Millennial finds late mom’s home budget from 1993, realizes how expensive modern life has become

On Sunday morning, u/Tjmarlow posted his late mother's monthly bill breakdown from April 1933. A flimsy sheet of paper revealed what could have been our lives, with essential survival not gnawing so deep into our pockets. Paying $275 for monthly rent while living in a house sounds otherworldly in our current economic context, with most places now charging more than that on a weekly basis for a shared room. She paid $19.50 for cable, $36.05 for burial insurance, $38.86 for the phone bill, $49.73 for electricity, and a whopping $150 for church donations, with $500 made out to cash for miscellaneous expenses. Coming to a total of $1069.14, 1933's monthly household expenditure barely covers today's cheapest accommodation. People were left shocked by the second-highest expenditure being donations to the church, with u/GenesiusValentine sharing, "When I took over my parents’ finances, their monthly church donation was the first cut... They could have used that money for memory care and a slew of other elder care issues." With Americans spending an average of $6640 on a monthly basis, the cost of living is now 6 times higher than in 1933. It just goes to show how 

u/TobogonXero adjusted the amounts for inflation, which revealed some cruel truths about global finance. Rent should have increased to $610.73 instead of the national average today, which is $1610. Burial insurance would have come to $80.06, which is $20 less than the national average today, and electricity would have risen to $110.44, which is $26 lower than the national average. Upon adjusting the minimum hourly wage — from $4.25 to $8.05 — full-time workers quickly realized that this calls for them to pick up 2 extra weeks' worth of shifts to support their monthly expenses. "[It's the] difference between your mom coming home at 5 PM on the weekdays and making you dinner and helping with homework, and your mom coming home at 9 PM and kissing your sleeping forehead before going to bed herself," u/Open-Face wrote, emphasizing how rising costs and falling wages are detaching us from any sense of community. u/boomgoesthevegemite shared their mom's reaction over their low salary, "She said, 'Well, that’s not bad. I only made about $3k less a year when I was your age.' So, you made basically the same amount 35 years ago? Cool. That makes me feel so much better." 

The current predatory pricing has left most workers concerned about their survival. u/adamosity1 exclaimed, "And people wonder why we’re all broke? Jobs that paid $50,000 twenty years ago pay $50,000 now if you’re lucky enough to pass the six interviews to get it…" Outlining the unnatural price difference, u/erichie wrote, "My PopPop bought his house in 1965 for $3000... He could probably get $800,000 if he sold it [now]." Another user, u/Arg- pointed out how much more accepting the newer generation is, "My aunt, born in 1925, talked about the outrage around the office when the price of lunch increased to 25 cents. This was in [the] 1940s."

Let alone savings, our current monthly income vanishes into the black hole of bills before we even have the chance to breathe it in. Who knew that an entire generation's nostalgia would center around financial survivability and not happy childhood memories?