Old Finances (back in the day)

butterflylady131

Just watching Carry On Doctor (my guilty secret!):D, and whilst watching it, I thought, life was really different 30+ years ago, I wonder what our finances were like back then? In particular, what was necessary, eg food, gas, electric, compared to now, eg, mobile phone, sky tv, life insurance.
Just wondered if any of you would like to post your financial lives from back then, so we can compare?







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Reverbe

I'd love to butterfly.. tho my life was very different than it was now.. I was only a child then still living with my parents.. will be watching this thread closely tho. Always interested to hear tales of the old lifestyles on these boards..

Just a little point tho... I dont think any of those last three are necessary or even desirable.. possibly the life insurance but that only matters to those who have kids

butterflylady131

Hi Thanks for replying Reverbe. I guess that's my point really. Life was very different back then, and some people (not me!) regard mobiles, sky etc as necessities, whereas back then they would have been seen as luxuries. I suppose my point would be, what is considered a necessary spend from back then, compared to a necessary spend from today?
My dad would say: roof over your head, food, and health in that order. My mum would say roof over your head, food, health and ciggies!

Reverbe

I"m with your dad on this.. I'm very lucky right now to have one tho it could go at any time.

tallyhoh

1980 I had my first council flat. I had quite a big wage for the time, about £100 a week paid in cash. On pay day I used to go out & pay my rent £28 (included rates & water), £20 went into my savings account. The gas, electric & phone bill came in every quarter & had to be paid in full so I put money aside for that.
All my furniture was second hand, a washing machine was an unheard of luxury so I used the local launderette. TV was rented for £3 a month.

When someone gave me an old fridge I thought I had it made!

If I wanted something I had to save for it as credit cards were for the well off & other credit was rarely given to single women & frowned on as "debt".

I am still fairly frugal but sometimes wish everything was that simple again.

jannyannie

Hi

I was 19 years old then and had just left home and was sharing a house with 2 other girls. I used to get paid £52 a week. I had various jars under my bed and used to put money in the appropriate jar for rent, gas, electricity and phone bill. Then when it was time to pay I would just go and get the appropriate jar out. One of the girls I shared with is still my best friend and to this day she jokes about the jars under the bed. The rest of the money was then mine to buy clothes, food and go out with. £52 used to go along way then and I was very good at cooking and finding the best deal. I never, ever had a loan or a credit card.

Jan x

HariboJunkie

I was 7 years old so my financial priority was seeing how far I could stretch my 20p pocket money in the sweet shop on a Friday night.

For my parents I'm sure it was the same bills as today but without the technological advancements we have now. My mother's priority was keeping the phone bill down and she took the phone with her in her handbag when she went out to foil my sister's long phone calls to her boyfriend.

butterflylady131

Hi,
These are great. The main thing I'm picking up is that purchases had to be saved up for, and credit was for the wealthy. Love the story about the phone handset being taken out of the house to prevent phone calls. A bit radical, but I guess if it works.....
Rates? Is that the same as Council tax?

Ida_Notion

Thirty years ago I was seventeen and had just left home to live with my ex. I can vividly remember one time in those early days having two quid which - supplemented with a small bag of spuds given to us by one of his brothers - stretched to feed the pair of us for a week. We were broke and we knew it, but I don't remember us knowing hunger. I spent the year before that working five days a week on a Youth Opportunities Scheme (the forerunner to YTS), and bringing home £23.50 a week for doing it. I'd give a tenner to my mum and dad for 'keep', and the other £13.50 kept me in clothes (bought in Peacocks and similar cheapy places ), beer, make-up and a few other bits and pieces until pay day rolled round again. It wasn't seen as a fortune at the time (1980), but I managed all right on it.

One thing that really sticks in my mind was when I was about fourteen or fifteen, and my parents were so skint one week that my dad couldn't have a drink on a night. As it was, he didn't spend a lot on it and would brew his own, regarding it as a household essential that was budgeted for in much the same way as bread or milk. We'd already had a few lean weeks by the time the unthinkable happened and his beer supply ran out, and even though he was the last dad on earth you'd ever fear, the atmosphere was still so heavy and miserable on this particular evening that we kids thought we'd escape to the library before it shut, just to get out of the house. When we came home he'd obviously decided he'd go without something else instead (food, probably) and told us sorrowfully that he'd had enough, he just couldn't do it and was going out to get 'just one bottle of cider'. Minutes later he was back, amazed, elated and clutching a bunch of pound notes (twenty seven, to be precise) that he'd found scattered outside the front door. We had no way of knowing, but could only imagine they'd fallen from one of the library books we'd just borrowed. You could do a heck of a lot with £27 back then - I don't think I've ever seen a heavy atmosphere lift so quickly!

Gettingtherequickly

I was still at school then, but can remember the home priorities. We were lucky as we own the house, but bills still had to be paid. We had a farm and all through our childhood we knew that if it were a case of a new pair of shoes (necessity not want) or the vet needed to be paid, there was no discussion.

We didn't have decent central heating as it was solid fuel but we were devastated when my parents closed off the chimneys in each of the bedrooms and we could no longer have an open fire in the room. But we had plenty of love, plenty of homegrown food and a stack of books to go through. And I think that I could count on one hand the number of times that we did not eat dinner as a family at them table. Not really all that long ago, but in todays lives, worlds apart

tallyhoh

butterflylady131 wrote: »

Hi,
These are great. The main thing I'm picking up is that purchases had to be saved up for, and credit was for the wealthy. Love the story about the phone handset being taken out of the house to prevent phone calls. A bit radical, but I guess if it works.....
Rates? Is that the same as Council tax?

Yes, rates were what you paid before community charge & then council tax came in. In this area (Sandwell) if you were a council tenant it was included in your rent along with water charges.