What was a decent wage when you were younger

In 1973, outside London, a newly qualified staff nurse was paid a 52p per hour wage.

The average going rate for a domestic cleaner was 60p per hour. A clerical assistant in the civil service (the lowest office grade) 65p per hour. Hospital canteen workers rates started at around 60p per hour.

My first flat was furnished and had two rooms, one small bedroom and a bigger room that had a tiny bathroom and a tiny kitchen partitioned off at one end, it cost £9.00 a week, utilities not included.

The first house I bought, a 6 room mid terrace on three floors, cost £17,000 in 1979. I sold it 10 months later for £21,000.

I am 80 this year. When I started work for the NHS at 18, I earned £4 a week and dreamed of owning a £1,000 house in Oxford. When I married at 20 we bought an old terraced house for £1,200 and spent £1,000 modernising it. When we bought our first car, a Morris Minor, for £40 we considered ourselves fortunate, and didn't worry about having no carpets and sitting on deck chairs until we had saved enough to buy furniture. It seems that the young starting out today want it all and get into debt to achieve all the appliances and technology they think they need.

My Saturday job in a local shop in 1955 paid me 15 shillings for 9.00 - 5.30 pm. In 1956 I became an apprentice hairdresser and receiived two pounds for a five and half day week.

Later, in the early 1970's I can remember being very excited when hubbie (chartered secretary), was getting close to being salaried at £12,000 per year!!!!!

Our first car (Mini Traveller), could be completely filled up with petrol and we received change when paying for it with a one pound note!!!!

It is all very relative though. Mortgage interest rates were very high, although (looking at them from now) purchase prices for property seems low. Our first house in 1964 - an end of terrace victorian (not updated) property in Walthamstow, East London cost us £3,950 - and with both of us working we really struggled to keep our heads above water -let out the garage (we had no car), and took in a lodger.

Those same houses now sell in the six figure bracket - or as two flats each around three quarters of a million!!!!

I know that when I had my current flat's en-suite all completely re-done a couple of years ago I commented that it cost nearly double what we paid in 1964 of our house!!!!!

I would have to dig out old diaries to check how much I was paid. What I do know for sure is that in 1977 our weekly grocery bill was £12. That was all our food and toiletries for the two of us plus dog food for one large dog. We shopped at Tesco.

When I started work at a bank in 1969, aged 16, I was told at 21 I would be earning £10 a week.

My dad couldn’t believe how much it would be!

In 1967, I earned £1 a day for working 3 hours. £28 a month. I was rich!

Allira

1986 locally a flat cost £15,000, with a semi costing £22,000. 16k a year then would have afforded you quite a comfortable lifestyle.
I don't know where locally means because in 1985 we sold a small semi-detached house for £78,500. We were offered more but didn't think it was fair to let down the first prospective purchaser. The mortgage rate was 12%.

We bought a 3-bed semi, with a garage, in 1986 for £22,000.
We moved in 1991 to a 3-bed detached on the same estate for £63,000.
This is in the Midlands.

£17,500 in 1985.

Early 1970’s I remember being very excited when my net salary actually hit £100

I was an apprentice hairdresser in 1970 and my first wage was £3 6s. I may be wrong but I think there were stoppages, what is now national insurance. All tips went into a tip tin, which the apprentices never saw again.

1986 locally a flat cost £15,000, with a semi costing £22,000. 16k a year then would have afforded you quite a comfortable lifestyle.
I don't know where locally means because in 1985 we sold a small semi-detached house for £78,500. We were offered more but didn't think it was fair to let down the first prospective purchaser. The mortgage rate was 12%.

When I left art school in 1967 we were told that a job in a studio would probably pay about £9 a week (nearly double my £5 a week grant as a student) In fact I got a job with EMI records which paid £15 a week. After a few months my boss suggested I should change from a designer to a draughtsman, because then I would get a man's wage of £20.

I’ve a short memory and can’t remember prices or what DH earned in the ‘80’s although we had already moved into our second home - mortgaged, of course. I was a SAHM then, but in 1987, I was 36 and as DH had a company car and often had to be away from home, I got a brand new Vauxhall Astra Club. It was white with a grey and yellow stripe and was £5995. It’s the only new car I’ve ever had!

I started work when I was 15,my first wage in a factory was £2.7/6d my mum got the £2 for my keep and I got 7/6d. That was 1960, when I was married 8 years later my wage was £7 or £8...

I remember my brother starting work as a laboratory technician at the age of 18 in 1963 for £6 a week.

I was working in a library about 50/60 miles from home in 1962 my first job
My wage was £8 a week, I rented a flat, bought a weeks worth of food, bought coke for heating, paid for electricity and gas and went home on the train every weekend.
My to be husband was in the RAF and got £6 a week

At 17/18 my first pint of beer cost 1/6p back in 1966 which was about the same price as fish and chips, my wages back then was about £7.50 a week, living at home that was OK.

RosiesMawagain

Of course the professions you quote- teacher, army officer,etc would not have had a wage but a salary.

Yes, they would have been salaried, but the principle is the same. The average wage/ salary in 1986 was 10k a year and 16k was considered a decent salary for someone in a professional role or who was a highly skilled worker. Also house prices in 1986 were vastly lower, which meant someone on 16k a year could afford a decent property, particularly in the North.

Of course the professions you quote- teacher, army officer,etc would not have had a wage but a salary.