Posted: Jun 20, 2012 10:45 AM by Breanna Roy - KPAX News
Updated: Jun 20, 2012 11:01 AM
MISSOULA- This month Breanna Roy has a birthday, so she decided to check out prices in the past in the June edition of Breanna's Basket. She'll be turning 25, so decided to go back in time to June of 1987.
Breanna's parents brought her home from the hospital in a 1978 Chevy van that likely cost just 96 cents a gallon to fill up. It's gone up a little more than a dime a year to the price I'll pay on my 25th birthday: $3.69 a gallon.
Back in 1987, her family friends and relatives sent their congratulations cards with a 22-cent stamp, a cost that's now more than doubled to 45 cents. And at that rate, it could cost Breanna nearly a dollar to mail something by the time she's 50.
The average price, per pound, of bananas in the U.S. back in 1987 was 39 cents and the average going cost today is 65 cents a pound, so they've gone up about one cent a year. Some 25 years ago, a dozen eggs averaged 86 cents, that's now up $1.06 in Breanna's lifetime to $1.92. Her parents were probably paying about $1.30 per pound of ground beef, multiply that by three then add a dollar, and you get what we're paying today for hamburger, $4.99 per pound.
It would cost a simple $6.95 if Breanna's parents bought a pound of beef, bananas, 20 stamps and a dozen eggs a quarter-century ago. But those same products today would cost more than twice that, $16.56.
Breanna did some math and figured out that if this trend continues, when she's 50, those four little items could cost me more than $40.
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