Cost of living

 On my drive home from work I discussed a few things with my mom.  We started with talking money, my parents taught me about how to stay out of debt, but they have also inspired me as to how to live my life long term with money.  My parents grew up with parents who were alive during the great depression. However, my in-law grandparents did not live through the same situations.

 We discussed how my parents are different from my in-laws and I was curious as to why.  My parents are only 5-6 years older then my in-laws, but as we discussed more my grandpa was 30 yr old when my mom was born, and my husbands grandma was 20 yr old when my mother in law was born.  With this difference there are 15+ years between them.  Quite a difference!

I asked my mom about how the depression affected her parents, and she gave me the information she remembers her father (STILL LIVING 88 yr old!!) telling her about it.  Her maternal grandfather was a car mechanic and the depression didn't hit him too hard.  Her paternal grandfather was not affected by the great depression because he didn't have any debt.  NONE!
My mother went on to explain to me that my Grandpa (her dad) Papa Enz, had only ONCE ever had a car loan.  I don't know all the specifics, however he went to the post office to get this loan. He took his stock certificate with him, and used that as collateral.  Other then that my Papa NEVER had a car loan.

I told my husband this along with reading a few lines from my most recent book (Financial Peace Revisited. By Dave Ramsey)  "Larry Burkett of Christian Financial Concepts says that in 1929 only 2 percent of American homes had a mortgage and by 1962 only 2 percent didn't have mortgages."   
He said, well the cost of living is different.... So today my goal is to look into that

The following statistics are from the US Census and U.S. Department of labor 
http://www.census.gov
http://www.dol.gov.

Median Home Values

2000          1990      1980          1970      1960     1950         1940

United States   $119,600   $79,100   $47,200   $17,000  $11,900   $7,354  $2,938

Utah               $146,100   $68,900   $57,300   $16,800  $12,600   $7,409  $2,320

MIN WAGE $5.15        $3.80       $3.10        $1.60      $1.00      $0.75      $0.30  
Gross Wage $10,712 $7,904 $6,448 $3,328 $2,080  $1,560 $624


So looking over this data it shows tat wages have changed alot less the home prices

What does this MEAN?? 



I am still working on evaluating this but it is quite interesting regardless
Stay tuned for tomorrow....