Old Finances (back in the day)

oldtractor

30 years ago food wasnt wrapped in plastic. strawberries came in cardboard trays and bilberries in wooden boxes. nowadays even cucumbers are plastic wrapped .

Reverbe

Justamum wrote: »

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!

we used to have a rhyme in Brownies. pencil paper piece of string 2 clean hankies and a safety pin plus a plaster..:rotfl:

Gettingtherequickly

Going back to the comment about all dads doing their own car repairs, I vividly remember my dad having to change an engine on a family friends vehicle, but for some reason it never crossed our minds that he would come to our house to have it done. He didn't stay very long as my mum sent him off with the comment "you can turn that right round and take it home!" Friend was the local undertaker and vehicle was the hearse rather than his car!

Chrisblue1962

I remember in the 60's having a TSB savings book especially for school children with a few shillings in it...looking at my current bank account not much has changed lol :rotfl:

vasseur

I am loving this thread *subscribes*.....

red_devil

i remember my mum used to have a twin tub. There were no tumble dryers or dishwashers etc.

luxor4t

I got married in 1979 and lived in rural Oxfordshire with my then-DH, who was rather peculiar about money, partly through ignorance/naivety & partly because his parents were convinced that the rest of the world were out to cheat them.

We both worked, my starting wage in the Civil Service was £210 a month, he earned a bit more but we had no ideas of getting a credit card. Paying bills by standing order was out as he assured me that banks just took whatever they wanted then charged you interest... anyway, I'd queue up and pay the gas & electricity bills with cash once a quarter and the water rates once a year.

Rent (for a prefab!!) was approx £35 a month, we paid more than that for the coal for the fire which had a Baxi-Bermuda? back boiler for constant hot water - luxury! The fire was the only heating in the prefab so the bedroom was very chilly & we used to get ice in the far corners during the bad winter nights during 1981. The then-DH insisted that it was too expensive to warm the bedroom with the electric fire so I used a hot water bottle.

There was a phone box down the lane, I would spend 12p to phone my mum, 2p 'just in case' the box wasn't working, then 10p.

We had a gas cooker (from the gas board) and an electric fridge (from the electricity board) both bought with wedding present money. His parents gave us £100 to buy a cooker & then made nasty comments because I couldn't find one for that price - I think they thought I'd lied - till we showed them the price list. There didn't seem to be the big electrical warehouses in those days.

I saved up for a washing machine and washed everything at the sink or in the bath & spun it in a stand-alone spin dryer until I finally got the money together, it took about 18 months. I remember being furious that the then-DH wouldn't help save, in fact he spent loads of money on making disgusting, undrinkable HM wine & beer.

Groceries cost about £7 a week, plus bread & milk when needed.

Entertainment was a black & white TV or a trip to the cinema club run by his company, or their 'social club'. He was worried his car would be stolen so we never went into Oxford at night, but did go to nearer cinemas - I hated leaving before the end of the film & having to run to check that the car was OK. We rarely ate out, a local pub did baked potatoes which was a treat, another did toasted sandwiches (very new) but I didn't get taken there.

We grew our own veg, ie broad beans, runner beans, lettuce & radish as well as raspberries. I used to forage for blackberries. The tomotoes were always green so I'd make green tomato chutney. I sprouted seeds & beans in jars with muslin over the necks, so we'd have mung beans & bean sprouts as well as cress in our salads. I also made jam.

I used to make my own clothes & altered things to bring them up to date or get more wear out of them. I was over 30 before I bought curtains - always made them myself till then.

Then-DH spent hours working on his car, sometimes making it worse, but usually getting to going again.

My dad made us a bed and we bought some furniture second hand from a collection of barns in the middle of nowhere. I had a carpet square from my mother & painted floorboards round the edge of the living room. Otherwise, we had lino. Several pieces of new furniture came from the Habitat clearance depot at Wallingford. Shame I left them behind with him !

It was easy because we lived out in the wilds & nobody seemed to have very much, although we went to his boss's home for a meal and it was amazingly beautiful inside, with proper chairs - we had beanbags!

Cheapskate

What memories!

30 years ago I was only 13, but our household sounds like so many of yours. Dad worked away at sea, mum didn't work, no car, only got a colour tv when I was about 12, first fridge when I was 11, coal fire in front room, no central heating (just an old Dimplex and a Calor gas heater for the rest of the house!). Remember getting the 'phone put in when I was about 7 or 8 and mum teaching me the number and how to answer it! Winters in our terraced house were FREEZING!! Money was very tight, but they managed to buy the council house I grew up in; we lived almost hand-to-mouth until I was well into my teens and dad earned a bit more. I'm the eldest of 4, mum didn't get family allowance until my next sister was born; also just about remember the power cuts in the early 70s.

Mum made all her own meals, we ate very well though as she was so inventive. Both parents had travelled, so we had what was considered "foreign" food all our lives (curries, pasta, vegetarian, etc...) Mum also had an allotment for a while, made ginger beer, jams, the most wonderful soups, a lot of our clothes, decorated the house mostly by herself. My dad did a lot when he was home on leave - always washed all the windows outside himself, all the electrical work, chopped wood for the fire for the winter, he was a good cook as well. He also taught us girls how shoot an air rifle, how to fish on the boat, and a few other boy scout things!

25 years ago DH & I married - in lots of ways we lived the same - no money, no car, no 'phone. We had a 2nd hand washer, when it broke DH got me a twin tub - after I complained that I'd spent a year already washing everything by hand, including babies' nappies!! So glad when the twin tub packed in, DH finally let me have a 'real' washer again!

DH got paid in cash every week - I'd bank enough for the mortgage, utilities, etc, and what was left went on food, just enough for the weekend. Got family allowance Monday and that just lasted until the Friday. Everything was paid for in cash, we only got our first credit card 3 years ago!

Although my childhood and the early part of my marriage seemed hard, financially speaking, and we all worried about paying for things, etc., I also remember feeling much less stressed and frantic about doing all sorts of things!

This thread is making me realise that we're better off now than then, as far as money goes, but life WAS a tad simpler, and part of me misses it.

A xo

Ida_Notion

red_devil wrote: »

i remember my mum used to have a twin tub. There were no tumble dryers or dishwashers etc.

Does anybody else remember the Flatley? They were used to dry clothes in before tumble driers were around, and were heated lidded cabinets made from metal. You took the lid off, and across the top of the cabinet were wooden slats which you hung your wet clothes on before replacing the lid. My mum had one during the three years when the five of us were living in a one-bedroomed flat and didn't have access to a garden (1973-76). I would not think they were that cheap to run, but she also took her washing into work to do whenever she could - she worked nights in an old people's home and the boss had no objection.

valentina

Ida_Notion wrote: »

Does anybody else remember the Flatley? They were used to dry clothes in before tumble driers were around, and were heated lidded cabinets made from metal. You took the lid off, and across the top of the cabinet were wooden slats which you hung your wet clothes on before replacing the lid. .

We had one!!! I'd forgotten about it until you said!