Was It Really Only $500?

I was chatting with Monica via email the other day. She was telling me that some family property was sold in the early 1900s and it resulted in only $500. I was thinking, considering how many people had to share that, it was hardly worth fighting for — she said they each received maybe $20.

I was suddenly reminded that what is “only” to us today might have actually been quite a lot 100+ years ago, and set about looking for a currency converter. Turns out, in today’s dollars, the sale brought in about $12,500 and each heir would have received about $500. Now we’re talking some money for most of us.

That reminded me of a distribution for one of “my” families in the 1880s. I haven’t yet figured out where that money came from, but it was a total of $2,000, $50,000 in today’s dollars. Now we’re talking some moola!

This handy little tool can be found at DaveManuel.com. I’m sure there are others, but this was the first one to pop up. 🙂