On the heels of our most excellent discussion yesterday about early marriage, I should bring up an example: We got married just after our sophomore year of college. 19 years old. That was 38 years ago TODAY.
We did have to support ourselves. When we were first married, we both worked part time as we were going to school. We made $250 a month, and that was what we had to live on. We lived in a one-room efficiency apartment that cost $65 a month. Yes, prices were low–you could get a gallon of gasoline for 22 cents–but so were wages, and we didn’t even have enough money to fight over. Our big night out was to walk to the newly-opened Target (speaking of which, below) to just look, as if it were all a big museum of consumer goods, but buying was out of the question. We didn’t have health insurance, but when our first baby came along just after graduation, we paid for him in cash. (Medical care was cheaper in the early 1970s, and somehow through all of this we even saved money!) Through these exceedingly tight years we didn’t feel deprived or stressed out or worried. We pulled together. Those were great times, happy times.
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