You Won’t Believe These Average Expenses for Mainers 20 Years Ago

Inflation has always and likely will always be a thing. The last couple of years, it’s grown at a rate that we are not used to, leaving a lot of us scraping the bottoms of our wallets to stay afloat. Although inflation is softening, this study of Mainer's expenses confirmed we are not where we would like to be.

We’re finally starting to see some relief with oil and gas prices going down, as well as a big decrease expected in our monthly electric bills starting this month as CMP and Versant are cutting costs, according to a report late in 2023. 

I thought it would be interesting to go back in time 20 years ago and see what Mainers were paying for a few required expenses in order to get by. I factored inflation into the equation using the US Inflation Calculator. 

Oil

2004 - $1.43/gallon (According to US Energy Information Administration)

Inflation adjusted: $2.32

2024 - $3.92/gallon (According to maine.gov)

Electricity

2004 -  4.95 cents/kWh (According to the Sun Journal)

Inflation adjusted: 8.1 cents/kWh

2024 -  10.8 cents/kWh (According Maine.gov)

Gas

2004 - $1.05/gallon (According to US Energy Information Administration)

Inflation adjusted: $1.71/gallon

2024 - $3.20/gallon (According to AAA)

Cell Phone

2004 - $50.44 (According to Chegg)

Inflation adjusted: $81.99

2024 - $144.00 (According to CNBC)

It’s important to note that the cell phone average is a tough one to calculate, as there are so many different carriers and plans along with more technology offered in 2024.

Well, there you go. You can see we are nowhere in line with where we should be twenty years later. All we can hope for is that gas, oil, and electric prices continue to go down…. or at least not go up.