What could $100 buy back in 2010?

[cryptothief]

Using this Cost of Living website, here's what you could have bought with $100 back in 2010.

40 loaves of Sara Lee White Bread (enough for more than 600 slices of toast)
or
192 lbs of Russet potatoes (approximately 580 large portions of fries from McDonalds)
or
35 gallons of milk from Prairie Farms (Ben & Jerry's could rustle up 3 gallons of ice cream for you)
or
31 lbs of Hormel bacon (over 600 generous thick cut bacon sandwiches if you wanted to use some of that Sara Lee bread)
or
73 dozen eggs (that's one boiled egg a day for 876 days)
or
343 cans of Coke (3773 grams of sugar would be enough for 150 days of the recommended daily limit for women, or 100 days for men)
or
100 Scott toilet rolls (depending on your dietary habits, these should keep your bathroom visits sorted for over a year)
or
48 tins of Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup (these'll get you through a winter season's worth of cold weather)
or
33 large boxes of Kellogg's Cornflakes (that's a bowl of Cornflakes every day for 594 days)
or
34 Jack's Pepperoni Pizzas (that's Monday Night Football snacks sorted for a few months)
or
26 lbs of Ground Beef (invite the neighbours over and get the BBQ going for the 83 burgers you're going to be cooking)
or
36 Gallons of Gas (that would get your Mini Cooper from Vancouver down to Tijuana for an epic road trip - don't forget your passport)

And just for sh*ts and giggles, 2010 was the year of the Bitcoin pizza, when Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida for 10,000 Bitcoin on 22nd May.

If you had decided to buy Bitcoin with your $100, you would have been able to buy around 25,000 of them, worth almost $187 million today.

[1714181694]

1714181694

[The Sceptical Chymist]

$100 in 2010 could have bought about 8 shares of Domino's Pizza stock.  Today that same $100 would buy only 0.4 shares.  Does that say anything at all about the USD?  Not really.  And I don't think the comparison to how much bitcoin $100 would buy says anything about it, either--so that entire list of goods you could buy with 2010 dollars is a red herring. 

It's bitcoin which has exploded in value, not inflation that's eaten away at how much bitcoin you could buy--and you could still buy the same amount of most of those goods with $100 today.  I don't like this kind of misleading data.

[Hydrogen]

I've seen economic infographics which attempt to illustrate cost of living price inflation versus wage growth. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure.



...



I'm not certain these graphics 100% put circumstances in perpsective.

Its worth mentioning that with food price inflation water scarcity and resulting elevated cost of water heavily factors into higher cost of meat production. To some degree climate change and deforestation factor into higher cost of food and beverages--rather than pure financial considerations which can skew statistics to a degree.

[carter34]

These statistics simply shows that inflation has eaten the fabric of all societies, from falling economic indexes to fallen GDP to high standard of living. Obviously, the life and times of 2010 can't be compared to what is obtainable to this present times.

[Kakmakr]

Talking about sh*ts and giggles, I used to go to the Mall with $100 back in the day. <Daily budget> I then went to the Music shop and got myself 15 x Music DVDs and then to the "Sweets" shop and got myself a bag of Wine Gums and 5 bars or chocolates and then to the "Gaming" shop to get me 5 video games and 5 x Gaming themed T-shirts and a cap.

The rest was spend on food and drinks at the fast food places and some arcade gaming and a Movie in the Cinema.

You cannot get all that for $100 today, because there are CCTV everywhere. 

[cryptothief]

I don't like this kind of misleading data.

It's not really misleading, as the figures are accurate (to the best of my knowledge), and there was no attempt to imply that $100 could buy considerably less now. It just doesn't necessarily paint the full picture, especially as it doesn't take into account any wage inflation (even though personally I am still earning pretty much the same as I was back then, and have moved up in position).

and you could still buy the same amount of most of those goods with $100 today.

I get what you're saying, even though there is a slight difference. 7 years is not long enough to really impact on the spending power of $100, these are the 2017 figures for comparison, and the differences are by and large negligible.

50 loaves of Sara Lee White Bread
or
128 lbs of Russet potatoes
or
32 gallons of milk from Prairie Farms
or
22 lbs of Hormel bacon
or
147 dozen eggs
or
312 cans of Coke
or
100 Scott toilet rolls
or
63 tins of Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup
or
33 large boxes of Kellogg's Cornflakes
or
33 Jack's Pepperoni Pizzas
or
20 lbs of Ground Beef
or
41 Gallons of Gas

It's bitcoin which has exploded in value

I suppose this was really what I was getting at, $100 would now only get you 0.013 Bitcoin. An extra 5 gallons of gas isn't going to get me too far, whereas 25,000 odd Bitcoin would be much appreciated.

To be honest, it was only a bit of fun. I wasted a lot of money in my twenties (and most of my thirties), so I guess I was just aiming a sharp kick at my own balls. Living in the Middle East for the past 9 years has given me a different perspective anyway. Here a pint of beer normally costs around $11, a pack of cigarettes just over $5, and I can fill my tank for less than $25.

You cannot get all that for $100 today, because there are CCTV everywhere.  

Hahaha, spoilsports. Mine was a bag of 'weigh your own' pick and mix sweets - 'How much have you got in there?', '$0.50', and then walk away with an overflowing bag that would last me the week. I would say I'm not proud of it, but it was about 30 years ago and I still remember.

[Ranly123]

Using this Cost of Living website, here's what you could have bought with $100 back in 2010.

40 loaves of Sara Lee White Bread (enough for more than 600 slices of toast)
or
192 lbs of Russet potatoes (approximately 580 large portions of fries from McDonalds)
or
35 gallons of milk from Prairie Farms (Ben & Jerry's could rustle up 3 gallons of ice cream for you)
or
31 lbs of Hormel bacon (over 600 generous thick cut bacon sandwiches if you wanted to use some of that Sara Lee bread)
or
73 dozen eggs (that's one boiled egg a day for 876 days)
or
343 cans of Coke (3773 grams of sugar would be enough for 150 days of the recommended daily limit for women, or 100 days for men)
or
100 Scott toilet rolls (depending on your dietary habits, these should keep your bathroom visits sorted for over a year)
or
48 tins of Campbells Cream of Chicken Soup (these'll get you through a winter season's worth of cold weather)
or
33 large boxes of Kellogg's Cornflakes (that's a bowl of Cornflakes every day for 594 days)
or
34 Jack's Pepperoni Pizzas (that's Monday Night Football snacks sorted for a few months)
or
26 lbs of Ground Beef (invite the neighbours over and get the BBQ going for the 83 burgers you're going to be cooking)
or
36 Gallons of Gas (that would get your Mini Cooper from Vancouver down to Tijuana for an epic road trip - don't forget your passport)

And just for sh*ts and giggles, 2010 was the year of the Bitcoin pizza, when Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida for 10,000 Bitcoin on 22nd May.

If you had decided to buy Bitcoin with your $100, you would have been able to buy around 25,000 of them, worth almost $187 million today.

Cannot blame Laszlo for what he did when he buy pizza. That is a perfect example why Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are unpredictable and only be noticed in a long term kind of investment.

[cryptothief]

Cannot blame Laszlo for what he did when he buy pizza.

I definitely don't blame him, it was a way to prove that Bitcoin had a future as a viable currency. Although I guess (at least half) the credit for that should go to the pizza parlour for accepting it. Presumably they're using solid gold pepper grinders in there now.

[Dreamchaser21]

Cannot blame Laszlo for what he did when he buy pizza.

I definitely don't blame him, it was a way to prove that Bitcoin had a future as a viable currency. Although I guess (at least half) the credit for that should go to the pizza parlour for accepting it. Presumably they're using solid gold pepper grinders in there now.

Who knows that bitcoin will become more valuable after 8years? So basically we cannot blame those people who buy and sold bitcoin way back in 2010. The adoption of people in bitcoin is quiet high last year and it makes the price more valuable right now, bitcoin can become more successful in the future let's believe on this.

[Kertmu]

It depends on the country. Inflation of course is everywhere, but it is different. In some countries for $ 100 you can live a month, and in others to eat at a restaurant.

[DaryaDancova]

Looking from which side to look at inflation: On the one hand, it depreciates part of the money, but on the other hand, inflation is the engine of progress and encourages people to develop, not to eternal sleep. Therefore, there are pluses and minuses.

[davis196]

Looking from which side to look at inflation: On the one hand, it depreciates part of the money, but on the other hand, inflation is the engine of progress and encourages people to develop, not to eternal sleep. Therefore, there are pluses and minuses.

Inflation encourages people to develop?Really?Don`t make me laugh.So if the inflation is negative,the technology progress will stop? Inflation creates only more poverty and inequality,the rich elite wants more inflation,thats why the elite takes control over the central banks and forces the bankers to turn on the money printing machine.

[Hydrogen]

It depends on the country. Inflation of course is everywhere, but it is different. In some countries for $ 100 you can live a month, and in others to eat at a restaurant.

I like the affordable, high variation, system of produce some chinatowns utilize as described by WSJ.

THE REAL REASON CHINATOWN PRODUCE IS CRAZY CHEAP

The Wall Street Journal doesn't find foreign imports or discounts for low quality vegetables, but rather a special network of suppliers selling especially fresh food

Produce prices at your local Chinatown are likely a fraction of what they cost at other supermarkets, and if you've wondered why, you're not alone. In an investigative report for the Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Kadet admits she always assumed the low prices were a reflection of subpar produce. But a deeper investigation of New York's Chinatown with author Valerie Imbruce led her to the opposite conclusion, and reveals the hidden truths behind the neighborhood's fruit and vegetable supply chain.

Imbruce, who's researched the Chinatown produce economy for over a decade, is the author of From Farm to Canal Street: Chinatown’s Alternative Food Network in the Global Marketplace. In the Journal she distills to Kadet the real reason Chinatown can keep prices low: “Chinatown’s 80-plus produce markets are cheap because they are connected to a web of small farms and wholesalers that operate independently of the network supplying most mainstream supermarkets.” While most of the rest of New York's markets get their produce from the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx, Chinatown sellers work directly with small neighborhood warehouses. Since they're operating in close geographic proximity, they can get fresh produce throughout the day from wholesalers, and therefore don’t need a store with refrigeration or a lot of storage space.

Markets also cut costs by eschewing extra technology and certain aesthetic choices—the Journal points out that shelves “are typically made of plywood and lined with newsprint,” prices are scrawled on cardboard instead of printed on stickers, and credit cards are not always accepted. Chinatown retailers also manage to cut costs by “negotiating bulk discounts from wholesalers,” Kadet notes.

“All this translates into low overhead for the retailers—and low prices for shoppers,” the article points out. “The typical Chinatown produce markup is just 10% to 12% over wholesale, said Wellington Chen, executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp.”

And then there’s the variety. In Chinatown, Imbruce says, you can find anything from jackfruit to fuzzy squash and baby Shanghai bok choy, in addition to almost 200 other fruits and vegetables. Wholesalers in Chinatown source these interesting items from family farms growing Asian vegetables in Florida or Honduras. Imbruce mentions that she has visited more than 75 of these farms and saw very little exploitation; in fact, they were happy to be working for Chinatown wholesalers “because they could cultivate an array of crops, leading to economic and agronomic stability.”

https://www.saveur.com/chinatown-produce-prices

I don't know whether bitcoin will ever truly "scale".

Would not mind if china town's affordable health food markets scaled up in production which could have a long term effect of reducing average supermarket prices as a result. The widespread practice of supermarkets shipping fruits and vegetables from foreign countries over a great distance could be in need of a reversal.

Also would not mind if someone started a fastfood franchise similar to mcdonalds or burger king which catered to vegan health food. Its kind of annoying how starbucks and other fast food chains which promote extremely unhealthy food are very popular. To an extent healthcare is broken due to it being unaffordable. But there is another aspect of healthcare's inaffordability which is driven by bad diets and unhealthy food being consumed to a high degree on average.

[kive2k]

In 2010, for $ 100, I could live confidently for several weeks, and today there is not enough for one either Maybe the needs have grown but it's more likely that in my country the economy fell below the bottom ...

[gambitcoin53]

yes sadly that is true, the price of bitcoin when it started is way too expensive today, imagine getting a pizza with 10k bitcoin, im sure he is scratching his head right now, that is why it is important to hodl or invest in longer term than selling it on a daily basis, being a panic seller today will only make you like the pizza guy story, especially today, we are not talking about a pizza- worth asset, we are talking millions today, be patient to hodl and do not give in to panic selling.

[DosPower]

A hundreds dollars could have gotten you 25,000  Something heart breaking about that. Truly incredible.

[Getcoinsite]

Well if we would back the years for sure you wont use your $100 to buy bitcoin right?because who knows that it would go this far that this can make you richer than what you have now.

I would prefer to buy stocks that day because it ismore legit than crypto wayback

[knggtrrz]

yes sadly that is true, the price of bitcoin when it started is way too expensive today, imagine getting a pizza with 10k bitcoin, im sure he is scratching his head right now, that is why it is important to hodl or invest in longer term than selling it on a daily basis, being a panic seller today will only make you like the pizza guy story, especially today, we are not talking about a pizza- worth asset, we are talking millions today, be patient to hodl and do not give in to panic selling.

Let's all move on what happened in the past cannot bring back again here, also I am sure that those who invested before with cheap price of btc already sold their holding long time before, so all in all many of us regretted this experienced and let's move on.

[Zach707]

Times have change and that $100 is coins nowadays considering that commodities are getting expensive day by day. But if have invested that on cryptocurrency particularly on bitcoin then you are now crypto millionaire. If only we could tell what the future will be.

[hunterWood]

I just looked up Laszlo Hanyecz to see how many Bitcoin he has. Such a famous story yet I had no idea he died, and basically couldn't move. Sad.