Are you more thrifty, OS and MSE than your mother?

BitterAndTwisted

Some lovely stories on this thread, so thank you everyone.

I have a horrible feeling that I am of the "lost generation" of women who haven't been or didn't need to be OS. Women going out to work full-time either from choice or of necessity must have made a huge impact on how homes were run and what food was bought. I can't imagine how hard it must be to come home from work and try to put proper, cooked-from-scratch-meals on the table every day.

My own Mum came from an extremely impoverished home life but she was lucky because my Oma, my German granny left home on the family farm at 14 to go into domestic service. She worked her way up to become a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Berlin and didn't marry until she was 40. She was the woman who could make something out of nothing from necessity because the lovely man she married 20 years her junior was as poor as a church mouse. Who came back from the war after fighting on the Russian front a cripple.

Mum came to the UK in 1946 as a 17 year old who didn't even speak the language to work in a TB hospital kitchen in Scotland in order to support the family. When we were nippers she cooked, baked, kept a kitchen garden, sewed our little dresses and knitted everything and anything that could be knitted and a couple of things that shouldn't. Socks were darned and old jumpers were unravelled to make new things. I seem to remember her trying her hand at making furniture and recall her knotting those Redicut rugs by the fire at night. She was never idle, probably not even in her sleep.

I don't remember feeling poor or underprivileged but do remember other people having nicer things in their houses than we did. She was often impatient and bad-tempered and we sometimes got a spanking for things we didn't necessarily understand or appreciate the gravity of. The reason for which became clear when we got older. My father was a drinker, a gambler and was completely and utterly irresponsible with money.

When she was 40 she was deserted by him and rendered homeless, practically destitute and with the responsibility of my 13 year old sister to provide for. She picked herself up and started working full-time and did an office-cleaning job at night. She carried on with her OS ways even when later she was much better off and could afford to do something different. Even after she retired. When she died 12 years ago it was discovered that the estate she left amounted to more than £100k. Hard work and her OS ways did that in less than 30 years.

Maybe she didn't teach us all of it because she believed that we weren't going to need them, that we were going to enjoy better, more prosperous lives. I'm just glad that she taught me how to cook and bake as I was often by her side being given little jobs to do as a tax for being under her feet.

lostinrates

my mother (pre war baby, different country) is very wasteful and squanders a decent income. My parents worked hard and put more into their pensions than they had to on the promise of a comfortable retirement. Now, in retirement they are separated, the Maxwell pension is depleted, the other pensions underperformed. They are still ''ok'' but half a pension alone doesn't go as well as a whole one for two. my mother spends hers sevral times over yet refuses to economise.

My maternal grandmother...again, not UK, didn't suffer too much financially in the war, but sold of the ''family'' inheratance after ward s to go as well as she could to maintaining her standards of living. Her parents fed people who really DID suffer and lose financially and husbands/fathers in the war, I'm very proud of them for that.

My mother finds me penny pinching and ''squirrely'' but I want us to be self provident, to have choice as we get older.

sytill, my mother can knit and try as I hard as I like, I cannot!

lostinrates

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Maybe she didn't teach us all of it because she believed that we weren't going to need them, that we were going to enjoy better, more prosperous lives. I'm just glad that she taught me how to cook and bake as I was often by her side being given little jobs to do as a tax for being under her feet.

B and T you said it so much better than I did, my mother never thought she'd need to make compromises so let her skills get rusty and now resents the thought she might need the them. My mother actually cooks well (did it for a living for a while)and sews amazingly (my sister and I were so beautifully dresses, and so was she when she made her clothes), but prefers to heat packets and buy things with high jersey content. I think she feels making her own is taking a step backwards.....

charlies-aunt

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Some lovely stories on this thread, so thank you everyone.

I have a horrible feeling that I am of the "lost generation" of women who haven't been or didn't need to be OS. Women going out to work full-time either from choice or of necessity must have made a huge impact on how homes were run and what food was bought. I can't imagine how hard it must be to come home from work and try to put proper, cooked-from-scratch-meals on the table every day.

My own Mum came from an extremely impoverished home life but she was lucky because my Oma, my German granny left home on the family farm at 14 to go into domestic service. She worked her way up to become a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Berlin and didn't marry until she was 40. She was the woman who could make something out of nothing from necessity because the lovely man she married 20 years her junior was as poor as a church mouse. Who came back from the war after fighting on the Russian front a cripple.

Mum came to the UK in 1946 as a 17 year old who didn't even speak the language to work in a TB hospital kitchen in Scotland in order to support the family. When we were nippers she cooked, baked, kept a kitchen garden, sewed our little dresses and knitted everything and anything that could be knitted and a couple of things that shouldn't. Socks were darned and old jumpers were unravelled to make new things. I seem to remember her trying her hand at making furniture and recall her knotting those Redicut rugs by the fire at night. She was never idle, probably not even in her sleep.

I don't remember feeling poor or underprivileged but do remember other people having nicer things in their houses than we did. She was often impatient and bad-tempered and we sometimes got a spanking for things we didn't necessarily understand or appreciate the gravity of. The reason for which became clear when we got older. My father was a drinker, a gambler and was completely and utterly irresponsible with money.

When she was 40 she was deserted by him and rendered homeless, practically destitute and with the responsibility of my 13 year old sister to provide for. She picked herself up and started working full-time and did an office-cleaning job at night. She carried on with her OS ways even when later she was much better off and could afford to do something different. Even after she retired. When she died 12 years ago it was discovered that the estate she left amounted to more than £100k. Hard work and her OS ways did that in less than 30 years.

Maybe she didn't teach us all of it because she believed that we weren't going to need them, that we were going to enjoy better, more prosperous lives. I'm just glad that she taught me how to cook and bake as I was often by her side being given little jobs to do as a tax for being under her feet.

Wow! what a fantastic post! What an amazing lady!

Kazipoo

My mum was utterly pandered to by her brothers and sisters because she was the youngest. She has never done a hard days work in her entire life and has always looked for the easy option. She was never maternal and she would rather have a packet of fags and a bottle of wine than food in the cupboards. I remember at the age of 11 cooking for my brother and sister because my mum couldn't be bothered.

My sister and I however somehow managed to adopt a fairly frugal lifestyle (not after managing to live a little how she taught us and get ourselves into a fair amount of debt though). My brother unfortunately is more like my mother than I would like to think.

I teach my kids new things all the time. They all cook and bake (I have 4 girls aged 12,13,17 and 18) and all new recipes that we try and like are entered into 'Mummy's cookbook'. Each of them will get a copy when they leave home so they know how they used to do it with me. My 13 year old is quite OS and when I decided to take up crochet a few years ago, she wanted to learn and has infact just 10 mins ago finished making herself a 'snood'. My eldest is a whizz with a sewing machine and has made cushions for her room and a fab bed for the dog among other things.

I am very proud that they all like to learn how to make things for themselves and that they all know the value of money.

Sweet_Pea_2

I was bought up in the 70's and 80's and it was in a sort of OS way. My mum always cooked from scratch, economical meals too, (out of necessity because money was never really plentiful) she didn't like sewing but she knitted a lot and I had hand me downs as well as new. She read the meters on the gas and electric weekly and calculated weekly what the bill was going to be so she had no nasty surprises and she saved weekly for bills (the well known OS jar or envelope method). She definitely does not do debt of any kind and instilled this into me as well and always had a small amount of emergency savings, and was happy to do without new clothes herself if money was tight. My dad did not grow veg because he hated gardening so we just had easy to look after flowers and lawn, but all my uncles, my friends dads and my grandad did grown their own. We always had an old banger for a car but my dad did most of the car maintenance himself. My mum is still thrifty and economical but has more money now and hates cooking so has become the queen of the microwave meal and even buys ready made mash, but also eats out a lot too. (As she is now in her 80's I think she deserves it.)

To me OS is normal, I grew up like this and so did my cousins and my friends. OH also grew up this way too although his parents are more OS, his mum sews and cooks from scratch and his dad grows his own veg although they don't need to do this for financial reasons.

I think I am more OS than my mum, I enjoy cooking more than she did, she did it because ready meals were not around then. Don't forget, when we are saying that previous generations were more OS - they had no choice, it would be interesting to see if our grandparents were around today, and were young - would they have sky tv and buy microwave meals? My mum has changed from OS because she no longer needs to do it and loves having endless TV channels, she can't operate a computer herself but has spent a good hour today on DD's facebook laughing herself silly. She is obviously not OS through and through. She is a lot more modern than I am though, I'm half her age and a lot more old fashioned in taste and outlook. I found it interesting earlier that one poster wrote she is 23 and her best friend is in her 50's as most of my friends are older than me too.

Kittenkirst

I'm far more frugal than my mum, she has literally drawers upon drawers of expensive make-up, but she rarely wears make up. She has every new gadget that cones out but quickly gets bored with them, and is forever throwing out bags of food thats been bought and then left.

Have to say, it does irritate me somewhat but then the world would be very dull if we were all the same!

MandM90

Judi wrote: »

My mother is definately more thrifty than me in fact i call her mean. Ive known her cut mould off food (veggies mainly but also tinned stuff) and eat the unmouldy bits. The amount of rows ive had with her about it when ive thrown a mouldy tomato out so that she wouldnt eat it were numerous and i'm not sure if the two were connected but i wasnt surprised when she went on to have bowel cancer in her 70s. I dont think it came on with old age because she was like it when i was growing up (but not so extreme). She would walk miles to save 1p and in the days when i looked after her she expected me to walk miles too to get her groceries.

Its a shame really Mom lives like this because she really is quite wealthy.

:eek: Even when we're flush I still hate throwing away food. I wouldn't consider myself mean, but when there are people starving on this planet and we (apparently) throw away 50% of our food I try and be grateful, careful and appreciative of what we have. Money or no money, there is no excuse to throw away edible food; I agree with your mum wholeheartedly.

Eating soft fruit and veg that has had mould growing on some part can be dangerous due to the high moisture content (hard veg and cheeses however is usually fine as far as I know); I'd be surprised if they could heavily contribute to/cause cancer, though new 'causes' do appear to be found nearly fortnightly now...

BitterAndTwisted

charlies-aunt wrote: »

Wow! what a fantastic post! What an amazing lady!

Why, thank you charlies-aunt. Yes, she was an amazing lady. She had a few faults but by gum she was honest, utterly steadfast and kind with it. She made friends wherever she went and kept them all her life. She was clever too and it's crying shame she never got the education she deserved. She could have ruled the world!

blossomhill_2

Loving this thread thanks folks!

Out of my late Dad's possessions, the one thing that sums him up for me was the tubes he made out of felt pen casings. to put his last inch of pencil stub in to keep it useable; it summed up his frugaility as well as his fascination with (and hatred of throwing away) plastics after the Bakelite era

My late Mum always endeared herself to me by splitting a tissue into half, as she thought two-ply was wasteful; if you asked her to pass the tissues, she would take one out and separate the two plys, and give you half. She would also cut drinking straws in half when we had kids' parties, love 'er!

I am less frugal but feel guilty using a new pencil or a whole tissue!