Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Another senior appointment

I think most of us started with hand me down furniture, those days it was perfectly acceptable and things were built to last back then. Everything on HP was the alternative and the interest rates were astronomically expensive back then.

I'm also very wary of using gross earnings as an comparator as net earnings after tax reflect more the disposable income to pay the mortgage and Purchase Tax before the introduction of VAT in 1973 along with higher income tax rates placed a considerable tax burden back then. Add in the annual inflation rate and interest rates in the early teens with inflation actually hitting 28% in 1973, paints more of a picture of the impact of mortgage payments on disposable income. Access to credit was very limited back then compared to today, no credit cards like today.

The earnings mortgage calculator was 2.5x husband's salary plus 1x the wife's salary and we needed that to buy our first house back then.