Then and now: what things cost in the 1980s vs. Today

Then and now: what things cost in the 1980s vs. Today


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HONDA ACCORD This wildly popular import had a base price of $8,845 in 1985 — the equivalent of $21,544 in today's dollars. But inflation, at least for new cars, has sped ahead of the


consumer price index, with a new Accord setting you back about $24,000 today. Max Messerli/RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images 20-INCH COLOR TV Along with shelling out about $500 for a


20-inch color TV in 1985, you risked a hernia, as well. And you were spending big bucks on a set back then — $1,195 (adjusted for inflation). Today you can get a lightweight 24-inch color TV


for a much lighter price: $149.99. Joe Runci/The Boston Globe via Getty Images GALLON OF GASOLINE Inflation was cooling off in 1985, running at just 3.6 percent. A decade earlier, inflation


burned at 9.1 percent, fueled in part by soaring oil prices. A gallon of gas cost $1.12 in 1985, or $2.73 in today's prices. The average cost of unleaded today is $2.52. Smith


Collection/Gado BANANAS Bananas cost 33 cents a pound in 1985, not bad for a meal in a peel. Today they're 57 cents a pound. Adjust the 1985 price for inflation and you'd get 80


cents, meaning that, for monkeys and humans, the price of some foods has run lower than the cost of living. Bloomberg / Getty Images MICROWAVE OVEN If you wanted to reheat leftovers quickly


in 1985, you could get an 0.8-cubic-foot microwave from Sears for about $240. You'd nuke your budget at the same time, though, as that's the equivalent of $585 today. Sears now


offers a similar model for $70. Ei Katsumata / Alamy Stock Photo HOUSES Houses were never cheap, even in 1985, when the median new-home price (the midpoint of all prices) was $82,500. Still,


in some of today's hottest real estate markets, such as San Francisco, $82,500 may not get you even a parking space. The inflation-adjusted equivalent of $82,500 is $201,951, a


relative bargain, compared with today's median home price of $330,800. Roman Belogorodov / Alamy Stock Photo IBM COMPUTER The powerhouse of the home-computing world in 1985, an IBM PC


XT would have set you back $4,395, assuming you got two disk drives and a monster 10-megabyte hard drive. In current dollars that's $10,705. Today, however, you can get a very nice


ThinkPad T480 from Lenovo — which took over IBM's PC business in 2005 — for about $700. It includes a 512-gigabyte hard drive, a wireless internet connection and a 14-inch screen. And


you can carry it around with you.