This Meant You Were Rich in the 1960s

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Flocked trees. Eeek

Nobody had central air conditioning in Burma. Not even with rich people.

Burma had imports up till 1962.

If y’all living in your moms basement acting as a keyboard warrior, you were rich…😂😂😂

My parents got their first house in March of 1969 when I was in Kindergarten. It was a Cape Cod with two little dormers in the front and a big one in the back. It had a full bathroom with tub on the main floor and a half bath on the second floor. It also had a bathroom with stall shower in the basement. My Dad ripped off the second floor in 1978 and built a real second floor with attic above it. My dad and us kids bought my mom a dishwasher sometime in the mid 70s. The house came with a 3-car detached garage and my parents had an Imperial that they bought in 1967. Then in 1972 they bought their first station wagon, and from then on they always had two cars. My grandfather bought my dad a Simplicity garden tractor shortly after we moved into that house in 1969. Then my grandfather and the neighbor across the street bought my dad all the implements for it.

I was born in 1972, and we lived near them. thank goodness my grandparents had an in ground swimming pool, especially on a 100 plus degree summer days

Being rich has never been about having things.

We not only had a color TV ours also had a stereo record player . We weren’t rich but we often felt like we were. 😊

We had central heating, but not air conditioning. We did have a swimming pool, so that helped a lot in our hot summers.

We had a few of those things including a large oval pool with a 7 foot deep end a deck halfway around and it held more water than any builtin pool on the block all built by my father for a lot less cost..........

We had 1 bathroom for 6. No big deal.

Growing up in the 60's we had a frame house with wood siding painted white. I thought my friends' houses that were brick were rich. 😃

Being an only girl with 3 older brothers meant I always had my own room. I hated it and grew up isolated until my teen years. It was like I wasn't part of the family. And my brother's resented me for it. 60's parents were dumb and only cared about what the neighbours thought. Forget about the children's thoughts or feelings.

Some of these are hilarious. Most all of it is just families that made a decent income - and that would be with just dad working. None of these things required wealth.

The funniest item: getting TV Guide. 😂

But thanks for the memories.

The 50s and 60s were the best decades of all time. The 50s more. I know, I was there.

DINERS CLUB CREDIT CARD WAS ANOTHER

I have a TV Guide with Larry Storch on the cover sitting on my coffee table. I guess Im doing OK

A nice car. AC. A nice house. The latest kitchen appliances, TV, camera. The family took summer vacations. If they could go to Disneyland, even better. The kids had nice toys. Dad wore a suit to work. Not a lot of debt. The kids had nice sounding names and not the usual common names most kids had.

Central air conditioning got cheaper really fast in the 60s. By 1965 in Oklahoma City area, all the subdivisions in middle class areas had central air. Two bathrooms were common too on homes with 2 or more rooms. We were upper middle class maybe...but far from wealthy.
A fun video to watch. I remember our first color TV in about 1967. What a thrill it was!

We had the luxury of a swamp cooler

Later 80s and 1990s sitcoms changed what people regarded as the signs of being middle-class. People started building up huge credit card debt to meet the new "requirements." In the 1950s and 1950s it was considered a negative thing to use expensive consumer objects to show how well you were doing - being regular old middle-class was considered all-American. Even many celebrities did photo spreads in Life Magazine (for instance) that were aimed at making them look middle-class. Things have completely changed. US society heavily indebted itself in the name of conspicuous consumption. I remember noticing this as it happened.

I was still $h,,ing out side in 78 the only indoor toilets we had were in council house's or flats (projects)

Growing up we had a swamp cooler, not AC.

We had 465 air conditioning in our family cars. 4 windows rolled down at 65 MPH! Some even had a AM radio with 5 push button stations "programmed in".

When I grew up in Seattle in the 1960's, abnormally warm weather wasn't a thing (like now) so no one needed home A/C. I miss those days so much!

"...you were loaded" and "living large" 😂😅

I went to a friends birthday pool party in 1977. Half of the living room had a glass floor, you could see kids swimming under the glass. Had no clue how wealthy this family was at the time.

I was born in 1961, and I was a foster child who came from a couple of broken families. So, I was not rich, I was one of the poor kids most rich kids hated or avoided.

Well, it's been confirmed. We were poor. We didn't have any of these until we siblings were grown, but we had plenty of fun outside using our imagination!😂😊

Hell the only we can afford is f--king. Then the social worker told the wife we needed to stop f--king she to said hell that's the only luxury we could afford. It was cause we were making so many kids.

When I was a kid my neighbor bought a new 1963 Pontiac Bonneville convertible.
My mom said they were well off.

"Mr. Green, he's so serene, h's got a TV in every room . . " - The Monkees

Thank for another year filled with wonderful videos and memories! I hope you 2025 will be filled with joy & happiness!

In 1962, my father got a promotion and we moved to a house in an upper middle class neighborhood. It was a 2 story limestone home on a corner lot with a basement that had knotty pine paneling and a fireplace. There was also a fireplace in the living room, a formal dining room, a sun room and 3 bedrooms. It had a full bath on the 2nd floor and a 1/4 bath off the kitchen. There was no central air but it did have a sprinkling system for the lawn. The 2 car garage was not attached. One special feature I remember was it had a grandfather clock built into a nook in the hallway and the doorbell played the Westminster chimes. As I recall, they paid $36000 for the house. By the way, we were a family with ten kids, so the house seemed small to us at the time.

The more stuff we added to our standard living, the more we had to work to pay all the bills to maintain it.

And appliances and most everything, were made so much better back then, too.

I would say central air was a status symbol for longer than the 60's. Even in the 80's, if your parents turned it on regularly, you had a couple extra bucks laying around. We weren't playing much Nintendo at the poor kid's house in July, that's for sure.

My Dad hit the daily double at Freehold Raceway and thus we had a color TV. Good times back then.

From someone who has had it. I can tell anyone who doesn't have it that we're all up to our necks in problems. Only difference is the type of problems. I would have traded it all for a normal, happy and uneventful childhood.

I’m 67 and nobody had central air. We had window air conditioners. Every house in my neighborhood was two stories, all built around 1920.

My father bought a newly built 2 story Colonial home in 1961. Mom had a Plymouth Fury station wagon and Dad had (God forbid) a Corvair! In 1965 we finally got a color TV. We had a window A/C in the family room (downstairs) and another in my parents bedroom (upstairs). So I guess we were considered "rich." Dad paid cash for everything, though I do recall my parents having credit cards. We had a dishwasher, too, but my Mother (who was born in 1915) NEVER used it without washing all the dishes first!!!

We had about half of these. In Florida, central AC was NOT a luxury!

We weren't rich but had enough. Around here, ranch homes meant you were rich. All the regular homes were 2 story. No AC, 1 bathroom, a shared room, no dishwasher,. A color tv, but no flocked tree, no american express, 1 car, no housekeeper, no pool, no airplane trips, we did have a family room, no riding mower,. So just lower middle class i'd say.

We had SEVERAL color TVs....'course Dad was a TV repairman....back when that was a thing.

I never considered us "rich," but we were very comfortable. My parents built a three-bedroom house around 1966, which had a dishwasher, central air, two bathrooms, and a full basement; and we had two cars and domestic help. My mother worked and made almost as much as my father did, and I now know that is why we were fortunate enough to enjoy such a comfortable life. To me at the time, the rich people had a pool and expensive cars. Thanks for brining back some memories and reminders of the blessings of the times.

Keeping up with the Joneses is it good reason things are the way they are today 😕

My first house in San Diego was a two story house with an intercom and a second bathroom in my parents' room.