Old Finances (back in the day)

scaredy_cat

only on page 2 - what i remember is the 50p for the leccy meter.

Alos, i notice that percentage wise, people ussed to give at least 50% of their wages as housekeeping to their parents, these days i think it's more like 5% and they moan at that!!!

and we used to have a cooked dinner every night, meat, pots and veg most likely, roast every sunday with a pudding!!

and tv started in the day time about 12noon and on sunday morning you got the sunday church services!!

i also did the football ppools round with my stepdad when i was 13/14. it was great cos the last stop was a chippy and i got a portion of chips and a battered pineapple ring!!

3v3

ani_26 wrote: »

....
I've been full circle, in my lifetime, it would seem, and i would definitely say i'm worse off now then i've ever been, in most repects. Even though we had nothing, we appreciated everything and other ' things ' were far more important in life. The little things like love and respect for others, the sense of community, things you can't put into words. To me, its all gone nowadays and been replaced with something i struggle to comprehend.

It's called the "Me!Me!Me!" society

ani_26 wrote: »

....
Love, friendship, humanity, humility, create happiness.

:T

I remember when "The Yorkshire Ripper" was finally arrested (I'd just returned home from having my 2nd child). It was a huge relief as I had relations in Yorkshire. I'd been bridesmaid to my cousin 3 years before and when it came to getting a taxi home at the end of her hen night, the taxi driver permitted all 5 of us to get into his car: he'd rather risk losing his licence than leave 2 of us behind waiting for a 2nd cab. I still remember him for that, with gratitute.

Butterfly_Brain

butterflylady131 wrote: »

I remember when our TV broke, we had to sit in the living room and watch a black and white portable tv. Never occured to me that we could buy one on credit, we just saved up for one!
Things were repaired more then, now we just buy a new one, and forget that we have to pay!

The trouble is that it now costs more to repair an item than buy a new one :eek:

Butterfly_Brain

Gigervamp wrote: »

Yep! It was a way to supplement the pocket money.

Along with *Penny for the guy* :rotfl:

We loved penny for the guy as kids we used to make a packet - much better than trick or treat cos you got paid cash money:j

Butterfly_Brain

My first job was in Bejam in 1973 and then I got a job in Tesco and worked there through the food shortages, bread- due to the bakers strike and sugar are the ones that spring to mind and i remember having to stand at a cage of sugar and handing out one to a customer OMG we took some abuse.

DH and I married in 1987 but lived together before that because we had bought our first house for £25,000 - a two up two down terrace and the mortgage was £100 pm, tv licence was £18 B&W and £58 for colour, I remember the poll tax coming in and how crippling it was because even if you didn't work you still had to pay it (Tory tax)
When we got married I had just been made redundant and went into meltdown because we were getting married the next month, as luck had it the firm I worked at decided that I was too valuable a member of staff to lose and I was reinstated.
We had a church wedding but paid for everything ourselves, my Dad died the year before we were married, our reception was in a working mans canteen/club and we hired the bar from a local pub, a friend made the cake, another friend supplied the car and chauffeur and another the disco everyone got involved with making all the food for the buffet and it was a fantastic day, we didn't go to a hotel because we had our own little house, everything we had was second hand except the bed. Our honeymoon was the following year in Cornwall, cos we couldn't afford the wedding and honeymoon together.
Now people pay out thousands and a lot of the time the marriage doesn't last for more than a couple of years.
My favourite chocolate was icebreaker it was the one with little slivers of mint in the chocolate
I found this
http://bp2.blogger.com/_24o5BqgMIK0/R-E4Ecq6y7I/AAAAAAAAApI/tnl7XfBQL7s/s1600-h/sweets1.jpg
look at the prices on the packaging it is eye opening.

ALIBOBSY

valentina wrote: »

I can also remember having NO PHONE at home! I remember when it was installed it was a big deal. Seems unbelievable now. Also (obviously) we had no colour tv, no video recorder/sky/dvd.
I'm not old enough to remember how my parents budgeted, but the mortgage was the priority, we had very few new clothes; mum made them when we were small. We also ate no ready meals at all, it was all home cooked and I also (like the poster above) remember having horrible pork chops, also liver. We didn't have stuff like pasta & curry until the eighties!
My granny had an outside loo, and her butcher's shop was one where you got your stuff from the butcher on one counter, then took it to a separate booth/till thing to pay...

MIL didn't have a phone at home till OH was about 6. when she went into labour with him (he was number 4) he was a bit quick but she still had to walk down to the phone box around the corner to call for an ambulance-waters went on the way and on the way back she swears she could hardly walk because his head was on the way out. Then as she was giving birth alone the midwife finally turned up (too late) drunk! Luckily FIL was a paramedic (well initially a ambulance driver) and was notified from control what was happening so he dashed home to sort things out. Mil still goes on about how she had a pile of gleaming white terry nappies ready to use and the midwife ruiened a load of them attempting to mop up blood in the bathroom where she gave birth. As soon as FIL and the ambos turned up midwife legged it, but he went straight into his boss the next day and made an official complaint. Thankfully she was fired (she hadn't checked MIL over or even cut the cord :eek:).

Can you imagine the celebs (too posh to push) going thro stuff like that.

Ali x

culpepper

Hardly anyone had a freezer in the late 60's/early 70's. My friends mum had one and would shop at bejams which seemed like some sort of Alien world to me when I went along too.
Another friend would sport 'I love KFC' badges and say do you like it too? I always said yes but it was years until I knew what it was.
Lots of people had no car. We just walked everywhere or went on the bus. Our Aunt and Uncle lived by the sea and we would visit them once a year either on the train or by car if the grown up cousin was going there anyway. We never went on holiday. It was a day trip to the sea often on a coach trip which was offered by the travel agents and paid for in advance.
Mum used to pay in to a hamper club thing and that was delivered at Christmas with such things as nuts,tinned salmon,Christmas cake,ham in a tin.
Fizzy drink was for special occasions only.
We had a drinks cupboard in our sideboard(everyone had a side board). Dad would pour mum and himself a sherry at Christmas and he would sometimes have a tiny little glass of Drambuie(about every 2 months and most likely when he had toothache).
Christmas presents were often something you needed for school,second hand books and dad would get one new thing for each of us from his cigarette coupon catalogue (he chain smoked so there were a lot of coupons in a year).My auntie would knit us toys .
Our TV's were usually 2nd hand and Dad never paid a TV license that I know of. We lived in flats and he relied on the signal being undetectable. We almost never watched BBC though as he thought it would be less traceable that way.
Clothes were almost exclusively from jumble sales and the odd hand me down from people where mum went to do her cleaning job.

dawn_rose

Loving reading this thread im 29 so wasnt here thirty years ago. I have to say in 2004 when we got married we bought a 3 up 3 down gutter, had no car for the first year then we got given dh mums car when she bought new. We got a cooker and washer as wedding presents as well as a bed, the rest we saved and bought or have been given to us 2nd hand. Most of our furniture is still the original second hand stuff as is most of the baby stuff weve used with our three kids. We evenb have the obligatory terry nappies lol. The only debt weve ever had is our mortgage which is manageable and weve never wanted a credit card. Some things havent changed but we do have everything on direct debit and we pay bills on time thru that paying into the account every payday.

Uniscots97

Do you not think that the majority of people's expectations are too high these days? I'm in my thirties and I've seen it even up to my age group, that people think its their given right to have the latest tv, a new car, branded convenience food, pre-packed prepared veg and fruit etc. When I met my OH a few years ago I still had my old CRT tv (which he mocked), but I couldn't see the point in more debt just to get a flat screen tv.

I was recently given (thank you my employers) 2 cinema tickets for a premier of a film. I couldn't go so I offered them to my stepson (19) who laughed and said no way as they were a freebie (even though it was a film he really wanted to see) and as it was in a town a bit away that meant driving! I offered them to one of my good friends and her son, who snapped them up and to say thank you she did my nails. Told her stepson had refused them as they were a 'freebie' and she laughed saying that she knows people like that that are too embarassed to use money-off vouchers in case people think they are skint!!!!!!

What on earth is going on in the world?

notatvstar

I was born in the mid 70's and my Dad was in the army. Army pay was nothing like it is now and he had to illegally have a second job (taxi driver and/or and security guard) as my Mum stayed at home to look after me and my big sister (my Mum's Chinese and mixed marriages weren't trendy then, so she found it difficult in some places to get a job as loads of people thought that she wouldn't speak English). We had our first video (beta-max... ) and phone when I was about 7. No pocket money and clothes were hand made or from a jumble sale. I got a paper round as soon as I could and have worked ever since.

My Dad (once he'd left the army) I think earning about £10,000-11,000 a year (in the mid 80's). Mum got 2 or 3 part time jobs by then working in kitchens and canteens; she couldn't have been bringing home more than £2-3000. They bought their house in '83 for £25,000 (3 bed semi - mortgage about £100pm ) - I think it's now valued at nearly £300,000!

I got nearly a full grant when I went to Uni - £9000 a year! Shocking... and very sad

Sort of off thread, but slightly relevant and nostaligic...

I got my first mobile phone when I was doing my PhD... and only THIS year bought myself my first computer (all others have been given to me by work - old models to be thrown out).

When I talk to my students now - I tell them how no-one at Uni had a mobile (and I went to a posh one!) and very few had their own computers. Also FaceAche didn't exist. When we 'messeaged' each other what we used to do instead of FAceAche, was to bluetack a clean piece of A4 on our door when we went out, together with a pencil (not a pen - as that would get nicked). If anyone wanted to get in touch with you they would leave a scribbled message on your door...

The looks of horror I get from them are amazing!