How many of your OS habits did you learn from your family?

wyebird

Mine have both gone back to it all now. They have sold up, retired and gone to live on a narrow boat which dad has re-fitted and is painting.
Mum is making her own bread, and baking, stuff she didn't make time for before as she was always working full time.
The collect wood for the fire from the canal side, and have to be really careful with water etc between fill ups. They seem really happy with it all which is nice.

meanmarie

I certainly learnt lots of OS things from my parents...things like shop bought jumpers, socks and shop bread and cake were the things I wished for in my childhood. In the days when my large brood were small the same system operated, later time was too scarce so the practice fell off, but now that I have retired and my family have flown the coop, I am enjoying the bread making, veggie growing and time for the net.

Welcome to Finlaybaby

Marie

cuddlymarm

Hi

I remember helping my mum make stews or burgers from the Sunday roast left overs and don't remember ever having anything apart from bread and meat (bought as half a pig or lamb and then bagged up ) in the freezer.

My mum always had a blanket on the go from unravelled jumpers (which she had knitted) or a quilt or rag rug (from clothes to far gone to mend)

We grew blackcurrants and gooseberries and apples (we always had gallons of apple jelly) and the rhubarb plant was almost as old as me. I don't remember her growing veg but we had a veg patch and never bought any so she must have always done it when I was in school.

Oh and the rice pudding bowl always took 2 or 3 days of soaking to get clean because the skin was so thick and yummy.

Oh memories:rotfl:

exlibris

Like Kitty I have been always OS (I am slightly older than you) I have had the odd backslide when working and needing something Micr'd for late nights but I do find that home cooked food is much more filling.

I got my first freezer in the 70's and spent one Sat a month cooking for it. Now the children have left I still batch cook, filling the oven where I can and freezing what is not needed for the next 2 days. I now use a microwave to heat most things (except pastry) which I didn't have in the old days.

Mum never bought cake or biscuits but an Aunt did. Mum's always tasted better.

skint_spice

Absolutely nothing except how to use the library! I'm rebelling... my mum rarely cooked from scratch (not a time issue just that she hates cooking) and I did all the baking and sewing from an early age. I loved it but didn't learn it from mum! I think she was enjoying the fact she could afford not to worry.
Now as they hit their seventies they are being nagged by both me and my DS (age 7) to turn off lights and save electricity.

Tish207_2

How to knit. That was it. My mum can't cook and doesn't do cleaning. Maybe why I keep failing so miserably at being a housewife.:rolleyes:

scrimperjan

Tish207 wrote: »

My mum can't cook and doesn't do cleaning.

Presumably your Mum doesn't go on this board, either, Tish?

Tish207_2

Not a chance:rotfl: :rotfl:

dannahaz

Nothing that I can think of.

I vaguely recollect my mum baking and cooking and making jam when I was very small, but I was too young to learn. When she went back to work she stopped all that stuff.

Oh, she did teach me to make gravy once.

From when I was 10 it was my job to do the weekly shopping. I had to push it home in a trolley, unload it, and then push the trolley all the way back to the shops.

And from when I was 12 it was my job to clean the living room and dining room every week, and to hoover every day. I don't remember her showing me what to do, but I am a girl and I expect I picked it up by osmosis.

She did cook for a while, and was a good cook, but she ended up being a very unhappy woman who lived to work and spent her evenings asleep on the sofa. I remember we seemed to have fish and chips a lot. She was such a snob though - she called up the stairs once "would you like take away?" (in a bit of a Hyacinth voice), and I didn't know what she meant so I shouted back "do you mean fish and chips". She was very very cross with me for saying that...although it turned out that F&C is exactly what she meant.

I remember we were in Bejam's once, and we bought beefburgers and baps. As we queued up I smiled and said to my mum "everyone knows what we're having for tea". She was furious with me, and snapped "not necessarily, we might be getting them for the freezer!" Bless. She just can't help herself.

I do think about it sometimes when I make jam and that, and I think it's such a shame she never passed her skills on to me.

Solwaykid

I learned loads of OS stuff from my Mum and both Grandmas. Cooking from scratch, baking, cleaning, mending,re-using things, growing food, knitting,crochet.. I think the whole idea of 'I could do that cheaper' runs quite deep because of it.

It all seems such common sense to me and have constantly been amazed in my teens, 20's and 30's the number of friends who haven't a clue how to feed themselves or look after themselves. Admittedly I haven't always put the idea into practice and it's only in the past year that I've started to do so properly again.
Shame I didn't learn the value of money from my Dad!