[Rintintin]

Yet another story that goes against this modern myth that "everyone could afford a house and car on a man's salary in the 1950s".

Link to the book: True Brides' Experiences 16

[Captain Audio]

Yet another story that goes against this modern myth that "everyone could afford a house and car on a man's salary in the 1950s".

If you factor in the GI bill and 36 year mortgages a man with a halfway decent factory job and no vices could afford both in most parts of the USA. Might not be a palace or a new caddy but a several decades old house and good used car weren't made of gold back then.
I remember an article on classic cars where the author told of mustering out after WW2 and passing up a deal on an otherwise very nice Cord for $125 because it had a crack in the windshield. He was kicking himself every day since then.
A good running pre WW2 sedan might set you back no more than $50 if you didn't mind a scruffy paint job and a little smoke.

[Rintintin]

Yet another story that goes against this modern myth that "everyone could afford a house and car on a man's salary in the 1950s".

If you factor in the GI bill and 36 year mortgages a man with a halfway decent factory job and no vices could afford both in most parts of the USA. Might not be a palace or a new caddy but a several decades old house and good used car weren't made of gold back then.
I remember an article on classic cars where the author told of mustering out after WW2 and passing up a deal on an otherwise very nice Cord for $125 because it had a crack in the windshield. He was kicking himself every day since then.
A good running pre WW2 sedan might set you back no more than $50 if you didn't mind a scruffy paint job and a little smoke.

Just like in the comic story. They have a home & car but they're not exactly comfortable like in what I think is some other people's fantasies about the time.

[Robb_K]

Yet another story that goes against this modern myth that "everyone could afford a house and car on a man's salary in the 1950s".

If you factor in the GI bill and 36 year mortgages a man with a halfway decent factory job and no vices could afford both in most parts of the USA. Might not be a palace or a new caddy but a several decades old house and good used car weren't made of gold back then.
I remember an article on classic cars where the author told of mustering out after WW2 and passing up a deal on an otherwise very nice Cord for $125 because it had a crack in the windshield. He was kicking himself every day since then.
A good running pre WW2 sedan might set you back no more than $50 if you didn't mind a scruffy paint job and a little smoke.

Just like in the comic story. They have a home & car but they're not exactly comfortable like in what I think is some other people's fantasies about the time.

I lived in a detached suburban house in 1946-1959 and 1959-65 and had a car at age 18, and was very happy with them. I moved to an apartment in a more citified area for university and my early career period, and know very well the difference between those two lifestyles.  I'd rather live in a detached house in the remotest suburb or a rural area (that might be considered a "shack" by today's luxury standards) than reside in a large apartment building in a large, central city, no matter how luxurious it might be.

There were several million tenement and other apartment dwellers in the crowded eastern cities in USA during the late 1940s and all of the 1950s, who, I am sure, would have LOVED to reside in the most modest detached house in a suburb, and have their own cars (even an often breaking down jalopy) for transportation.

[The Australian Panther]

Yet another story that goes against this modern myth that "everyone could afford a house and car on a man's salary in the 1950s".

No, not everybody, but most. Not always easy, but possible. 
Not only not a modern myth but a picture of the 50's that current commentators are actively attempting to deny.
Millennials are brainwashed into believing that the 50's were the worst decade of the 20th century, boring and terrible for women, ' und so weiter'
Best decade of my life - bar none. This was the first generation of teenagers, who didn't have to have a job to have money in their pockets, beaches, hot rods, comics, jeans, teddy boys [in the UK], Independent girls.  Yes, the houses were such as would be looked down on by many today.
Oh and Gas and Electric stoves, Fridges, Washing machines, Electric Blankets, TV, Transistors, Record Players, Reel to reel tape, Cheap electric guitars and keyboards and amplifiers, the list goes on and on. Top 40 radio.   
And a time of high employment when you didn't even consider the possibility that you might never have a job.
It's no co-incidence that in a time where the media and government preaches that we are all doomed and the world is going to end tomorrow, that there are subcultures in most countries in this world devoted to Rockabilly, 50's style RocknRoll and 60's style surf/guitar bands. Oh and 40's 50's style swing dance music.   
Western Governments knew that improving people's lives economically and helping them to be able to take independent control of their lives was their job and their careers depended on it. No longer, your economic welfare is of no consequence to them. 
I live in the country in a house that many would not look twice at, but it is fully paid for, I have a yard and some trees and when I sit out front on a sunny day on my porch I have a view to a tree-covered mountain that most can only dream about.
Up the hill behind my house is a new estate full of houses that put mine to shame, but they have no yards to speak of, Tradesmen - plumbers and builders and electricians that are friends of mind, tell me that most of the new houses are not as solidly built as mine and have all sorts of problems. Most of them are kit built.
What's that phrase that Paw uses, '‘all fur coat and na' knickers’?  Exactly. Most of them exist because the owners took out a mortgage, for which they have my deepest sympathy, because their lives are going to be a financial nightmare in the current and next few years.         
       

[lyons]

Great comments - Worth the read - Thanks.

[Robb_K]

Yet another story that goes against this modern myth that "everyone could afford a house and car on a man's salary in the 1950s".

No, not everybody, but most. Not always easy, but possible. 
Not only not a modern myth but a picture of the 50's that current commentators are actively attempting to deny.
Millennials are brainwashed into believing that the 50's were the worst decade of the 20th century, boring and terrible for women, ' und so weiter'
Best decade of my life - bar none. This was the first generation of teenagers, who didn't have to have a job to have money in their pockets, beaches, hot rods, comics, jeans, teddy boys [in the UK], Independent girls.  Yes, the houses were such as would be looked down on by many today.
Oh and Gas and Electric stoves, Fridges, Washing machines, Electric Blankets, TV, Transistors, Record Players, Reel to reel tape, Cheap electric guitars and keyboards and amplifiers, the list goes on and on. Top 40 radio.   
And a time of high employment when you didn't even consider the possibility that you might never have a job.
It's no co-incidence that in a time where the media and government preaches that we are all doomed and the world is going to end tomorrow, that there are subcultures in most countries in this world devoted to Rockabilly, 50's style RocknRoll and 60's style surf/guitar bands. Oh and 40's 50's style swing dance music.   
Western Governments knew that improving people's lives economically and helping them to be able to take independent control of their lives was their job and their careers depended on it. No longer, your economic welfare is of no consequence to them. 
I live in the country in a house that many would not look twice at, but it is fully paid for, I have a yard and some trees and when I sit out front on a sunny day on my porch I have a view to a tree-covered mountain that most can only dream about.
Up the hill behind my house is a new estate full of houses that put mine to shame, but they have no yards to speak of, Tradesmen - plumbers and builders and electricians that are friends of mind, tell me that most of the new houses are not as solidly built as mine and have all sorts of problems. Most of them are kit built.
What's that phrase that Paw uses, '‘all fur coat and na' knickers’?  Exactly. Most of them exist because the owners took out a mortgage, for which they have my deepest sympathy, because their lives are going to be a financial nightmare in the current and next few years.         

You're a man after my own heart!  I knew we had a lot in common before this post.  But we have even more than I'd have guessed.  As I stated above: I'd rather live in what many current people would consider a "shack" (well built one) as long as it is detached, and in an area of a lot of greenery, away from the crowded, noisy, smokey, big cities. 

I grew up in a detached house, in Winnipeg's farthest suburb, at the edge of the woods, directly across the creek, just beyond the edge of our backyard.  In The Netherlands, I did live in a big city (Den Haag) for over 30 years, in my grandparents' old 1880s Townhouse, which is a 3 story building, with other homeowners' houses in it.  Most Americans would call these "glorified apartments, but such wood-framed brick buildings have such thick walls between the units, that you can't hear what is going on next door or above or below you (only in the different rooms of your own house. And, it was located on the second to last street from the edge of a forest preserve area between us and the North Sea coast.  But, for the past 13 years (minus the last 3 due to The Pandemic) I've lived in a tiny village with a lot more sheep and cows than people, and my backyard ends on a canal's edge, across from which, is a sheep farm.  I wake up to ducks and geese quacking, and sheep are baa'aaing, and cows are moo-ing during the day, and I have no car there, and ride my bicycle to the nearest town to get groceries.

The 1950s were, at least, tied for the best decade in my life, with the 1960s being roughly as good.

[paw broon]

I had a different perspective on the decade. I the early part we lived in a prefab in a new development of prefabricated houses attending edge of a town in Central Scotland.  Although I was young, I remember the "mushrooms" growing on a wall in one of the 2 bedrooms.  My aunt and uncle had a tiny place with a hole in the wall bed and a shared outside toilet.
Late '50's, they got a new flat which must have seemed like a palace. 
My family moved eventually to a terraced house on a new scheme.  Coal and milk was still delivered by horse and cart till mid to late '50's. 
By late in the decade I could listen to Radio Luxemburg on my wee transistor radio. 
Now my wife and I live on the outskirts of town but recently lots of farmland and wooded areas have been cleared for new housing but being a small country, we have easy quick access to countryside, parks, rivers, canals, hills.  Lovely