Don Draper's Money

Eclipse Day is here, my North American friends! Be like Sally, the smartest of the Drapers, and don’t stare directly into the sun.

High on Jaguar and a little bit antsy, Don barges into Roger’s office and opines about wanting The Biggest accounts. He wants to pull in Dow Chemical, which would be as big as Lucky Strike was at around $20 million in billings. That’s equivalent to something like $148.9 million today (it broke my usual inflation calculator again), which is enough for Don to say they should fire Ken Cosgrove Accounts if he still has objections to working with his father-in-law. 

No, Lane, he doesn’t know how the rest of us live.

Pete is pretty proud of himself when he announces to the other SCDP partners that he landed a meeting with Dunlop on the heels of the Jaguar victory. When Joan asks what the billings are, he says it would be a little over a million. That’s just under 7.5 million today. 

Get it, Peggs!

Lane takes the $50,000 proposal of sleeping with the Jaguar dude to Joan under the guise of trying to convince her not to do it because it’s the kind of money that might be tempting. Joan angrily agrees that yes, it is a lot of money, and reminds him that it’s four times what she makes in a year. That means her annual salary is about $12,500, which would be equivalent to about $93,068 today. 

When the creepy dude from the Jaguar dealership group decides he wants Joan as a condition of giving SCDP their stamp of approval, Pete actually takes the idea to first Joan then the partners. He suggests offering her $50,000, or a 10% finder’s fee. That would be equivalent to $372,272 today, and the $500,000 Jaguar account is worth more than $3.7 million. 

The cash would be a little more than $3,700 today, and the plane ticket would have cost several hundred dollars, likely upwards of a thousand. I couldn’t find airline ticket info for 1966, but one 1959 TWA ad offered one-way flights from New York to LA for $168.40, which would be equivalent to around $1400 today. 

Current F-Type sports model Jaguar coupes start at around $89,500 today. 

Damn, son. That’s bold.

Fun fact!: Litho-Lite is a real company that really existed in New York State from 1964-1991. 

Lane is desperate for cash, so he goes to the bank and gets SCDP’s credit extended by another fifty grand then passes it off as a budget surplus to justify giving out Christmas bonuses. That would be equivalent to almost $372,300 today. It’s no wonder Pete is skeptical at Lane’s sudden change of heart about fiscal responsibility.

Eight thousand US dollars in 1966 would be about $59,500 today. However, if you use a British inflation calculator instead, £2900 in 1966 is about £51,600 today, which is closer to around $66,800 given the current exchange rate. Either way you look at it, that’s a whole lot of cash. 

We’d have thought Roger would have learned his lesson before now about bribing the SCDP staff. He quips, “I’ve got to start carrying less cash.” Yeah, buddy, I’d do that.

When Megan announces that she’s leaving SDCP to pursue being an actress, Ginsberg latches onto the fact that she owes him $15 because she never seemed to have money to get lunch. That would be more than $110 today, which is a lot of sandwiches. 

Holy shit, Creative Department. That would be more than $111,500 today. 

Nowadays, term life is much more popular than permanent life insurance, and cost will vary based on what certain factors like age, weight, health, habits, etc. (This was true in 1966, too, but the prevalence of online quotes and insurance calculators makes it harder to pin down more specific advertised costs.) The @nerdwallet folks have an grid of average term life insurance costs, and it looks like a $250,000 payout for a man in his 50s on a 20-year term life insurance plan would cost around $41/month.