Old Finances (back in the day)

EstherH

I got married in 1982. We were both 20 and bout our first house. We didn't have any credit at first, only the mortgage. I think that the repayments were £127 a month and that was a big part of our earnings. However, what we hadn't taken into account before we married and bought the house was the married mans allowance and mortgage tax rebate. And we came back from honeymoon and my husbands wage packet had gone up by about a quarter.
It was a struggle though to learn to budget and we were always going over. We soon got 'introduced' to credit cards and loans by my husbands sister and her new husband who told us how easy it was, £100 and you only had to pay back £5 a month. It started with one of us getting a card and a top figure of £100 but soon we both had one. Then we went over the £100 and they put up the amount we were allowed to borrow to £200 and so it went on. We needed a new cooker and my sister in law had just got one on terms. Only so much a week. Before we knew it we were overdrawn at the bank, the winter electric bill had come in and maxed out on credit cards.
I had to go in and see the bank manager which was very humiliating. I worked in town where the bank was, my husband had no way of getting into town during banking hours from his work so I had to face it alone. I was in tears. He told me he would 'pay' the electric bill but wouldn't 'pay' my credit cards. He allowed us so much for food and the rest had to pay off the overdraft as quick as possible. No spending money etc.

I remember going to a little shop and buying 2lb mince for 50p. It was mostly fat, and I knew it was very cheap. I think I would normally have paid about 50p a pound. Maybe it was pet mince but it didnt say that and it tasted all right. I cooked it up with lots of carrots, onions and peas and potatoes. We had a 50p gas metre and coal fire. We would get a sack if coal of the coal man and when that ran out had to use just the gas fire in the front half of the room - two rooms knocked into one. We tried not to use this too much either, but then the man came to empty the metre, said we weren't paying enough for our gas and altered the metre. I was really upset as we had been trying to save money and ended up paying more. I suppose we weren't paying enough in to cover the standing charge or something. I didn't really understand what he was saying.

I would walk three miles to work to save the bus fare but I always wore heels in those days and my shoes needed heeling a lot. Looking back I don't know how I managed to walk all that way in heels but I always had. I started work as an office junior and did hand deliveries all over town in six inch platforms. Trainers hadn't become the in things then.

In the mid to late eighties we had moved house and had children and I remember the mortgage interest rate going up and up and up. We always struggled even after my husband got a better paid job. I bought a lot of the childrens clothes from Ethel Austen when they were little and I had friends with older children who passed their clothes down to me. Even mine were ones that were passed onto me. I didn't go out to work and obviously we would have been better off if I had, but to be honest, I think we are better as a family for the time we spent together rather than all the gadgets that money could buy. My children's first computer games console, was bought by asking everyone in the family to put in the money for Christmas. I bought stocking fillers as and when I could to give them other things to open. I used the family allowance to pay towards a holiday in the summer and then Christmas. Our holiday was always something cheap, self catering in this country and my parents helped out. After our holiday, I saved for Christmas and any clothes they needed on top of what we were given were saved and wrapped as presents. They also got colouring pencils, felt tips etc., that they needed for school, wrapped up as presents.

Well, I think I have rambled on for long enough. I have only had time to read the first and last page of the thread but wanted to add my memories. Where does the time go?

consumers_revenge

Justamum wrote: »

Does anyone else remember "why don't you . .?" on tv?

Yes...it was just after the red hand gang during the summer holidays

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMcEiPQs8CA&NR=1 ( anybody around forty will probably be smiling now )

Squish_21

This thread is really interesting. I cant really join in as i was too young, but it is interesting all the same.

bri365

So many memories, Remember working on a YTS (youth training scheme) that Mrs Thatchers government came up with to reduce unemployment numbers. Worked a 40 hour week for £28.50, rent to mum was £15, the rest was mine. No credit cards for low paid workers, now at 46 years old I still have never had a credit card.
Beer was around a pound a pint, fags were cheap, cinema was about £1.50. Bag of crisps were about 5p and chips were 10p a portion. Happy Days.
Went to see my first concert in 1981. Depeche Mode live at the Hammersmith Odean (now Hammersmith Apollo) price of ticket £4. Still have the ticket.
Whilst were on about the 80's can I ask, what happened to Texan Bars, Toffo's and sweet tobacco (shredded chocolate coconut).
Thanks for this topic:beer:

EstherH

I've started reading the thread from the beginning. I remember bread with the day of the week on the packet. It said Happy Monday, Tuesday or whatever day it was. Think it was different colours too. Also remember Green Shield Stamps. Tescos used to do double and triple days. I remember my mum collecting them and sticking them in the book and looking in the window of the Green Shield Stamp shop to see what she wanted to get with them. This would be in the '70's.

Weddings are certainly something that have got rediculous these days. It seems now that it is all about the day and not about the start of a life together. I have a theory that the more the wedding costs the shorter time it lasts. Sorry, I know that is an over-generalisation, but I really can't see the point in getting in to debt to start married life when that will put a strain on the marriage. Also, people don't seem to want to start married life with second hand furniture or wait until they can afford things like we did in the '80's and before.

Technology has changed things so that broadband has become an addition to the budget and mobile phones. We didn't have a home phone until 1973 and my husbands family didn't get one until 1978or 79.
My parents didn't get colour tv until 1978 either. When we first got married we had a portable black
and white tv at first which my husband had bought himself after he started work.
All the games consoles now seem to keep young men boys for a lot longer.

mardatha

Oh god I loved sweetie tobacco!

lynneinjapan

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

I remeber a load of us piling around to a mate who was the first to get an atari. I remember brownies teaching us how to use a phonebox for emergencies. No debit cards it was all cash from the atm at the start of the week and it had to last.

Ali x

We had ATMs in 1981? I don't remember those!

I do remember 2p for the phone being one of the seven items I was expected to have in the pockets of my Brownie uniform (though I think it'd gone up to 5p by 1981, when I was 10 years old); the others were notepad, pencil, hanky, safety pin, plaster and a piece of string, if I remember correctly. And when they taught us how to use the phone I remember that you had to hold the coin ready until the other end answered, and then force it into the slot.

A lot of our clothes came from the John England and Grattan catalogues. Mum made some clothes herself too, and Dad had a big vegetable patch in the garden and I remember always going out to the bag in the garage when we needed potatoes. We also used to go blackberry-picking at a disused quarry and then Mum made bramble jelly. I'm replicating some of this in my adult life, in that I have a veg patch and do some sewing!

Nappies were terry squares, soaked in buckets with Napisan. They were on their fourth baby by then, and the remaining ones have occasionally been used on my two children as well!

In 1981 I did an evening course on computers at the local secondary school with my mum. It was on Commodore Pets, I think. Not long after that - Christmas 1981? - we got a Commodore 64, and our next-door neighbours got their BBC Micro around the same time. My best friend had a ZX Spectrum. I did gymnastics at the local sports centre and before/after the sessions we used to hang around watching the big boys play Pac Man and Space Invaders.

I don't remember us ever having a twin tub washing machine, though my best friend's mum certainly had one in the 70s - but when I lived in Japan as recently as 1999-2001, I was given a twin tub in my accommodation, and they were still on sale in the shops too!

mardatha

I hated twin tubs. When I got my first automatic - a big shiny Bendix with lots of chrome - I sat and watched it for hours instead of the telly

salome

30yrs ago I was 22, and had two little ones (another 8 followed as the years progressed lol)
We didn't have central heating, that came a year later. My husband and his dad put it in. (was allowed back then. FIL was a retired plumber, and OH picked up some tricks of the trade from working working with him on occasions) We did get a qualified heating man, who was a friend to come in and ok the system.
My washing machine was a Servis twintub, that had to be pulled across the kitchen to the sink when needed to be used.
Terry nappies were the norm. Disposable ones were not reliable.
We just got our first freezer. A slim chest one, and it cost £12 to fill it up with food. Ready meals were very few, and expensive. Bejams, the main freezer food shop in our city centre used to sell meat packs, that contained a joint of beef, lamb, and pork. Ready meals had a very small space in one freezer, now, in Iceland they take up the majority of the shop :-( Bags of frozen vegetables were large. So were packs of mincemeat and sausages.
Buses were near on impossible to get on with a buggy plus todler. No drop down step then. It was a step up to get onto the bus, and no allowed space for pushchairs. The driver insisted the buggy be collapsed and put into the luggage space, so catching a bus, with a toddler was not fun, so walked most places, as neither of us could afford to drive or own a car quite then.
No all day telly. School programs were on in the mornings. Children's telly started after the 12pm news, which was only usually something like Post Man Pat, or Bagpuss, or Mr Men. I think Play School might have been on a bit earlier, on BBC2. Then nothing else for children until about 4pm. Afternoon telly for me started with Pebble Mill at One. I loved that program lol. After that telly wasn't much. I think Neighbours could have been about., and sometimes there would be a film on. Other than that, there was no chance of wasting time on the box. VCRs were new, and expensive. You could rent them, but cost a lot as well. A van used to go around with vidioes to rent. Mum and dad rented one, and once a week, we would have a movie night at mums :-)
No pre school nurserys. Play Schools were the in thing then. Kiddie would start at 3yrs old, and spend a morning once or twice a week in play school. Usually from 9.30-12.00. Two people who had been trained would run this, and mums would be put on a volunteers rota. I think sessions cost about £1 a time, might have been less. Most places took a term payment, and not pay as you go. The one I used, would not charge for the day you helped.
Microwaves were just being talked about, and not in common use in domestic kitchens. Some of my friends had one. I didn't get one until the middle 80s.
My husband was paid cash. Payment by cheque came a little later, then into the bank account a lot later. His wages in 1981 was about £45 a week. That included overtime. I was a SAHM.
Home computers were unaffordable. I didn't know anyone then who had one. I hadn't heard of mobile phones or ATMs no need of them I suppose lol. I think as well, we'd only just been able to afford to rent a colour tv. We'd rented a black and white one when we first got married. I'm sure we had a colour tv before baby 3 came along in 1983.
Looking back, it was harder, but never seemed so. Not so much to distact us really, so we just got on with what needed to be done, and I never felt lacking in anything. I enjoyed what I had :-)

x

jools27_2

I remember when my mum got her first automatic machine, she wouldn't leave the house when it was on in case it flooded the kitchen, and her warcry was that she could have done a full week's washing in the time it took to do one load......that was 1987, she resisted for so long!!!!!!!!