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Old Finances (back in the day)
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Oh what a wonderful evocative thread!
I was 10 in 1980 so don't know the ins and outs of family finance, but dad worked as a surveyor and had company cars which I suppose made us quiet well off then, make stayed at home but over the years sold tupperware and vanda (like avon I think) she also did lots of volunteering stuff; brownies, church etc etc
Meanderings from the 70's and 80's
All meals were cooked from scratch and we had a pudding everyday. If ever we had crisps/nuts in a packed lunch it was half a packet or little pot and this wasn't unusual, as for fizzy pop I remember vividly having some "red" pop on a caravan holiday in cornwall in 1977 (remember as elvis had just died and my dad said there would be lots of his films on instead of tarzan films). If dad finished work late he'd eat with a tray on his lap and cut me and my brother a little bit of chop or a couple of chips always felt very grown up cos it had salt and pepper on it!
Rememder the kays catalogue clothes and pouring over the toy section as christmas approached! Remember spending hours sticking in green shield stamps think my dad must have collected them with petrol? Really not sure where they were exchanged think it was somewhere like argos and co-op stamps too the machine they came out of facinated me.
The first macdonalds I ever went in to was in marble arch on a "thinking day" trip with the guides so that must have been in the early eighties that was a really big deal.
Our tv was rented from radio rentals and I dont think my parents had a video recorder til after I left home, I remember my friends parents having a tv with a coin slot in the back which if you did it right would register before you let the coin go so free tv!
We always had a 'phone but you were neverallowed to used it before 6pm unless it was a weekend, I also remember when we rang my nan we had to push a button or dial the operator and tell her the exchange and the 3 digit phone number (she did live in a very small rurual village!)
It was normal for my mum to walk the mile to the local shops to buy food even when she had a car as it wasn't necessary, she's still the same now. The local dairy had an honest box and if you ran out of milk on a sunday you just took a bottle out of the fridge and put the money in the box, can't imagine that now
I'd forgotten the seventies obsession for homebrew, the garage was full of demijohns, and there were loads of bottles with hand written labels for carrot/elderberry/elderflower/dandelion/blackberry and various other wines which we would occassionally be allowed to have a glass of with sunday lunch
I remember loving jumble sales me and my friends used to buy all sorts of unsuitable high heeled shoes which we couldn't walk in and which my dad wouldn't let me wear anyway he was very particular about us having well fitted clarks shoes oh and he didn't think 8year old should wear heels......
We had lots of clothes from the "jumble" as did my friends and there was almost an heirachy of which organisations had the best quality donations, and mum would buy jumpers for my nan to unravel, wash and re-knit. Clothes, especially when we were small were passed around families and friends and adapted to growing children - fur around the cuffs, hood and bottom of winter coats.
Hand me downs were always a feature on my children's childhood but in my current state of debt I'm rediscovering the skills of my own childhood, knitting, gardening generally being less wasteful and appreciating the simple pleasures we had then, might even try wine makingFinal no going back LBM 20/12/10Debt Jan 2011 [STRIKE]£28217.65[/STRIKE][STRIKE][/STRIKE] DMP start 01/02/11 -[STRIKE][/STRIKE]
Debt free[STRIKE][/STRIKE][STRIKE][/STRIKE]26 September 2014:beer:
£2 Savers Club - 2012 no 105 2012 Sealed pot challenge no 1282 DMP mutual support thread No 405Proud to HAVE dealt with my debts:j0 -
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. 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.
The trick was to "spin" the clothes to an inch of their life and then use the Flately to "air" them off. Even if you didn't have a twin tub, a stand alone spinner was worth it's weight in gold!
When I married in 1979, and had my first child, I literally "boiled" nappies in a preserving pan on top of the stove.
I lived in London in a maisonette and on a good day would "line dry" the clothes on a wooden clothes horse on the balcony. But, living near Blackwall Tunnel, you didn't leave your whites out there for very long :rotfl:
The rented colour TV was paid for with a slot meter on the rear of it
No MP3's ... we had a radio-gram.
Shopping became a nightmare when I had two babies in less than a year. I'd bump the pram down the stairs with the baby in it, run back upstairs to get the one year old to put on the pram seat. Shop in the market putting the shopping in the basket under the pram and bags hanging from plastic clips on the handle. To get it all home, I would load the bags on my forearms, grab one year old, take them up the stairs, put 1yo in playpen, bags on kitchen floor, then race down to bump the pram (and baby) back up the stairs. Gosh it was hard work! :rotfl:
Foodwise, I'd buy meat and veg from the market; the children's father thought a "treat" was a Vesta Curry. No phone and the nearest phone box was the other side of the block. Rubbish was put down the "shute" halfway along the landing.
Domestic violence was treated as very low key: e.g. no one was particularly interested if a husband beat his wife, he was entitled to/she must deserve it!
In 1980, I was "given" £30 p.w. to pay the gas/electric, TV meter, rent and shopping. My mother went balistic when she found out that is what I was managing on with two babies.
Cheapest form of "disposable" nappy for those very rare times you were away from the house for longer than a nappy change were nothing more than an enlarged sanitary pad held together with a thin "rubber" outer that tied at the hips and made any baby wearing them look like they had no thighs.
Take-aways, not only were very, very rare, but on those occasions it was one special chow mein to go around everyone.
The local pub was the hub of the community, even if you could only afford half a shandy. "Slates" were in; pay day paid off the slate from the previous week and carried you forward til next payday (my ex liked his beer)
On a good note, my ex worked in a security van and on a Friday, one of his bakery delivery points would give them a huge bag of rolls/cakes/buns/fancies ... this would have gone to pig swill. Of course these days you can't do that. We'd divide it up between ourselves, his brothers, sisters and mother. By the same token, his mother would get end of day "bargains" from Crispe Street market and his father (working docklands) would often have a something or two from a 'damaged' container0 -
30 years ago, I was 8.
The house was so cold that I looked forward to snow because that and the half inch layer of ice on the windows made it warmer inside. The only heating allowed was a three bar gas fire in the living room. The floors were cold because the carpet wasn't fitted - it was whatever size sort of covered most of the lino - and was never up to the doorways.
If I ever complained of being cold, I was angrily informed that as the airing cupboard was in the bedroom I shared with my brother (albeit switched off), it was like living in Africa compared to what everyone else had to endure in their room. Mittens were held on with elastic, but girls never wore hats and the boys wore balaclavas.
The curtains themselves were too small for the windows and were held up with wire with hooks on the end, with greyish nets making sure nobody could see inside. There were no curtains on the landing, bathroom or kitchen windows.
The big sink was never filled up, a bright blue plastic bowl was used instead, along with a bright orange drainer for the green potatoes. The washing machine was connected to the hot and cold taps through pipes that were held on by string. If it wasn't in the bathroom on Saturday morning, it wouldn't be washed, and if there was more than one whites load, the extras wouldn't be washed, but shoved into the empty machine for another week.
Nylon socks were boiled in a funny shaped pan - possibly the bottom part of a bain-marie (or double boiler, as only stupid people said things in foreign) until they were crunchy. They didn't smell very nice and I suspect that any hard boiled eggs (produced once a year as a treat with salad cream) were cooked in the same pan, although not at the same time. The pressure cooker was used for mash and chicken stock - being tentatively prodded with the point of a knife to release the pressure was one of the sounds that sent the cats running for cover.
You weren't allowed to drink milk, as it was too expensive to waste on children, and was always silver top. Butter was something never tasted - Stork margarine was all there was. Chicken wings were the food for the youngest children in the families, the eldest sons (where the father was dead) would get all the breast meat, the cats all the giblets. Peas were marrowfats and, like carrots, only came out of tins.
My hair was dragged into a midheight pony tail and fastened with a rubber band that cut into the hair and tangled it by the end of the day. It had never been cut into a style, unlike the most fashionable girls who had thick blonde fringes. Fancy hairbands were far too expensive.
You got one pair of shoes for school for September and you had to wear them all year - there was no allowance for growing out of them. But school uniform wasn't compulsory, other than plimsolls for PE. It was normal to do PE in vest and knickers and buying a special set of clothes for it was unthinkable.
If someone got nits, they were seen as filthy and dirty, but only one bath was allowed per week, on Sunday evening, because that meant you were clean for the whole week ahead and washing more often was wasteful.
The cats and dog were all fed cat food, as dog food would have been an additional expense. No litter trays, they all did their business in the garden. We were strange and posh though, as the cats were all neutered/spayed.
The essentials were milk for Mum's tea, Tetley teabags, Homepride bread, Stork Margarine, gravy and a chicken for Sunday dinner. The animal essentials were cat food, flea spray (only done every 4 months in summer when the cats were scratching constantly) and worming tablets (only ever done when little grains of rice - worm segments - were visible on the cats' behinds). The only other essentials were the TV from Radio Rentals, the big red telephone that nobody was ever allowed to use and the 3 lines on the pools that the man used to come on Thursdays (or was it Tuesdays sometimes?) to collect.
Last thing at night, the 50 pences would be put into the meter with a sound that signified getting under the blanket and pretending to be asleep.
In my opinion, nostalgia is overrated.I could dream to wide extremes, I could do or die: I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by.Yup you are officially Rock n Roll0 -
Speaking of phones, anybody remember party lines and Dial-a-disc?0
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I remember the twin-tub only too well - my mum had had hers since the early 1960s, and it finally gave up the ghost about 1988!
I've had a look at my (ex cb) stash of old magazines, found one for July 1980! Admittedly, it's Harpers & Queen, so not exactly middle-of-the road, but here's a few prices and comments...
Still cigarette ads, John Player Vanguard at an introductory price of 70p for 20
Lots of ads for fur coats including Ocelot and Leopard, even in July - a mink coat £1850
Clothes expensive by today's standards - a Jaeger velvet jacket £99
Cinnabar perfume - remember that?
BMW 316 £5,355 - and 25mpg in town
House on Campden Hill, 5/6 bedrooms, garden and garage - freehold £169,500
Books relatively expensive, this was the days before Amazon, after all!
And, reflecting the Cold War anxiety, you could have a small nuclear bunker installed in the back garden for £9,000!0 -
Speaking of phones, anybody remember party lines and Dial-a-disc?
:rotfl:
The very first telephone line my mother had was a party-line; I was trying to explain it to my teenage boys just the other day. They quickly gathered that it was a medium for "eavesdropping" ... took me ages (at the time) to fathom that out!
Also, my mother's eldest daughter lived in the States and, at that time, there was a time delay between what was said and what was received - so many scrambled, dis-jointed conversations! :rotfl:
Which comes back full circle to the cylindrical telephone locks0 -
Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »30 years ago, I was 8.
The house was so cold that I looked forward to snow because that and the half inch layer of ice on the windows made it warmer inside. The only heating allowed was a three bar gas fire in the living room. The floors were cold because the carpet wasn't fitted - it was whatever size sort of covered most of the lino - and was never up to the doorways.
If I ever complained of being cold, I was angrily informed that as the airing cupboard was in the bedroom I shared with my brother (albeit switched off), it was like living in Africa compared to what everyone else had to endure in their room. Mittens were held on with elastic, but girls never wore hats and the boys wore balaclavas.
The curtains themselves were too small for the windows and were held up with wire with hooks on the end, with greyish nets making sure nobody could see inside. There were no curtains on the landing, bathroom or kitchen windows.
The big sink was never filled up, a bright blue plastic bowl was used instead, along with a bright orange drainer for the green potatoes. The washing machine was connected to the hot and cold taps through pipes that were held on by string. If it wasn't in the bathroom on Saturday morning, it wouldn't be washed, and if there was more than one whites load, the extras wouldn't be washed, but shoved into the empty machine for another week.
Nylon socks were boiled in a funny shaped pan - possibly the bottom part of a bain-marie (or double boiler, as only stupid people said things in foreign) until they were crunchy. They didn't smell very nice and I suspect that any hard boiled eggs (produced once a year as a treat with salad cream) were cooked in the same pan, although not at the same time. The pressure cooker was used for mash and chicken stock - being tentatively prodded with the point of a knife to release the pressure was one of the sounds that sent the cats running for cover.
You weren't allowed to drink milk, as it was too expensive to waste on children, and was always silver top. Butter was something never tasted - Stork margarine was all there was. Chicken wings were the food for the youngest children in the families, the eldest sons (where the father was dead) would get all the breast meat, the cats all the giblets. Peas were marrowfats and, like carrots, only came out of tins.
My hair was dragged into a midheight pony tail and fastened with a rubber band that cut into the hair and tangled it by the end of the day. It had never been cut into a style, unlike the most fashionable girls who had thick blonde fringes. Fancy hairbands were far too expensive.
You got one pair of shoes for school for September and you had to wear them all year - there was no allowance for growing out of them. But school uniform wasn't compulsory, other than plimsolls for PE. It was normal to do PE in vest and knickers and buying a special set of clothes for it was unthinkable.
If someone got nits, they were seen as filthy and dirty, but only one bath was allowed per week, on Sunday evening, because that meant you were clean for the whole week ahead and washing more often was wasteful.
The cats and dog were all fed cat food, as dog food would have been an additional expense. No litter trays, they all did their business in the garden. We were strange and posh though, as the cats were all neutered/spayed.
The essentials were milk for Mum's tea, Tetley teabags, Homepride bread, Stork Margarine, gravy and a chicken for Sunday dinner. The animal essentials were cat food, flea spray (only done every 4 months in summer when the cats were scratching constantly) and worming tablets (only ever done when little grains of rice - worm segments - were visible on the cats' behinds). The only other essentials were the TV from Radio Rentals, the big red telephone that nobody was ever allowed to use and the 3 lines on the pools that the man used to come on Thursdays (or was it Tuesdays sometimes?) to collect.
Last thing at night, the 50 pences would be put into the meter with a sound that signified getting under the blanket and pretending to be asleep.
In my opinion, nostalgia is overrated.
You had it tough ... that certainly wasn't the "norm" for the 80's!0 -
I hope you lot realise I've just [STRIKE]wasted[/STRIKE], sorry I mean spent a very enjoyable hour reading this thread. Judging by a lot of the comments, I must have had a fairly luxurious childhood. I had a shilling a week pocket money, (no I'm not going to translate that into todays money). Sixpence was spent to get in the minors on a Saturday morning and fourpence on a Jubbly, they were massive and seemed to last ages, really good value for money although upon reflection I suppose they really were pretty awful. I can't remember what I did with the other tuppence, probably squandered it on a couple of spanish roots from the chemists at a penny each. Everybody who went to the Saturday picture show would be donned in a duffle coat/gaberdene mac/dads donkey jacket which was fastened only by the top button around the neck. This facilitated some pretty kamikaze style impressions of the then current hero Batman (the black and white version). Kids would hurl themselves off 6 foot walls in an age prior to gravity being included in the national curriculum. no broken bones but T.C.P. used to sting a lot in those days as I recall.
I had an uncle who was retired and a widower with no children. He had been a coal merchant and had obviously "made it" as he had his own coalyard, cart AND HORSE. I recall him recounting how he could have made it big time but during the '30s, folks needed coal but could rarely afford to pay for it so he would let them have a bag and "you can pay me next week". He reckoned that he was owed thousands. Every Fiday he would buy one bottle of milk and if it didn't last him for the week then it was his tough luck, he would not buy any more until the following Friday even though there was no financial need for this inconspicuous consumption.0 -
Of course, a *party line* in those days meant something completely different to what it means nowadays!
When we got our first phone, (I still remember that the number was 01-947 1472!) we shared a party line for a while. I still remember the voice of the lady who we shared it with.
And then of course, there was Dial-a-disc on 160. We loved that! We were only allowed to ring it up occasionally and had to hang up once the song had finished.
I remember going to Saturday morning pictures when I was about 10. The bus fare each way was 2.5p and I think it cost about 10p to get in. We'd watch a serial, (old flash Gordon, Tarzan or Batman) a couple of cartoons and the film was always a Children's film foundation one.
I used to buy a packet of Spangles to eat whilst watching the film, and afterwards, if I still had enough pocket money left, I'd buy a Mr Whippy ice cream from the Italian cafe over the road.0 -
So many things coming back to me!
I can remember going with my sister to collect pink parafin for the heaters. Dad used to have Vesta curries, no one else was allowed them. We only had butter at Christmas otherwise it was Stork SB. I don't recall having fruit either except at Christmas, but we weren't allowed to eat it! It was for visitors.
Mum used to put the 'glow' on on the fire cos it made it feel warmer!
I remember going to the newsagents for mum's cigarettes - 20 Kensitas. Getting tick there too. Answering the door to the milkman/man from the Pru/rent man saying mum wasn't in.
Sitting in the cinema watching Grease and sitting there til it came on again just cos we could! Proper money saving!
Going swimming with my sister. Had 50p each. That paid for us to get in the pool, a hot chocolate and a bag of crisps afterwards from the vending machine and a bag of chips on the way home too. Still had change to give mum!0
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