Appreciation post: my grandma's 1957 Sears catalog taught me I'd been wrong about what 'old prices' really mean
I inherited my grandma's dog-eared 1957 Sears catalog from her house in Akron, and I used to flip through it laughing at how cheap everything looked, like a $58 washing machine or a $12 pair of shoes. Then my dad pointed out that grandpa made about $75 a week at the rubber plant back then, so that washer was almost a full paycheck. I sat at the kitchen table with a calculator for an hour and realized I'd been comparing 1957 dollars to 2024 dollars in my head without ever adjusting for anything. Now I want to redo the math. Does anyone here have an old pay stub or receipt they could match up against a catalog price from that same year?