Could you survive?

[Flicka]

Getting a period equiviant lifestyle would be fairly easy, but the standard of living today is so much higher that the rich of the '30s had a lifestyle much like one can have on welfare today.

So where you live, do people on welfare actually all have maids? Wow.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You'd be surprised how many of us here live a pretty spartan lifestyle by "modern standards."

 

[kiwilrdg]

I hate it when I'm in line at the grocery store and the guy in front of me, wearing a Palm Beach suit, pays with food stamps then goes out and climbs into a coachbuilt Duesenberg!

:eusa_clap But todays standard of living is not the same. What about wearing $200 athletic shoes and designer clothes, buys latest video games for kids and lots of beer, buys frozen pizza with food stamps, and gets into a car that even has air conditioning that also develops more than the 265 Hp of a supercharged Duesey?

 

[LizzieMaine]

The more realistic image where I live is someone wearing knock-off $20 sneakers from Walmart, clothes from Goodwill, renting movies from the Redbox, buying $5 suitcase specials of beer and 3-for-a-dollar Kraft Dinners, and who drives a '97 Toyota with an AC that hasn't worked since 2004. We don't worry much about horsepower here, either, since we're fifty miles from the nearest freeway and the only time people drive above 45 mph is when they're leading the cops on a high speed chase.

 

[m0nk]

It would be quite a change for me, since I'm a computer programmer and quite a geek for electronics. It could mean that I would be able to find work advancing technology, but I've had so many different side jobs in my life that I could do just about anything without any trouble picking up the trade. I've been a bookseller, wine maker, EMT (still am, part-time), chef, and a few others. I always thought that being a PI would be fun, but with today's stricter requirements I couldn't do it in PA without specific experience (3 years of police, military investigation, or related).

Now, standard of living would be completely different. I'm ok with wearing suits and hats every day, and would feel better about spending my money on less material items than I do now... it's hard not to these days with the onslaught of advertising. And living without TV and the Internet would be nice, but quite a difficult transition. I would need to either find a great bar to spend my quality time, or have quite an en

 

[sheeplady]

:eusa_clap But todays standard of living is not the same. What about wearing $200 athletic shoes and designer clothes, buys latest video games for kids and lots of beer, buys frozen pizza with food stamps, and gets into a car that even has air conditioning that also develops more than the 265 Hp of a supercharged Duesey?

I think it's pretty rare that athletic shoes cost $200. And if the one nice thing that someone living in poverty has is a $200 pair of shoes (which you don't know how they got them- they could be a gift for heavens sake), why say that they should be denied those shoes? Unless you've been in these people's homes, followed them around 24 hours a day, examined their car and bank accounts, you have no idea of their standard of living based upon what is on their feet or their backs or what you see in a brief encounter in a store.

I don't know what the requirements are in Virginia, but in NY state, the value of a person's vehicle must be below $5,000 (I think the exact figure is $4,600 or something) to collect food stamps. Plenty of cars worth under $5,000 have air conditioning- mine certainly does.

 

[kiwilrdg]

Unless you've been in these people's homes, followed them around 24 hours a day, examined their car and bank accounts, you have no idea of their standard of living based upon what is on their feet or their backs or what you see in a brief encounter in a store.

There are times where that has been the case. When someone is arrested for PWID there is lots of info revealed.

Plenty of cars worth under $5,000 have air conditioning- mine certainly does.

Cars in the '30s would not have that air conditioning.


The point I was making is that people buy more luxury items and have features on their luxury items that no one dreamed of in the '30s.

A maid was mentioned, not as many people have domestic help but the tools to do the work has made the work so much easier, even luxuries like pre-made food are beyond what most people would have expected in the '30s, like having your own cook.

I could live on a period equivalent level in the '30s, but I would rather be where I am today than several levels higher in the past.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You're presuming all or even most of us here partake of those luxury items. A lot of us here already get by just fine without cellphones, smartphones, air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, food processors, microwaves, and such things as those, and are perfectly happy to avoid so-called "convenience foods." Many of us sew our own clothing, do our own household repairs, change our own oil, shovel our own snow, rake our own leaves, and do other things like that in the same way that people fifty or sixty or seventy years ago did -- and we've yet to see any reason why we should do otherwise. For some of us, a computer is our only concession to the Modern Way Of Life, and we had to be dragged kicking and screaming to get that. And when the power goes out we just shrug and say "so what" and sit down and read a book.

If your point is that people who *are* dependant on all the fripperies of modern life would be lost in an era without them, you may well be right. But not all of us in this thread buy into modern consumerism -- and some of us actively reject it. That group would do just fine in 1937.

 

[Yeps]

:eusa_clap But todays standard of living is not the same. What about wearing $200 athletic shoes and designer clothes, buys latest video games for kids and lots of beer, buys frozen pizza with food stamps, and gets into a car that even has air conditioning that also develops more than the 265 Hp of a supercharged Duesey?

200 dollar shoes and designer clothes? On food stamps? I am significantly higher on the economic ladder than your imagined person, but we could never afford expensive shoes and clothes. We were always well dressed, but it was always from the clearance rack at Kohls, or thrift stores.

 

[Flicka]

.

A maid was mentioned, not as many people have domestic help but the tools to do the work has made the work so much easier, even luxuries like pre-made food are beyond what most people would have expected in the '30s, like having your own cook.

Not that I don't like my food processor, but it ain't Jeeves. Just sayin'.

 

[kiwilrdg]

I am significantly higher on the economic ladder than your imagined person,

Sorry to have started a political spin on this. I really only meant to point out that there are shifts in the items that are high value items.

Also, items that we think of as being the same have undergone changes, some better, some worse. We can live in comparable ways but not the same ways.

 

[sheeplady]

There are times where that has been the case. When someone is arrested for PWID there is lots of info revealed.


Cars in the '30s would not have that air conditioning.

You were specifically commenting about what many people on welfare/food stamps have today, including cars with air conditioning, which you presented as "luxury" items. That is what I responded to. You could have simply said "Air conditioning is so common on cars today, almost everyone has one" without making it seem like a specific dig against a certain group of people.

Food stamps are a vintage thing as well- the first version that later became the modern food stamp program was started in the late 1930s.

We are a very diverse group of individuals and that means there are people on this board who grew up on and/or use food stamps to feed themselves today.

 

[kiwilrdg]

My family used assistance in the past. We worked our way up rather than spending all the money on unnecessary items. I frequently help the other Deputies with evictions in low income areas and there are not very many of them that do not include moving at least one wide screen TV and a great deal of high end clothing. Today most people do have a lot more stuff than people of the same relative economic status in the past.

The point that I wanted to make was that the impoverished of today can easily have luxuries beyond what was available before. I meant it to show a comparison to the comment about the tailored suit and the Duesenberg to show that a person of modest means today still has many things that a person of much greater means would not have had in the past.

 

[sheeplady]

My family used assistance in the past. We worked our way up rather than spending all the money on unnecessary items. I frequently help the other Deputies with evictions in low income areas and there are not very many of them that do not include moving at least one wide screen TV and a great deal of high end clothing. Today most people do have a lot more stuff than people of the same relative economic status in the past.

While I don't argue your last sentence, your experience with people living in low income areas is obviously biased by the fact that you are evicting people. Did you ever stop to think about the people you don't evict and their lifestyles? Have you been inside their homes? Have you been in other communities low-income areas?

Just because your family came from a certain background doesn't excuse saying negative things about other people in the same unfortunate circumstances. Making a generalized statement about a few people you've helped evict to all people who are on assistance is not only unfair, it's a poor argument. Probably some of those families you eagerly paint with a broad brush are also "working their way up rather than spending all the money on unnecessary items." Instead of recognizing their potential to do the same as your family, you choose portray them as somehow different than your family, as a whole group of people who spend money on "unnecessary items" and therefore aren't willing to help themselves.

ETA: I'm just clarifying how I'm reading your message.

 

[kiwilrdg]

I am sorry that you read my message that way.

I have no problem with people choosing what they should buy. I also do not think someone having things that they aquired honesly is in any way bad.

My example was to show that someone with very limited income can still have things that would not even be able to be made in the '30s. More than one radio in a house was fairly extravagent in the '30s but today having electronics that are beyond anything that had been imagined then is so common today anyone can have it. As an example of something like that that anyone can have is cell phones. Not having a cell phone is a choice today because there are programs that give free phones to people who can't afford them. There is no way anyone in the '30s would have things like that.

I in no way meant that the choice some people make or their financial situation makes them any better or worse, only that someone with very little money today can have a lifestyle that would be beyond the means of most people in the '30s.

As far as your thinking that evictions are the main interaction that I have with low income neighborhoods, When I am helping with evictions I am there to keep people who are not being evicted from looting. I am there for protecting the property of all people involved. . I do most of my work with the Sheriff on programs with kids and seniors. I also do a lot of work helping people who want to get off the street get set up and avoid becoming homeless again. I actually stopped being paid by the Sheriff's office 10 years ago but I continue being a Deputy without pay so I can do more to help people in the community. That way I can keep some programs going even though the city cut funding. I can't spend as much time on it as I would like since I need to work in engineering to pay the bills.

 

[Chas]

I'm sure I'd be OK. I've always been an improvisor and adept at self reinvention. Back in the day lots of ppl made and lost fortunes and being a changeling was very doable. Nowadays you gotta have a golden certificate and three letters after your name for everything you want to do.

My lousy eyesight and age would keep me out of the services when the war starts.

 

[Shangas]

If you were suddenly sucked out of the year 2007 and plopped back into 1937, could you continue to live in the way in which your accustomed, or would you have to make some very major changes in how you live?

For instance, could you make a living? Could you do what you do now, or would you have to learn a new skill? How about technology? Could you easly survive with only what was available in 1937? Or would you have to find huge reserves of patience to live without the speed and ease of today's gadgets? And remember, you would HAVE to dress vintage every day...even in the dead of a humid summer.

I'm sure you can come up with all sorts of fun things to think about.

This is a fascinating idea!

Let's see...

I'm a writer by hobby and occupation, so that wouldn't change. You can be a writer at almost any time in history.

It would just mean that instead of blogging on a website with a computer, it might be articles or columns in a popular magazine or industry publication, punched out on a Royal typewriter, marked up with a fountain pen.
I probably wouldn't have to learn anything new in that respect...apart, perhaps, from the ins-and-outs of my typing-machine.

I'm used to sending emails and telephone-calls rather than social-media, so writing letters and using a rotary telephone wouldn't be a big issue for me. Of course, I'd need to invest in a couple of "little black books".

Wearing 100% vintage, 100% of the time wouldn't phase me in the slightest. I live in Australia, where we get some of the hottest summers on earth - and I still wear vintage. Or at least vintage-style.

 

[kiwilrdg]

I'm used to sending emails and telephone-calls rather than social-media, so writing letters and using a rotary telephone wouldn't be a big issue for me. Of course, I'd need to invest in a couple of "little black books".

Good point:
learning the variation in phone systems is another thing that would add to the fun. When to dial exchange number. When to ask the operator for help, etc.
I still remember party lines but I never had to call a crank exchange that didn't have a switchboard that could read the dial signal.
I am sure I would get on a couple of operator's nerves while I learned how to use the phones.
Being charged for every call would also be something that could cause me to get myself in financial trouble. I would need to get a phone timer hourglass (I do remember using those).

Those little things would be the hardest to get the hang of. It is so easy to forget how much things are changing.

 

[scottyrocks]

The more realistic image where I live is someone wearing knock-off $20 sneakers from Walmart, clothes from Goodwill, renting movies from the Redbox, buying $5 suitcase specials of beer and 3-for-a-dollar Kraft Dinners, and who drives a '97 Toyota with an AC that hasn't worked since 2004. We don't worry much about horsepower here, either, since we're fifty miles from the nearest freeway and the only time people drive above 45 mph is when they're leading the cops on a high speed chase.

Both do exist. I've seen examples of both in the same urban neighborhoods.

 

[scottyrocks]

And when the power goes out we just shrug and say "so what" and sit down and read a book.

One of my most prized possessions is my library card.