What was your standard of living growing up?

JackCork

i grew up in a house which was neither rich or poor , my parents had problems but not massive problems , just the normal ones..

Naomim

At the time, I didn't think we were poor, but looking back we were certainly cash poor but life rich.

We lived in a council flat, didnt own a car, Dad worked two jobs but my Mum only worked part time. We had two holidays, one on the isle of wight when I was around 5 and another in Bournemouth when I was 11. My Mum was resourceful and knitted all our jumpers & cardigans, hats, scarves and gloves. We didnt go to restaurants but I feel this may not have been the societal norm in the 1970's/80's anyway?

However, we always had a dog and lived between Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park so trips were often. There were plenty of buses too and it was easy to get to the museums and things like swimming were cheap.

I had the best, happiest childhood.

Naomim

Karonher

Better off in a lot of ways than others. House was paid for by the time I was 6 or 7 and always had holidays. Lots of presents and the first car was bought when I was 4. Never hungry but house not always as well heated as I would have liked. We were taught to be sensible with money but I didn't start that until I was about 30 although I did start a pension at 26.

enthusiasticsaver

Never really poor but my parents were careful with money and my dad had a very well paid job by the time I got to my teens so we had nice holidays, a nice home and reasonably expensive presents etc. However he had worked his way up and believed we should do the same so we had to take on Saturday jobs in our mid teens and he never threw money around so we learnt about the value of money. We had birthday and Christmas presents but he did not regularly give us money and we got pocket money until we started weekend jobs. My mum was a SAHM and did not give us lots of things or money as children. My dad had a strong aversion to debt which luckily he passed on to me. Saved us a fortune and a lot of anxiety over the years. I like to think we brought our daughters up the same way.

Moneyminded

Not poor, but definitely working class background. I was raised to understand the value of money and an education in order to have options later in life.

Kim_kim

We were very working class, my mother always worked. A lot of my friends had SAHM in the 70s.
My mother came from a remarkable mother. My grandmother raised her children as a widow in the rural west of Ireland and bought her small house with a little bit of land (too small to really call a farm) on her own working a multitude of cleaning jobs. That’s remarkable in those days.

My mum came to England to work. She enjoyed life & experiences, she went on a girls holiday to Italy in the 50s. How many working class girls did that!

She married and her & my dad had a pub, they holidayed in Spain in the late 60s, very exotic lol. We had a colour tv too.

My mum always worked hard, she loved working. We often ate at restaurants, less so in the 70s, it was more the odd take away - but we did so a lot in the 80s. My mum liked to experience life. She then headed for Greece in the 80s, she loved holidays, but only Europe, she never went any further - people didn’t then.

CJRyder

I would say my upbringing was working/middle class. Mum worked as a lawyer in the City, Dad worked in the education field. Moved into a house when I was seven, mortgage paid off around the time I went off to uni give or take a year. Parents were careful with money, although I do remember us all having our little hobbies which would accumulate stuff in the house. I was selective about what I wanted to spend my money on, although when you're a teenager you don't always make the best selections. I learnt more about managing money when I went off to uni (particularly when I got an evening job for a few months), very quickly learnt that brand does not mean best, and learnt what to do without. I did feel that there was an element of keeping up with the Jones' and spontaneous purchasing back home, although there wasn't as much of it as I once thought.

I was also the only person from school that I knew of, and in my uni, who didn't seem to be living in their overdraft although I'm sure that there were others. It reminds me of the saying "Money talks, wealth whispers."

Willing2Learn

I was raised in the ghetto...

determined_new_ms

we were dirt poor! And had all the problems that comes with poverty

CakeCrusader

Poor. Neither of my parents worked, first (and last) holiday was when I was 13 courtesy of a charity (caravan in the UK), we didn't have a great deal of food so lived on chips and something out of a can for most of the week as my dad would scrape together enough for a large bag of potatoes, I didn't know how to cook when I left home. We lived in a mouldy council house. Relatives would give us clothes, shoes were as cheap as they could come and often didn't fit, the council used to issue grants for beds/coats, and that's where mine came from. My dad would loan money from high interest lenders (he'd buy daft things, like a computer, which he'd give to my brother but would sell for a fraction of the price he paid for it 6 months later) and there was little left by the time he'd repaid them, I wasn't taught how to budget.



We'd sit and watch the TV when we weren't at school (I'd read a book from the school library, we didn't have any at home) and there was no encouragement to do well or to make your life better. Uni wasn't encouraged, nor was studying, learning or homework. I didn't want to live like this and somehow managed to get into Uni and earn a degree, I didn't have a clue how to study or revise (and still don't) though. I'm fairly good at budgeting, I taught myself to cook. I've worked since I was 15 (not constantly, I've taken time out here and there).



It's your life, you don't have to follow your parents path.

Willing2Learn

CakeCrusader wrote: »

It's your life, you don't have to follow your parents path.

I totally agree...