Old Finances (back in the day)

GreyQueen

Justamum wrote: »

My mum told me recently that she's never known in her whole life how much my dad earned. He would give her housekeeping every week and pay the bills etc (but not usually on time!) out of the rest. Whatever was left over he felt was his to spend on what he wanted, so he never went short of fags. My mum often had no money for the launderette - he had clean clothes every day and never bothered to find out how they were washed. More often than not she'd be scrubbing clothes in the bath.

Gosh, that's harsh.:( He was lucky to get his clothes washed for him. Your poor Mum's aching back.

My family always talked frankly about money when we were older children and I can recall the endless debates when they were trying to decide to buy their council house (they did, for £7k and paid off a 20 year mortgage in 4 years). Obviously, when we were very young, we didn't know about such things and our neighbours and school pals were from families in the same boat; poor! One winter, the parents had to raid our piggy-banks to help pay for the coal (it was money from Grandma). Thirty years later, one of my relatives had to raid her kids' bank accounts (gift money from Granny) to pay the mortgage one month and struggled to pay them back afterwards. She was cringing as she told me this.

I think candour about money within a relationship/ the wider family is often helpful. My friend's kid thoughtlessly ran up a mobile phone bill which wiped out a big chunk of her total earnings for that week (13 y.o) and doesn't seem to have any concept of how hard she (lone Mum) works to support them both and the consequences of going thru money like water. I think she over-protects him from economic reality and that he needs to understand that it isn't growing on trees (he's nearly 14 and a few generations ago would have been entering the workforce at that age).

culpepper

My father always had 'his' money and just paid the rent (he was a compulsive gambler so even getting the rent paid was good).
Mum used to clean for various people and I think we more or less lived on her earnings and child allowance/family allowance/free school dinners and uniform allowance.
Dad had an allotment until we moved to the flat and then he grew tomatoes on every sunny window sill. He would sometimes put money in the gas or electric meter.

He was unusual I think for a dad in the 60's/70's . Most fathers seemed quite ready to regard their earnings as the family income and most likely (uninformed of the facts)regarded my mother as a wastrel.

When I was at work in the 80's aged 23, OH and I bought our first home and were very lucky to get in just before the house price hikes.
We moved out of London because the M25 was finished being built and we could drive in every day. This proved crippling once the mortgage interest rate went up but we lasted .

One young man at work was complaining about the cost of living for him and his girlfriend who had just started their mortgage. He was mortified when people suggested he put some more of his 'own' money towards it as his girlfriend didn't earn as much as him. He couldn't seem to get his head around the shared income aspect at all.

People are far more fussy now about things.
In the 1970's , a record player and cassete recorder were good enough but now people want the best sound possible from their music and TV must be near cinema standard. I do wonder if our ears can actually detect the difference or our eyes notice finer and finer 'resolution' on screen. We were all perfectly happy with the way it was when we thought that was all that would ever be offered.

Then of course TV was the new entertainment in the 1950's.
You weren't ever going to sit all day every day and stare at a box of stories, it was for your leisure time (maybe a couple of times a week or once a night). Then it was videos that were the new entertainment, you were going to rent one, once a week to watch with the family because you could afford the machine to play it on while the ordinary man had to wait for the film to come on the television.
If you were really posh, you might even own one or two tapes that you had bought.

We always seem to want one step up from the last thing and each step up in luxury also seems to be a long slide backwards in many other ways.

Gigervamp

GreyQueen wrote: »

OK, rant over, but this the world owes me...(insert luxury consumer item) attitude is something I encounter a lot.

:T Excellent post GQ (the whole post, but I snipped it for brevity).

There does seem to be a massive sense of entitlement nowadays. My two older children don't have it. They're 80's children, but my youngest who's a 90's child does, and yet I've brought them all up the same.

GreyQueen

Gigervamp wrote: »

:T Excellent post GQ (the whole post, but I snipped it for brevity).

There does seem to be a massive sense of entitlement nowadays. My two older children don't have it. They're 80's children, but my youngest who's a 90's child does, and yet I've brought them all up the same.

Thanks for the compliment, hun.:o

It's very interesting that your three children bridge the 80s-90s and yet have such different attitudes....it must be something in the atmosphere which is contaminating even the offspring of sensible people. (Forgive me, but you do come across as sensible.;))

I was recently talking to a woman my own age (late 40s) whose 19 y.o. never-had-a-job son had just got a council flat. She was exasperated over his attitude. He wanted it fully-carpeted (and no cheap rubbish either!), he wanted two leather sofas, he wanted a giant flat-screen TV etc etc.

She told him that she and his Dad would help him out with a few basics bought second-hand but if he wanted all that, he was going to have to get a job and pay for it himself. He was horrified.:rotfl:

Gordon Bennett, I didn't have my own, self-contained home until well into my thirties. Was in one room in a shared house/ a lodger before that time. Didn't really own furniture until then, apart from a director's chair and a lamp, and all bar the bed and mattress was (and is) second-hand. Got my first washing machine in my forties. And I was working!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Sigh) Dunno where all this is coming from but it's astonishing.

maganan

GQ I think you're absolutely right regarding open family discussions about money, it was something I never had as a child/teenager we didn't talk about sex, money or death, politics was acceptable though! As a child I don't think it really mattered but as a teenager it would have helped a lot to understand household budgeting etc after all I knew my dad had changed jobs and no longer had a company car and I knew this was because mum/grandparents didn't want us to move to kent so he had no choice, I always felt quiet sorry for him over that, he sort of lost something of himself. Back to the point though, I've tried to be open with my 4 about our current financial situation and the steps I'm taking to rectify it after all they knew the circumstances which, in part, led to it. Eldest 2 and youngest all have a strong work ethic but first son is a dreamer with big ideas and spends every penny he gets from his part time job. He ran up a massive phone bill (£75 fortunately I realised and banned further use til new minutes I normally pay £50/mth for 3 of us!) He's got to pay me back so he's having to budget now and as I'm determind for him to learn I've offered to let him earn some back by preparing woodwork for me otherwise he'll just wait for his birthday next week and then pay me! I'm hoping they'll learn from my poor example that credit, other than a student loan or a mortgage is just not necessary

taplady

Justamum wrote: »

I:rotfl:

Did anybody else have a Tressie doll? The one where you could have the hair long or short? You pressed a button on her tummy and gently pulled out the hair, and if you wanted it short there was a special key which you used in her back to wind it back in. My sister was never very gentle with dolls and when she was brushing my doll's hair she snapped the neck. I was :mad:. .

I had a doll who had hair that could be long or short - I called her Sheena, not sure if that was her proper name or not but she had a lovely purple sparkly jumpsuit on.
I loved my dolls - Tiny Tears, Pippa and Sindy plus a Bionic Woman doll that I loved, wish I'd kept them all now.
I played with them right up till my teens:o:D
My sister who was a tomboy didn't have any dolls at all, cant remember what she played with. I had hours of fun with my dolls.

I also remember a lot of fun with a set of intercom telephones, they were red and connected with a big long wire.

Justamum

taplady wrote: »

I played with them right up till my teens:o:D

So did I :D

I remember Sheena. I've just googled it and there's a mint condition one in its box for £69!!! Tressy doesn't seem to go for anywhere near as much so I don't feel that bad about throwing mine away now. Mind you she was broken.

3v3

taplady wrote: »

I had a doll who had hair that could be long or short - I called her Sheena, not sure if that was her proper name or not but she had a lovely purple sparkly jumpsuit on...

I wrote to Father Christmas, duly sent it up the chimney, I said my prayers to God (every day and twice on Sundays) because I really, *really* wanted a Tiny Tears - failing that, a Teeny Tiny Tears would have sufficed.

What did I get? A "Sheena" doll. A Sheena!!!!???: push the button on her tummy and extend her hair, wind it back in with the dial in her back. Mine didn't have a jumpsuit, but she did sport a gaudy, garish sparkly purple flared trousers and long sleeved top. YUK!

Still, times were hard so I played with her until my brothers decided she would look better on the annual bonfire. So, that Christmas, I sent a letter to Father Christmas via the chimney, said my prayers every day and twice and Sundays because I really, *really* wanted ... my Sheena back!

Ida_Notion

My parents never talked about money in front of us unless they had to admit that we were even more skint than usual. This generally coincided with all the brasses disappearing from the wall because they'd been pawned or sold while we were at school. In time, the brass collection would gradually be built up again until the next time we were told that things were going to be a bit tight for a while. Even now, me and my mum will tell each other details of individual bargains we've bought but would be reluctant to reveal our total spends to each other. I'm aware that not all families are the same though. I'll never forget how stunned I was when my mother-in-law sat with the kids once while we did a supermarket run, and my husband breezed in and announced how much we'd just spent there.

My dad refused point blank to go on the pancrack (benefits), and so our income varied depending on what scrap had been available to buy and sell. The worst time I can remember was during the steel strike when nothing seemed to be around at all. I don't think scrap ever really picked up again after that until some years after my dad had downed his spanners and sledgehammer for the last time. For years my mum worked night shifts in an old people's home, and because her hours were regular and she needed to sleep during the day, my dad would do all the cooking and shopping (very unusual for a man back then) and fit any work he could find in around it. She would give him her entire pay packet and he would pay the bills and do the budgeting, lining her bus fare for the week in little piles on top of the telly so that they knew it was 'paid' before it was needed.

Another thing we never talked about - and certainly not with my dad - was sex .My mum once said jokingly that everything she knew about it was learned from ear-wigging on me and my sisters when we were teenagers (I hope she was joking!). If anything came on telly that looked like it might be leading in a steamy direction, even so much as a snog between the staff on 'Crossroads', my dad would get up and fetch the fruitbowl and casually stand in front of the telly with it and ask if anybody wanted an apple. I'd need a fruitbowl the size of a skip if I wanted to do that these days I once read a letter in one of the national newspapers from someone who's mother used to do the apple thing and instantly wondered if she was a long-lost relative - I don't think it was common practice to try to thwart the progress of sex education with a Granny Smith

3v3

Ida_Notion wrote: »

...

Another thing we never talked about - and certainly not with my dad - was sex .My mum once said jokingly that everything she knew about it was learned from ear-wigging on me and my sisters when we were teenagers (I hope she was joking!). If anything came on telly that looked like it might be leading in a steamy direction, even so much as a snog between the staff on 'Crossroads', my dad would get up and fetch the fruitbowl and casually stand in front of the telly with it and ask if anybody wanted an apple. I'd need a fruitbowl the size of a skip if I wanted to do that these days I once read a letter in one of the national newspapers from someone who's mother used to do the apple thing and instantly wondered if she was a long-lost relative - I don't think it was common practice to try to thwart the progress of sex education with a Granny Smith

Crikey, so what did he do when he was out at work, have a cardboard cutout made? I suppose you never saw a Carry On film or Love Thy Neighbour type comedies then :rotfl: "Topless" was all the rage on TV following the "liberated" '60's females; any excuse for a bit of titivation on the TV.