Old Finances (back in the day)

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Ida_Notion wrote: »

Beds and sofas weren't rented (to my knowledge, anyway). All that kind of thing was bought second hand. ........

Furniture was bought on Hire Purchase (it was also called the "never never".

Ida_Notion wrote: »

....... I don't remember anything else being rented other than the telly.

Washing machines could also be rented. Eventually Radio Rentals when on to "rent" PC's

3v3

Hire Purchase (and Rent to Own)

...
The concept of rent-to-own transactions first emerged in the United Kingdom and continental European countries under the hire purchase model. One of the first rent-to-own retail stores established in the U.K. was Lotus Radio, which began operating as a radio rental business in 1933.[4]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-to-own

Hire purchase (abbreviated HP) is the legal term for a contract, in this persons usually agree to pay for goods in parts or a percentage at a time. It was developed in the United Kingdom Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hire_purchase

Ida_Notion

Yes, HP was mentioned a lot in our house. I think that's how my mum and dad bought my younger sister's bunk beds. My dad was a scrap man, with lots of periods without work and although his main source of revenue was from industrial machines which he would dismantle out in the garden or in his mate's car yard (he had quite a few regular 'firms' which he'd call on to see if they were disposing of stuff) he'd buy anything if he thought it would make money. He once bought a big job lot of furniture from a grand hotel in the centre of the city - most of it was sold on, but that was where a lot of our furniture came from. Antiquated, bulky and fairly embarassing to me at the time, I wish I had it now He also became good friends with the Clerk Of Works at our city's university, due to regularly taking their scrap off their hands. This guy was a lovely old bloke who was not without a few bob, and when he eventually moved across to the other side of the country he gave my dad quite a lot of things, including an old sofa with very solid arms of the type described by a previous poster. We had that for years.

Another financial memory from the late seventies - school cookery classes, where if you were too poor to own the required Pyrex plate or whatever the dish of the week was, you could borrow it from the school and were fined half a pence a week if you did not bring it back promptly. Every Friday in assembly, the headmistress would icily read out the names of the offenders, together with the amount of money owed. She'd get progressively more venomous and turn more purple as each half pence increment was reached. I don't think anyone ever racked up as much as two and a half pence - as far as we could tell it was probably a hanging offence

gilly1964

My memories are

Only one gas fire in the lounge and no CH
Getting into bed as fast as posisble so you did not feel the cold
Waking up in Winter with frost on the inside of windows, with the net curtains making gorgeous patterns

Bath night was Sunday and Wednesday
Bed time was 9 and 10 on Friday and Saturday - no arguments over this

Breakfast and dinner were always at the table, no eating in front of the rented TV

Dinners were mostly meat and veg, but fish and chips on Good Friday - no idea why as parents were not religious
Sausage, mash and pease pudding with brown sauce
Shepherds Pie
Pork chops with kidney, mash, tinned peas and carrots
Egg, chips and beans
Sunday roast, shoulder of lamb or chicken with sandwiches for tea
Gravy made with cabbage water, but I also used to love drinking it as was
Tinned fruit and evaporated milk

Saturday mornings helping with the shopping, walk to town to save on bus fare, bus home if extra heavy otherwise walk home also

Sunday mornings at the launderette with a treat of a quarter of sweets between us for the afternoon film - usually a western on the TV

TV was only 3 channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, until 1982 when Channel 4 came on line

You could play out with your mates, always wore a watch so you were home on time, homework had to be done before play, if you were too ill for school, you were too ill for playing out.
Indoor games were Frustration, Tiddly Winks, Cluedo, Jacks, Monopoly, Cards
Outdoor games were skipping, rounders with as many people as you could get, French cricket, football

Both my brother and I got a paper round at 13 and then started to buy our own clothes and records etc

I am going on - but this has brought back so many happy memories

jetbag

We didn't have tv programmes on all day, I remember the test card that came on in between the programmes. and in the evening the national anthem was played just before all programmes stopped for the night.

We lived in a 2 up 2 down house with an outside loo about 10 foot away from the house, the only heating was an electric fire in the living room, and in winter the bedroom windows had ice on the inside.

My parents did not have much money but we were never bored or hungry.
very few families had more than one car.

pollypenny

In 1980 I was was a mature student doing my degree with two kids at home. Oh worked shifts, bit strikes where frequent and as I had a grant - assessed as supporting me, we were not eligible for any help at all. It was a nightmare. I used to make pies from the cheapest mince.

I loved sewing and knitting, when I had time.

Truth is, I miss the kids being small - they were a delight and grow up too soon.

anguk

Reverbe wrote: »

I am baffled to see a local shop has recently opened doing furniture on rental.. was that common in days of yore??I know electricals - washers, tvs etc were but things like beds and sofas??

I can remember electrical goods for rent but not furniture, you could buy it on HP and it would belong to the shop until you'd pay for it but it wasn't exactly renting it.

I wonder if it's a sign of the times, some people now can't afford new furniture and can't get credit but they still want to keep up appearances with new stuff so they rent it? Personally I'd rather get second-hand stuff from freecycle or ebay but then I'm not bothered about things looking new or modern, you just have to look in my house to see that.

I've just remembered something else back from 1974, we got one of those new-fangled colour TVs especially for the FA cup final between Newcastle & Liverpool. My Dad was a policeman back then and we were the only ones at the station who had a colour telly, so every off-duty policeman in our little town piled into our house to watch the match! Newcastle lost.

I can also remember my friends thinking we were posh because we actually had a house phone that wasn't on a party-line, of course I now know the reason for that was because my Dad was a policeman and we had to have a phone but back then I thought we were special.

red_devil

I was early teens. We owned our own home. Dad worked full time and mum part time. We had a car. We ususally had a holiday each year sometimes abroad, mostly abroad and sometimes we went in this country only one a year though. We had a house phone.

Home cooked food dont remember takeaways or anything. One colour TV on the lounge.

valentina

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...

Justamum

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

I remember brownies teaching us how to use a phonebox for emergencies.

I remember in Guides we were inspected every week and had to have in our pocket a piece of string(?!) and a 2p piece for the phone!