swagged, but it was easy and cheap and I know it will hold up better than anything you can buy at the alphabet-Marts. Couldn’t sleep the other night, so I used the rest of that chunk of fabric to make an apron at 4 in the morning (arthritis does terrible things to a person sleep schedule!).
Is sewing something everyone could do to save money? No because most people don’t want to and aren’t knowledgable about how to mend and fix things. But a mended garment can have a lot more mileage and thus save money. Most any library has books on basic sewing so an interested person can learn the how to’s.
I love those kind of old brochures. When I find them, I learn more from them. I have found many times that those older articles have less pictures and more text so things are explained better. I do think though that auto-dryers damage clothes more than line drying them does–the lint in the dryer is pieces of your clothes dissolving!
Having 90 year old grandparents (farm folk, non the less), these tips are priceless. I’ve been given some pretty hillarious tips a few times too, and some down right outdated advice, but some of them-especially the tips on stretching things further, and making my own foods have always made in a big difference in my ability to save vs. some of my close friends.
My mum ironed all of our underwear (no bras) up unil about 8 years ago – I am now 21 and she is only 43 🙂 lol