How much was a McDonald’s cheeseburger in the 60s and did a mobile phone really cost £14,460 in the 80s?

Age UK Mobility currently have a quiz called The Generation Game and you have to guess in which generation things were most expensive from the 60s through to the 00s.  Prices are adjusted to allow for inflation and some of the answers will surprise you.

Spoiler Alert!

I am going to talk about some of the answers in this post, so if you want to try it without knowing some answers then simply click the link above to try for yourself, then come back to see if you thought the same as me.

I did think that a lot of the goods such as mobile phones, TVs, cars and even a pint of Guinness would probably be most expensive now, but when looking in relation to inflation and the relevant wages, but the answers may shock you!

At first I thought the estimate of £14,460 for a mobile phone in the 80s was exaggerated, but then I found this article which says in 1983 the first Motorola cell phone was $3995, so it’s true!

No more complaining about the iPhone being expensive…  look at what our phones can do today compared to a phone costing that much in the 80s that could only take and receive calls!  Crazy!

I bet people in the 80s were amazed by the potential of them and weren’t complaining about people on mobile phones all the time.

A McDonald’s cheese burger was most expensive in the 60s at over £4, which is a good thing.  Junk food should be expensive and less readily available than healthy food.  Unfortunately they have got cheaper over time, much to the destruction of our environment, health and the poor animals.

TVs, albums and a train journey from London to Heathrow were all most expensive in the 60s.  Now I can’t totally remember what I entered, but I do remember purchasing my very first album in the 90s!  It was the All Saints tape pack released in November 1997 and I walked up to Safeway to buy it. I didn’t even have a CD player back then and I would have been 12 years old!

A quick Google search tells me a Sony Walkman was $200 in 1980, with inflation that makes it more expensive than iPods nowadays!  Though to be fair, most of us just combine our mobile phone with being a music player too.

Not being a drinker (of alcohol) for over 7 years I had no idea how much a pint cost, maybe around £4-£5 I reckon in our local pubs, but the quiz puts a pint of Guinness at most expensive in the noughties.

Finally, a Mini is most expensive now.  A brand new 2018 Mini Cooper is £15000.  No wonder most of us opt for second-hand vehicles only.

Doing the quiz will certainly open your eyes to how different products prices have changed over time.  Some for the good and some for the bad!