As we live through a period of fast escalating inflation, all of us are facing rising costs - but just how much have they gone up over the decades?

From days out to houses and even attending university, a time-traveller from just 30 years ago would struggle to comprehend today's prices.

Take, for example, the price of stamps (you'll remember them from the days we sent letters rather than emails). In April, the Royal Mail hiked the price for a first class stamp to 95p and a second to 68p.

In 1980, an era when a first class stamp did normally deliver on its next-day promise, it would have set you back 12p.

Now, before you all say 'yes, but what about inflation - everything's gone up in price', well that's the equivalent of 65p today. So why the price difference? Well back then it was a case of economies of scale. We all used the post - there was no real alternative. In 2000, when the internet was still in its infancy, first class postage was just 27p by 2012, with online use widespread and demand for mail dropping, they'd risen to 60p - a rise of 122%. Crikey.

Petrol and diesel is another thorny topic at the moment, with rates among the highest we've ever seen. Today, a litre of unleaded is going to set you back, roughly, around £1.59 at the county's pumps. Of which, coincidentally, around half is made up of fuel duty and VAT. (By way of comparison, in the tax-light United Arab Emirates, fuel sells for around - brace yourself - 78p a litre.)

So you probably won't want reminding that a mere 15 years ago it retailed here in sunny Kent for a mere 88p. That's a price hike of 80%. Probably best to blame the Russians.

Dial back 20 years and it was 70p. And for those of us for whom 1990 seems like just the other day, well then it was just 40p (the equivalent today of £1.06).

But then those were the days when most cars ran on the not-very-environmentally-friendly leaded petrol. It was, as is so often said, very much a different era.

In fact, in 1970 you could buy an original Fiat 500, new, for a few pounds less than £500 (about £8,700 in today's money - buying one today will probably set you back close to £14,000).

Bizarrely, if you'd kept that 1970 model in tip-top condition you could probably sell it for more, second-hand, today than the equivalent used model manufactured in 2010.

According to Right Move, the average price of a property in Kent last year stood at an eye-watering £414,458.

Yet, just 20 years ago, that figure stood at closer to £146,500. An increase over the period of 183%. Rewind further to 1995 and you could be a proud house owner for a rather more modest £69,089 - the equivalent in today's money of, well, pretty much the price it was in 2002, clearly demonstrating the real growth in house values rather than mere inflationary.

But soaring property prices is nothing new.

Have a trawl through newspapers through the years, and the changing prices are something of an eye-opener.

In 1970, for example, an advert in a Kent paper for a three-bedroom, modernised (for the time, mind you) "picturesque period cottage" in the very-desireable west Kent village of Goudhurst, set in one-and-a-half-acres and boasting a "waterfall" in its "delightful gardens" would have cost you a mere £7,500. That equates to about £131,500 today. Still something of a bargain.

In the same paper, a three-bedroom 1939 semi in Tonbridge would have cost you £4,750.

For renters, well, a two-bed house with garage, garden and near the shops and station in Birchington, near Margate, would have set you back a whopping £26 a month, excluding bills. Yes, £26. Although that is, it should be pointed out, the equivalent of £436 in 2022 money, but the average rent for a two-bed house in Kent today is around £1,189 a month. So still a bargain whichever way you cut it.

A day out seemed a lot cheaper too. In 1989 a family of four - two adults, two children - could visit Howletts or Port Lympne wild animal parks for £9 (the equivalent of £25) - and half that cost at the start of the decade. Today it costs, gulp, £89.

Dover Castle in 1989 cost £2.50 for an adult...£26 today.

Margate's Dreamland in 1985 - when it was known as Bembom Brothers - charged an entrance fee of £3.50 (today's price about £12) with all rides included in the price. By way of comparison, today the park is free to enter, but just one trip on the Scenic Railway rollercoaster will set you back £5 and the Big Wheel £4.

And if you wanted to ruin your health while you were out, you could puff away on a box of 20 cigarettes for the grand total of £1.40-ish in 1987 - with a pint of lager setting you back an additional 92p - before they hit £5 in 2007 (a pint rising to £2.60) and then rocketed in a bid to deter people from the habit to £12 today (with beer a bit over £4).

If you wanted to pack some sandwiches, well, in 1985 a sliced white loaf would have been 40p, rising to 50p 10 years later before hitting £1.23 by 2010 (today, as if you didn't know, it's about £1.14 - so you're actually winning for once.)

It's probably best we gloss over how much it cost to go to university (it was, dear students, free before 1998 and you got a grant each year which you didn't have to pay back too - so, yes, you were given free cash to attend a free university). But when fees were first introduced, they cost £1,000 a year. Today they're mostly in excess of £9,000. And rather than a grant, you take out a loan which does have to be paid back once you hit a certain salary threshold. Probably best not to think about it, young folk.

Of course, not everything has soared in price. Take the humble music album. Once upon a time, if you wanted to listen to your favourite artist's latest release you had to buy it (or, and I'm sure none of you did this, ahem) get a friend to tape a copy for you. But vinyl albums, during the 1980s, would set you back anywhere between £4.99 to £6.99. Then CDs arrived and the prices started to accelerate, with prices edging closer to the £15 before supermarkets started flogging the latest releases cheap to lure us to their huge new out-of-town stores.

Today, though, £9.99 can put an entire record shop in your pocket courtesy of a subscription to the likes of Spotify or Apple Music. There is no denying, for the consumer at least, that equates to something of a bargain. Granted you don't actually own a physical product, but still.

The expansion of global imports has also seen the price of bananas, for example, reduce. Down from £1.26 per kilo in 1991 to a mere 90p today. White potatoes? In 2001 they were 90p per kg - today just 58p. And, if you've developed a taste for avocado - well the pears cost the same today (87p each) as they did in 2010.

Of course, the price increases aren't (in the most part at least) due to greedy profiteering. Market pressures, logistical challenges, wars, the weather, economic pressures, added regulations and increased wage costs all contribute. And, for example, a Fiat 500 today offers you a far more pleasing (and safer) motoring experience than one from more than 50 years ago. Ditto, a day out at Howletts is now about investing in its bigger goals for the wildlife it showcases.

But let's end with wages. In 1980, the average salary in the UK was £6,000 (the equivalent of £32,400) - 20 years later it was closer to £20,000 (£34,760). Today it stands at £31,285. So, in a nutshell, we're (avocado and spuds excluded) paying more, but getting less. Oh dear.