how OS were your parents?

Misty_Blue

This is a great thread.

My mother was a single parent, but she always had a good job and was able to give me a very good childhood - I had a private education, riding lessons, holidays abroad etc, even if it meant she did without things herself. She is very houseproud and practical, can cook beautifully, do her own decorating etc, but because she wanted me to have more opportunities than she'd had herself, I was never made to help with housework, learn to cook and so on, as she said she would rather I spent the time on my education.

Now, aged 29, I can bake but not cook at all (ie when my dog was ill I had to Google instructions to scramble eggs! ), and although my house is clean it's never anywhere like the order and tidiness my mother lives in. I'm very, very grateful to her for the childhood she gave me, but I can't help but feel that she should have insisted on me helping out around the house once I was a bit older. I have no OS ways at all, really, and it's only in the last year or so that I've really got the hang of my finances (no bank charges since April 2008! :rotfl: ) I am trying to learn from you lovely people on here, though.

Rage_in_Eden

My Mum and Dad were very OS. Dad was born in 1907 so he saw first had the 1930s and he was very careful. Mum was born in 1929 and although she came from a wealthy background (she had measles when she was 7 and lived on black grapes and champagne as her Nana owned her own pub and a couple of streets :eek: ) but she was always thrifty. She did her accounts every night and I can remember sitting on the edge of her bed whislt she did them (I now have these and they'd make a grown man cry as sisters always wanted something from Marks for their children for Christmas so that had to be saved for - they must have been really thick not to work out that one). She had to be careful as well as dad died when I was 11 so it was really tough as she didn't work and promised Dad that she wouldn't (do we pay the mortgage - it was the 70s when rates were nearly 22%) or eat) and she marked every last ha'penny down. This has made me fanatical about money and Mr Rage gets annoyed as he says you shouldn't worry about it ( ) easy to say when you can pay the bills. Mum used to never throw food away and wrapping paper was always "ironed out" for re-use (I could cry when I see what people throw away and a trip to the local tip always leaves me in a foul mood). She was big on re-use/recycle and that's something I've inherited. She baked, decorated, re-upholstered, sewed (never had shop bought clothes unless they had to be bought e.g. school blazer), knitted and I even remember my brown shoes being dyed black to adhere to the school dress code (although it did say black or brown on the letter but I got pulled for having brown). I can sew, bake every week and can generally rustle up a meal out of nearly nowt. In fact to be quite honest I sometimes resent not using candles for lighting :rotfl: . Even as recently as Christmas I was appalled to open BIL's fridge and see EVERYTHING ready prepared and that is the norm it wasn't just for Christmas. We also had part of our garden as a veg patch and she particularly liked growing tomatoes - I remember one year (the last year Dad was alive) we went on holiday and there was a drought - 1976 - and when she got home the first thing she did was water the potatoes as she was fretting all the way home about them :rolleyes: . And she made a mean chicken curry out of the carcass (or so it seemed to me). She always put dessicated coconut on the top as well I now realise how lucky I was to see all these skills in action and absorb them so that at least I know I won't be a headless chicken if Mr Rage does get made redundant (again). When she died she had a stock of toiletries etc that went on forever and she gave me my mania for cannibalising (?) old shirts etc for the bin (AKA the rags box) for buttons etc........No wonder Mr Rage despairs as anything his Mum doesn't want just gets binned so I am the complete opposite.......(even one year christmas presents from third parties that she had forgot to pass on)

daleigha

these stories are lovely!! i have lost count of the number of times ive welled up reading through this thread! for me, its all the lovely memories that people have talked about, along with the OS ways, it just shows that people were able to live quite happily on very little, and its such a shame that we now live in a consumer obsessed world, where there is so much pressure to have the 'right' things, and the stress that comes with trying to purchase them, when all that should really matter is being with loved ones and living life.

but anyway, im one of the rare ones whose parents were / are totally not OS!! maybe thats why im so soppy and sentimental over this thread!! my mum has always bought too much food and had to bin lots of it, she buys clothes that she thinks she'll fit into one day and never does - she gave a bin bag full of clothes to see if i wanted any of them, and most of them still had the labels on!! :eek: , she has credit cards and store cards galore, she sees something she wants (like a new sofa!!) and talks herself into 'needing' to buy it that day!! she complains that there is nothing to eat in the house when there is a fridge, freezer and cupboards full of food!! i guess the only OS thing she does is hoard stuff, 'just incase'!!

she has a greenhouse..... but it was bought to house the guineau pigs!! :rolleyes:

im constantly shouting about meal planning and health benefits of cooking from scratch, using up stuff she has first, thinking before you buy stuff, getting rid of the credit etc..... and i think its maybe finally getting through - she now makes a lot more stuff from scratch and even got quite excited at the prospect of turning the greenhouse into a proper greenhouse that could be used to grow vegetables!! though it hasnt happened yet!! :rolleyes:

hopefully when my future kids are older they can come on to this site and tell you all about their OS upbringing (which they WILL be having!! )

Rage_in_Eden

daleigha wrote: »

she has a greenhouse..... but it was bought to house the guineau pigs!! :rolleyes:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
"Mr Ambassador you are spoiling us" squeak squeak!!

yummymummy05

My mum wasn't OS at all, she has always done her shopping at M&S and Sainsbury's and spends about £200 a month on grocerys when there is only her!! My nan was a gret inspiration though - she worked hard for her money and loved her job as a headteacher but retired to look after me whilst my mum went to work. My Nan was very OS when she was younger so she managed to save enough money to enjoy her retirement and give me the education I needed and a m very gratefull to her for that.

Like Misty Blue though I was never made to clean up or cook and because of that it has taken me 4 years to get this far - I now feel I'm in control of my house and money for once and that couldn't have happened had i not found the OS crew!!

THIRZAH

My parents were very OS when I was growing up-they had to be. We grew all our own veg and fruit. I used to love going next door to tea as they had "shop-bought" cake!I can remember ice on the windows and getting dressed by the rayburn. We used to have terrible chilblains and scorched legs from sitting too close to the fire.

My mother and grandmother made a lot of our clothes-mum also knitted cardigans etc. I was lucky enough to have older cousins so we got lots of hand-me-downs. My aunt in Canada used to send a big box full of used clothes over twice a year and we all used to gather at my Granny's when it came-there were clothes for my mum as well as us.Mum and Grandma used to help at church jumble sales so they got "first-pick" of anything there.

When I started at High school I wore my cousins old uniform and my mother's old school scarf! Mum made my summer uniform dresses from gingham.

Our holidays were spent in a wooden cottage on the east coast-it was always so cold.The cottage-it was more like a shack-had gas lights and I had to share a bed with my sister.When we first started going there my Dad only had a van so we had to sit in the back on old sofa cushions. Later on we did get a car and we used to sit on the back seat with boxes containing a weeks supply of veg from the garden under our feet.

sparrer

This thread makes me realise how different my life was to most..my mum married a soldier and we had good homes, travel, lots of perks, then divorced and married a butcher, so free meat every day. I remember in the late 50's the other kids at school being jealous as we had chcken on a regular basis when most of them only had it at Christmas. There were no Mr A, S, T etc just the local grocer, greengrocer, baker...all the shopkeepers traded with each other ie my step d would provide the grocer with steak, (real) sausages, faggots and so on and the grocer kept us in loose tea, sugar, herbs and spices for the meat products and so on...

My mum was a career woman, very unusual back then, a pa to an investment company chairman and didn't retire til she was 68. We always had cars, holidays, meals out, never wore hand-me-downs and she hadn't a clue how to sew a skirt or knit a cardi :rolleyes: . She's now 87, still practices the same ways as she always did and wouldn't be seen in Primark or Matalan! As for Woolworths, well she knew it was there of course, but.....:rotfl:

So very, very different to the last few years of my life. Previously I had it all, as she did, then my circumstances changed dramatically. My 5-bed detached has gone as have the Volvos and Audis, designer furniture, bespoke clothing. I've got a little HA house, practice every OS method there is and MSE is my second - or is it first - home. I buy on-the-sell-by-date food, make my own bread, clean my house with Stardrops and vinegar, barely turn on the taps or the heating...you'll know what I mean.

When was I happiest? Today, of course :A

Sweetpeanut

WHOOOOOOO, THANK GOD THOUGHT I LOST YOU'S, WHEN I WAS KID, ON A FRIDAY NIGHT WHEN ALL THE OTHER KIDS IN THE STREET, WERE GOING THE CHIPPY, I USED TO BEG ME DAD FOR CHIPPY CHIPS, HE'D SAY "I'LL GET YER CHIPPY CHIPS" I'D BE SAT THERE WITH A BIG GRIN ON ME FACE & HE'D COME OUT WITH CHIPS IN A BROWN ENVELOPE!!!!!!!!:mad:. I'D BE GUTTED AN ALL THE KIDS WOULD FLOCK ROUND ASKING WHICH "CHIPPY" HE WENT COS HIS CHIPS WERE GORGEOUS, THAT ONLY MADE HIM MORE DETERMINED TO MAKE ME CHIPS (IN THE BROWN ENVELOPE WITH THE LITTLE WINDOW IN), NO WONDER IM ;)CHUBBY, I WAS THAT DEPERATE TO HAVE CHIPPY CHIPS, ITS ALL THE YEARS OF MISSING OUT!!!!!!!!!:rotfl:

an1179

My Dad was a decorator he used to wrap our Christmas presents up in left over wall paper I miss him

sparrer

an1179 wrote: »

My Dad was a decorator he used to wrap our Christmas presents up in left over wall paper I miss him

Ha ha an1179, I bought a roll of plain wallpaper from the local charity shop for 50p, decorated it to suit the recipient and wrapped all the Christmas presents with it...and have enough left for next year :rolleyes: