Yahoo Finance Eight minutes at Glastonbury festival: what £1 can really buy you today
You don’t get much for £1 these days – and that’s certainly true compared to 1983.
As the death knell sounds for the ’round pound’ with the introduction of the 12-sided £1 coin at the end of the month, a look at the purchasing power of the currency reveals some startling insights.
Back in 1983 when the £1 coin was first minted, Margaret Thatcher was in power riding a wave of patriotic fervour following the Falklands War of a year earlier, and a flash generation of yuppies was making waves in the financial sector.
Now, the UK has its second woman prime minister, a political war is raging over Brexit and millennials are the new kids on the block.
It was revealed this week how inflation has severely dented the real value of £1 from 1983 – but what could it actually get you 34 years ago?
Business
Back then, email was years away from becoming widely used by the public, so the Royal Mail handled most important communications. A first class stamp cost just 16p – it costs 64p now – so you could send six letters with your £1.
Cars
The humble Ford Escort was the best selling car of the mid-1980s – and it cost 36p per litre to fill it up. Today, the price per litre of petrol is about 110p. And, if you fancied a snack for your journey, you could get almost 6 Mars bars for £1 from the petrol station, whereas today just one will cost about 60p.
Fast Food
A Big Mac would give you change from £1 in 1983 – not any more (Cate Gillon/Getty Images)Fast food had really begun to gain a foothold in popular culture. McDonald’s had arrived in the UK less than a decade earlier and a Big Mac would have set you back 89p – today, you’d just have to make do with a plain hamburger for that (for an extra 10p, though, you could opt for a cheeseburger).
READ MORE: Inflation knocks cash value of £1 coin to 32p since 1983
READ MORE: Brits could lose over £1 billion in loose change when the new £1 coin is introduced
READ MORE: Quids in: why it’s time to get rid of your £1 coins
Entertainment
In terms of purchasing power, consider this: in 1983, Return of the Jedi, the last of the original Star Wars trilogy, was one of the biggest movies of the year. A cinema ticket cost about £2, on average, so you’d be able to watch about half of the 132-minute film for £1.
At the end of last year, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story joined the dots between the old and new movies but tickets today cost about £10, so you’d have to leave your seat after less than quarter-of-an-hour into the 133-minute blockbuster if you bought just £1-worth of movie time.
Leisure
It’s even more shocking for music fans. Glastonbury tickets have become like gold dust, selling out in seconds online.
In 1983, Curtis Mayfield, The Beat, UB40 and Marillion topped the bill – all for £12 over three days. Based on 12 hours music a day, £1 would buy you three hours of entertainment.
A ticket for this year’s event on Worthy Farm will set you back £283 – and so, again based on 12 hours of music over three days, that works out at £94 a day, or £7.80 an hour. Your humble £1 will see you enjoy about 8 minutes of fun.
