Old Finances (back in the day)

Justamum

unixgirluk wrote: »

and the once a week treat of a bag of sweets (and all the jars of sweets to choose from!)

You still get those. Some shops do nothing but sell sweets in jars. There's one in the town where my eldest two go to school and it's very popular with the school children apparently. They'll all have the same nostalgia trip about them as we do

Re crocheted bed jackets - {I'm seriously thinking of making myself one for reading in bed on cold nights :eek:}

maganan

Justamum wrote: »

Don't you mean aertex shirts?:D

I think you might just be right:rotfl:could of been worse I could have said artex!

notatvstar

... Does anyone remember how your school tried to save money by getting you to 'cover' your books? Sticky-backed plastic/wallpaper/brown paper and or wrapping paper.

Does this still happen?

Butterfly_Brain

notatvstar wrote: »

... Does anyone remember how your school tried to save money by getting you to 'cover' your books? Sticky-backed plastic/wallpaper/brown paper and or wrapping paper.

Does this still happen?

OMG yes I do remember that and some of the schools here sell book slips to cover the books now instead....another way to screw more money out of parents

THIRZAH

notatvstar wrote: »

... Does anyone remember how your school tried to save money by getting you to 'cover' your books? Sticky-backed plastic/wallpaper/brown paper and or wrapping paper.

Does this still happen?

It seemed to work though. We had to cover books with brown paper and I do remember that some of the books were over 20 years old from the dates written in the front.

We had to number the pages of all our exercise books when we got them. When we needed a new one our form mistress would check to make sure we hadn't torn any pages out-don't suppose they need to bother now as everyone seems to have piles of scrap paper.

Justamum

notatvstar wrote: »

... Does anyone remember how your school tried to save money by getting you to 'cover' your books? Sticky-backed plastic/wallpaper/brown paper and or wrapping paper.

Does this still happen?

My children still do it. I think it's optional though - I don't see how it is money-saving for the school though. I think it's more to do with giving the children some homework in the first week back at school.

Butterfly_Brain

And saving the tin from the Christmas sweets and biscuits ( which was well battered by the end of the year) to take in for cookery class and we cooked things like shepherds pie, Bread, casseroles, pies, pasties, sausage toad plus Christmas cake, sausage rolls, yule log and peppermint creams for Christmas (This was the in the early 70's)

Going4TheDream

This is a great thread, really made me think about the old days! lol I remember that we left a dingy flat in London to move into a brand new house with warm air heating and 3 bedrooms and a garden in Bedfordshire. The mortgage was £24 a month, which seems laughable these days My mum didn't go back to work till my sis and I were about 10 and even then only part time. My dad used to get paid his wages every Friday and we used to all go to the supermarket and get the groceries for the week. Everything was budgeted and saved for. Even though my dad had an old car he cycled to work, I used to get 10p pocket money when I was at infants school and although new clothes were not often bought and we had what we needed, school shoes, plimsoles, school clothes and then a pair of good shoes and maybe three other outfits for weekend/ play or best, and always a good coat, things were repaired and handed down, and certainly not like kids of today having designer this or designer that and loads of it. My prized possession was a tape recorder that I used to play recordings of the top 20 twenty on recorded by putting a mike by the radio! We didnt have a telephone until I was about 13 or even 14 and then it had a lock on it to avoid big bills! I remember getting colour tv which I think was leased/rented and used to look at the test card in amazement when we first got it. There was obviously no sky, no Internet and the only tv game was ping pong tennis, no x box then! My sister and I used to play over the fields with the other kids and make our own entertainment, ride out bikes. We didnt have many days out but went on holiday every year, I remember going to Spain in 1969 on a plane! But I am sure my nan paid for all that, Christmas and birthdays tended to be a time to get things that we needed, you know things like new dressing gown, and the such like and a few small treats. Birthday parties were at home and we were only allowed maybe 10 friends, none of this going to Mcd's or Pizza hut kind of thing, we played games like pass the parcel and blind mans buff and everyone when home with something. Everyone in our street was in a similar situation and it was a nice community atmosphere. Things seem very different now, we made do with what we had and my folks saved for anything that they needed/wanted... no easy credit like the past few years. We hardly ate takeaways, maybe fish and chips every couple of months and we didnt eat junk food, there wasnt a lot around and what there was was expensive. I know i was a child but it seemed happier times somehow, and I am only talking about the very late 60's and 70's as I left school in 1980.

taplady

have enjoyed reading this thread thanks OP!:):T

30 years ago I was in my teens. We lived in a council house. Dad was a lorry driver and Mum cooked school dinners.
They never had a bank account - if we needed a cheque written then my uncle used to do it for us. We had no phone - used to go and use my Nans.
They both got paid in cash weekly and kept to strict budgets, Mum's still the same now - putting a bit away in various places every week to pay her bills.
They kept a lot of their finances from us. We always had a car(various cheap second hand ones) and had a weeks holiday every year which was saved hard for, all self catering caravan holidays and we spent most of it on the beach as it was cheap and we never ate out.
We never had 'pop' but I used to be jealous of my Nan as her and my uncles use to have pop every week delivered by the Corona man.
They occasionally bought furniture on HP which we used to go into the shop and pay for every week.
There was no supermarkets in our small town and Mum used to go to a family grocer every week and leave her order which she would then pick up and pay for.
We used to have mostly hand me down clothes from friends and family.
No central heating in those days.
Special 'bath and hairwashing nights'
We had a small amount of pocket money to spend at the local shop every week.

we never felt hard done by at all and in those days only the rich could buy a house.

To be on the dole was rare and had a stigma about it and going bankrupt brought great shame to the family.

How times change and not for the better.

There's a whole generation who dont know how to budget or make do and mend and they are going to find it very hard in months to come.

taplady

maganan wrote: »

Oh god ponchos I'd fogotten about them we all had them as kids in the 70's

oh yes I remember them well, the crocheted ponchos!:eek::D

I've remembered a couple of other things too! we used to rent a video player and had a tv which took 50ps in the back !so if you hadn't got one then it was no TV - same for the electric - you had to find your way to the meter in the dark and feed it with money when it went off!