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

Margaret54

Hi everyone:) I am so pleased to be chatting about os, as i never met others before in the workplace etc. who did, so this is great. I learnt to knit myself when i was expecting my first child who is now 30 and has 2 wee ones himself, and i still love to knit for little ones and baby blankets etc. I am not great at knitting adult things though but am keen to get there one day:) I think i got my love of gardening from my dear late Granny, and i was aware growing up of cutting the toothpaste tube in half turning the sauce bottles upside down, and swirling the last drop of washing up liquid in some water to use up the last drops, which i have always done and i am 53 now:) I hate waste of any sort and even my sons who are adults will cut their hair gel tubes in half and they earn good wages but it has stuck with them, so i smile when i see that:) so perhaps os will stay with them too? My husband loves when i bake a cake etc as he said his mum never really did that and i like to bake when i can as i think it tastes nicer to do it yourself, but i am not an expert at it:)

lil_me

Strange how this thread pops up just as my mam has been over and forgotten her stack of ready meals she just bought to last her the week, says it all I think :rotfl:

thriftmonster

Yes I learnt loads from my mum and a little from my nana and gran - they were too old when I was the right age - however the best thing my mum ever did was letting me loose with the ingredients/ sewing m/c and no hassle - even when I ran the needle through my finger - never did that again!!!!

Again like like a lot of other posters my mum now goes for several readt made things - although she is starting to make stuff again because I am!

recovering_spendaholic

I was a child in the late 60's/early 70's and learned all my OS ways from my Mum and Dad. My Dad was a chef, but he had to retire on ill health grounds (he had TB) when I was little, so he did all the cooking. We always had everything made from scratch and he cooked wonderful food, and he always had me and my sisters in the kitchen with him - he would teach us to how to make stuff and how to chop and so on while we listened to a huge bakelite radio which was on top of the fridge. From the age of about 4 or 5 I would chop veg and fry eggs and bacon and things. My Mum did all the washing and housework, plus she went out to work, so we all had our own little jobs. The washing machine had a mangle thing on the top of it and I just loved mangling the clothes and then hanging them out. The Health and Safety police would have had a field day in our house - every morning I had to lay the fire and then light it (I was about 7 when I started this) and to get the fire going I used to hold a piece of broadsheet newspaper over the opening to make the fire start to roar up. Many times the paper would go on fire! We also had no other heating (my Dad said that central heating was bad for you)and if we had no hot water we would carry big pans of water which we had boiled on the cooker up to the bathroom and chuck them in the bath - we never scalded ourselves though, but imagine the whoha if parents let their kids do that now! In our garden we had gooseberries, rhubarb, raspberries, potatoes, carrots and herbs and a couple of fruit trees. Dad always made jam and marmalade and our own pickles; he made soused herrings, brawn, hm corned beef and stuff like that, plus he made bread and soda bread a couple of times a week. The only thing I could never learn was how to knit - my Mum made really intricate fair isle jumpers and arran cardies which were great - she always had a long list of people waiting for jumpers. My Dad died when I was 19 and my Mum turned totally to convenience food as she said that cooking reminded her too much of my Dad, which was a shame.

silverbabe

Aaahhh Isn't it great to reminise. I absorbed alot of thrifty habits from my parents, including hoarding [I blame Hitler for this, curse the man] which is the only habit I wish I could shift. I save every bag and fold it into a neat square. It drives my daughters mad!
I used to make pickles and jam. Still knit and am learning to crochet [cos our family didn't crochet] My middle daughter has inherited the cooking from scratch and does crafts and is very thrifty. She told me about this site originally. [Hi Clare] Family examples are very important and it can go from parents to offspring or vica versa.

luxor4t

My grandparents seemed to make a thrifty lifestyle very appealing: I remember a garden full of fruit and veg (especially runner beans and rhubarb), my grandmother knitting and sewing and the lovely, tidy house that smelled of cake. It all felt safe and ordered.
I think my grandmother had the gift of 'homemaking' and saw being a housewife as a job. She had learned so much from her own mother who had been in 'good' service in the 1880s/ 1890s. She was really strict on manners!

In fact, I was taught by example by all my grandparents as well as my parents who grew up during the war and had to wait until rationing ended before getting married. We had HM furniture, clothes and food. Mum went to classes and made pottery as well as learning woodwork - this was disturbing as this was Dad's skill!

I make clothes, bedding and curtains but hate knitting. I have not tried woodwork, but my sister is talented! We both cook, although I want to get back to jam-making once I scale back from full-time work.

I hope I set my own family a good example!

borderlakland

both my mum and nan were big on the os through necessety.my nan was a very skilled seemstress and used to crochet very fine silk things for a shop in london.my grandad would grow all the fruit and veg and she would freeze/cook/preserve it all. to this day the smell of raspberries reminds me of them.my mum is the same,but not so keen on sewing etc,but she & my nan made most of me and my sis clothes when we were little.as well as all dolls clothes.i can knit crochet and do a mean cross stitch but think the sewing gene passed me by...when my nan was older she used to buy more convience foods and use her microwave more because for the 1st time she could afford to and for oce she didn't have to cook from scratch.i was always taught how to cook fron scratch and am slowly getting back to it much to the delight of my oh.but even though i know how to make jam i leave it to my mum as she loves doing it and i don't.so i provide the sugar/jars etc and she does the work

queenpig

Apart from been taught to make pies and soups that is as far as it goes.

Both mother and father shared a strong passion for the drink and the local pub, if they werent at home they be in the house.!

Mother is one the worse people I have ever known to be so bad at budgeting money.

I know people have had a lot worse childhood than my own but I would have loved to know what it would have been like to have parents that wernt nearly always drunk and actually stopped in on a saturday and sunday afternoon. Drink always came before nearly everything else and thats the rent included.

moanymoany

My mum was not very good in the house as everything was all a bit 'dysfunctional' as we say now. So, I spent a lot of time with my gran and my mum's older sister.

They were really OS, cooking in the oven next to the fire and boiling the spuds on little rings that swung over the fire. My aunty was the best baker and always made lots of cakes and pastry. Gran was also good, but she was the better main dish cook. We had lots of offal, it was cheap and nourishing and I didn't know any better. It was also delicious, very tasty.

She made stew from breast of lamb with lots of 'potmix', pulses and barley. I buy it from Tesco, it's now called 'soupmix'.

I got married in 1968 and we have always had homecooked food and lots of veg.

I've had a young lad staying with me for a month. He lives on Asda value meatballs in sauce, macaroni cheese, tinned potatoes and mayo, tomato soup and sometimes bacon sandwiches. He eats bikkies quite a lot. I think he ate like this when he was at home as his parents are in their late 40's early 50's and have very poor health and fitness. At 20 and over 6 feet tall he should be bursting with health and fitness. He is pasty looking and has very little get up and go.

The body is a functioning organism. It needs decent fuel if you want to get the most out of it for as long as possible. HM and OS does this. Even cakes and biscuits that are home made have good ingredients. Knowing what's in what we eat is something I find very comforting.

Plum_Pie

I learnt how to cook, clean, sew and garden from my mum. I also learnt some gardening and DIY from my dad.

I don't give my parents tips as I think they would feel patronised, we all have our ways of doing OS, after all.