1960 Grocery Prices
Yesterday, we looked at 1950 grocery prices, and today we move to 1960. Here’s a snapshot of what grocery prices looked like sixty years ago, with an emphasis on Thanksgiving fixings, from the November 21, 1960 issue of the Pittsburgh Press.
The turkey itself would set you back 39 cents per pound. If you were a non-traditionalist, hams started for about 69 cents per pound.
The cranberry sauce was two cans for 45 cents. If you were going to make your own cranberry sauce, the berries were 19 cents per pound. And if you were making your own pie (which you probably did), the pumpkin was two cans for 39 cents.
Mayonnaise was 69 cents for a quart, and you could get 8 one-pound cans of Van Camp Pork and Beans for a dollar. Jello was 12 boxes for a dollar, and cake mixes were three for a dollar.
In the produce department, oranges were two dozen for 79 cents, and lettuce was 2 for 35 cents.
Nutsrok 
Wow!
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It’s fun to see ads from the old days. Seems prices were pretty low. I have some old menus from restaurants and all the meals were very low prices, too. :)
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My mother used to get hamburgers 5 for a dollar. No drinks, no fries. Just burgers.
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I think most of us would think wow prices were low back then but so were incomes
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Absolutely!
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I remember my father being very happy with a raise to forty dollars a week.
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What did he do. My dad worked at s paper mill.
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He was an architect.
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Better situation than my dad. He was blue collar. He operated a dragline liting timber off trucks.
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My mother came from European high nobility, too. Together they decided to eschew family money and make it on their own in the lower middle class. They were clueless, and my mother thought herself (and, by extension, my sister and I) “better than,” so I was virtually isolated in Little Europe until I started Kindergarten ~ two years early, and with an IQ falling between Einstein’s and Hawkins’. And dressed funny to boot. Can you think of a more perfect recipe for the total ongoing social disaster my school days were?
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Had to be tough
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Impossible.
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I figured an architect would be well-paid.
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He was an absolutely inspired architect, byt never finished school, so they got him cheap.
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Rotten for you all.
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As far as I can see, on the third dimension, nobody gets a break.
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The lettuce! I no longer eat lettuce, but the price is so high now, I’m glad I ditched it. And it didn’t look good most of the time. Thanks for sharing the ad. Very interesting.
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Ah, the saying “The Good Old Days” come to mind, Beth, thanks for sharing this trip down memory lane. Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours this week.
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Those prices are amazing……how quickly we forget….
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During that period Mother was trying to feed seven on forty dollars a week. We ate a lot of beans, potatoes, biscuits, gravy and chicken. Oh, and she bought Daddy a carton of cigarettes at the grocery store.
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That made me smile….the cigarettes:)
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Camels. He was a REAL man.
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That’s wonderful…:):)
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The neighbor kid used to sneak in and steal them. Daddy put them on a tall kitchen shelf and we found Bugeater’s muddy bare foot prints on the kitchen cabinet. As the name implied, he ate bugs. He also sniffed gasoline and chewed tobacco.
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Dear God, what our psychiatrists would probably do to that perfectly normally weird child these days! 😱
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Now there’s a real character for you….
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He was a feral kid.
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I need to write more about Bugeater. I grew up in Hickville USA. When I went to work at a large Medical Center 60 miles away the staff there knew all about Bugeater. His wife was hospitalized there and they had stories ready for me!
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I can’t wait to learn more….
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I had an idea Bugeater would be your kind of guy.
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I like unusual people…who do their own thing:)
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So do I. I love eccentics.
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Yes:):) X
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