How much did things cost in the 1970s? (2024)

How much did things cost in the 1970s? (2)
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The 1970s was the decade of high inflation in the UK.

In the first year of the 1970s we still had pounds, shillings and pence.Decimalisation came in 1971 and many blamed it for rising prices, but inflation was endemic by then.

How did prices compare with earnings? The average weekly pay packet in 1975 was less than £40. Allowing for inflation, that is £230 in today's money. Today average weekly earnings are more than £500.

In the 1960s the average weekly wage was just £150 in today's money. So, in spite of the rising prices, people were better off in the 1970s than in the 1960s.

Motoring

How much did things cost in the 1970s? (3)

People talked endlessly about the rising cost of petrol in the 1970s. The 1973 oil crisis was responsible for some of the increase, but in real terms the cost of fuel remained remarkably static.

In 1970s a gallon of petrol cost 6s 8d (33p), at the end of the decade it was just short of the pyschological £1 per gallon.

Source: Petrol prices 1896 to present, published by the AA Motoring Trust.

Today we pay for fuel in litres. Comparisons:

YearPrice per litreCost in today's money
19701s 6d83p
197922p84p

Verdict: Petrol was cheaper in the 1970s.

How much did things cost in the 1970s? (4)

Telephone calls

In 1976 it was one hundred years after the invention of the telephone, but only half of UK households had one.

In 1976 you paid a quarterly rental of £8.91 and you paid for each call you made. That was for a basic dial telephone. If you wanted a Trimphoneyou paid an extra 75½p per quarter (remember the decimal half penny?). There were also push button phones, but these cost an extra £4.32 per quarter (£23 in today's money).

CostIn today's money
Quarterly rental£8.91£47.00
6 minute local call at peak time9.72p (including 8% VAT)51p
Typical annual rental + 600 local calls£55.00£288.00

Source: Which? February 1976, pages 39-41, published by the Consumers' Association

Today most people combine telephone with broadband and other services. Telephone-only packages are still available though. The cheapest I could find was with the Post Office. Line rental is £39 per quarter and all calls are 15p per minute (as of March 2019).

Telephone charges had gone up since the 1960s. This was because the Post Office, which ran the services, was making a loss in the 1970s and put up charges substantially.

Verdict: Phone deals are better today than in the 1970s.

Newspapers

The Daily Mirror was Britain's most popular paper in the 1970s, just edging out The Sun. The Daily Express was the most popular mid-range paper and the Daily Telegraph the most popular 'quality'.

Newspaper prices rose signifcantly over the decade. Note the 1970 price is in pre decimalcurrency.

  • Daily Mirror - 1970 (5d); 1979 (9p)
  • Daily Express - 1970 (5d); 1979 (10p)
  • Daily Telegraph - 1970 (5d); 1979 (10p)

In today's money newspapers prices increased from 23p in 1970 to 38p in 1979.

Today newspapers are much more expensive:

  • Daily Mirror - 75p
  • Daily Express - 90p
  • Daily Telegraph - £2

Source: Tesco, prices as of March 2019

Newspaper circulation has halved since the 1970s. Newspapers have to compete with online sources of news.

Verdict: Newspapers were much cheaper in the 1970s than today.

How much did things cost in the 1970s? (5)

Posting letters

In 1968 the GPO started a new two-tier system. Before then all letters cost 4d to post. After 1968 there was a 4d and a 5d post. By the 1970s the terms first and second class post were in common use.

Service197219741975
(from March)
1975
(from September)
19771979Today
Second class2½p3½p5½p6½p7p8p58p
First class3p4½p7p8½p9p10p67p

The 1972 cost of posting a first class letter was 24p in today's money. The 10p charge in 1979 is 38p today. People were shocked at the huge increase in the cost of postage. It went up by a factor of 4 in seven years, but it was still better value than today.

Verdict: Posting a letter was much cheaper in the 1970s than today.

Television

Colour television sets were expensive at the beginning of the 1970s. But improvements in technology and competition from Japan brought prices down.

CostCost in today's money
1970 Bush CTV184S 22" screen£289 19s£3300
1979 Bush BC6630£260£990

Today a 22 inch screen television can easily be found for around £100. So we are much better off today than in the 1970s.

Many people still chose black and white TVs at the beginning of the 1970s. In 1970 a black and white television cost around £70 (or around £800 in today's money).

Verdict: Television, especially colour TV, was much dearer in the 1970s than today, but prices were coming down.

Groceries

Inflation was a big concern for people in the 1970s. Which? magazine did a survey of grocery prices. They chose what was a typical shopping basket and tracked price rises across the decade. This is the basket for 1973.

ItemCost 1973Allowing for inflationTypical price today
White sliced loaf 28oz10p86p£1.00 (800g)
Wall's back bacon 7½oz34p£2.92£2.00 (200g)
John West red salmon 7½oz37½p£3.22 £3.50 (213g)
Fairy Liquid 14½ fl oz15p£1.29 £1.50 (500ml) (an equivalent size would be £1.22)
McDougalls self-raising flour 3lb15p £1.29 £1.00 (1.5kg)
Maxwell House coffee 4oz32½p£2.80 £1.00 (95g)
Wall's pork sausages ½lb14p£1.20 £1.00
Ariel (washing powder) 18oz17p£1.46 £7.00 for 2.6kg (equivalent quantity - £1.35)
Del Monte tinned peaches 15½oz12½p£1.08 £1.10
Tate & Lyle sugar 2lb10p86p 69p for 1 kg
Birds Eye peas 10oz10½p90p £1.30 for 375g (equivalent quantity 97p)
Stork margarine ½lb6½p56p £1.20
Heinz tomato soup 15¼oz8p69p 95p for 400g
Ty-Phoo tea (loose) ¼lb8p69p £2.29 for 250g (equivalent quantity £1.03)
Kellogg's cornflakes 12oz11p95p £2.00 for 720g (equivalent quantity 95p)
Heinz baked beans 15¾oz7½p 65p75p for 415g
McVitie's milk chocolate home wheat biscuits 8oz11p95p £1.60 for 266g
Anchor butter ½lb10½p90p£1.65 for 250g
A dozen standard white eggs14p £1.20£1.69 (medium free range, Tesco)
New Zealand frozen lamb 4lb£1.93£16.60 £13.50 Sainsbury's New Zealand Whole Leg of Lamb 1.8kg

Most of these products are similar prices in real terms today. There are few exceptions that reflect changing tastes. Coffee is cheaper and is bought in larger quanities today. Butter and margarine are dearer. Stork, which is mainly used in baking, is significantly dearer. Perhaps fewer people bake their own cakes than in the 1970s.Loose leaf tea is a minority product today.

Verdict: There has been little real terms change in the cost of groceries.

A pint of beer

How much did things cost in the 1970s? (6)

The 1970s was the age of keg bitter. The price of a few popular drinks in 1972 is as follows:

BrandCost (1972)Cost in today's money
Draught Double Diamond15-18p£1.41 to £1.70
Worthington 'E'14-18p£1.32 to £1.70
Courage Tavern14-18p£1.32 to £1.70
Younger's Tartan13-17p£1.22 to £1.60
Watneys Red14-18p£1.32 to £1.70
Whitbread Tankard14-18p£1.32 to £1.70
Guiness16-20p£1.51 to £1.88
Harp Lager17-19p £1.60 to £1.79

Source: 'Keg beer' published by the Consumers' Assocation in Which? April 1972

The price ranges cover the difference between saloon and public bars and regional variations. Londoners generally paid more for a pint in the 1970s.

Today the price of a pint can vary from £2 to £5. Most people will pay £3 to £4. Making a pint in the 1970s much cheaper.

Verdict: Beer was cheaper in the 1970s.

Writing a cheque

In the 1970s banks charged for each debit entry, not each cheque.

There was a 2d stamp duty payable on every cheque up to 1971. The Treasury dropped this tax when Britain switched to decimal currency.

The big four big banks in the 1970s were Barclays, Lloyds, Midland (HSBC today) and National Westminster. In 1970 Westminster and National Provincial Banks merged to form the National Westminster (NatWest) Bank.

If you kept at least £100 in your current account you avoided charges (£50 at NatWest and Midland). Otherwise you paid between 12½p and 15p for each debit transaction.

Source: 'Which bank?' in Which?, published by the Consumers' Assocation June 1979, pages 354-355

Verdict: Banking is much cheaper today than it was in the 1970s.

Read more about historic prices and inflation

  • How much did things cost in the 1950s?
  • How much did things cost in the 1960s?
  • How much did things cost in the 1980s?
  • How much did things cost in 1970?
  • How much did things cost in 1971?
  • How much did things cost in 1972?
  • How much did things cost in 1973?
  • How much did things cost in 1974?
  • How much did things cost in 1975?
  • How much did things cost in 1976?
  • How much did things cost in 1977?
  • How much did things cost in 1978?
  • How much did things cost in 1979?

By Steven Braggs, May 2019


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Comments

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Lee de Stafford

Although it's 3 years ago when this article was produced, the prices in early 2022 won't change by very much. However, with the post Covid era and, sadly, the Ukrainian invasion that followed, prices will rocket to high levels as supply and demand is squeezed. The quid in your pocket is probably only worth about 10 pence in real terms value, and likewise, ten quid is about a quid really.

Steven

Prices will not have increased by a factor of 10. Inflation is sadly higher than it had been, however not everything has gone up by the same amount as energy prices. Hopefully once the war in Ukraine is over energy prices will come down to what they were before the crisis and this period will be seen as a blip. If it lasts much longer and inflation bakes into the system with wages chasing prices and prices chasing wages we might see the situation you described. That's exactly what happened in the 1970s. But the oil price rise then was permanent.

babi

cool

Steven

Hi Bob,The article was written in May 2019. You can see this at the end of the article. I hope this helps.

Steven

Hi Bob, If you want a precise date 'today' is May 2019, when the article was written. The date is at the bottom of the article. However, in the context of this article is it an approximation. You cannot make precise comparisons with prices and values because so much has changed. How much people earned changed differently from how much prices went up or down. On a scale of forty to fifty years ago and given our current low rate of inflation it does not really matter it was yesterday or five years ago.But you can give an idea of value. So for example a litre of petrol in 1970 cost 7.5p. Today that would be such small cost we wouldn't care how much petrol our cars used. In this era's value that 7.5p would be 83p. Quite a difference. But a litre of petrol costs a lot more than that. So even if the 83p was 93p the comparison still holds.

Bob Thomson

What is the point of saying price "today" when we have no idea when "today" was. Iit's like a sign saying back in 1 hour. It's pointless if you don't know when it started.

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