It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

catz4m8z

littlemoney said:

I remember my father growing vegetables and fruit. He would work in the garden before going to work and again in the evening and weekends. We never had a sunday joint. The only joint I remember was a gammon joint at christmas which was cooked in a pressure cooker.

We had a pretty impressive veggie plot in the garden growing up too, I can remember as a little kid sitting out and munching on kale pulled straight off the plant. We did well for meat too, despite living in quite an urban area my father was keen on hunting/fishing. Lots of rabbit stews and pigeon pies in my past! He would also hop on his bike often during the summer and come back with a bag of scrumped fruit from somebodies orchard!

njm123

Rosa_Damascena said:

Flugelhorn said:

@London_1 - they were different times weren't they? but the skills that everyone had in money management make anyone who was around that time much more careful about spending - they know what it can be like

When I was a child in the midlands my parents lived in a house bought for £2000 in 1953, had a garden, with lawn and flowers - I realise now why this was a big deal - they weren't growing veg or keeping the pig any longer

The lady opposite was b 1904, she and her husband, cared for their lovely rented house - they still grew endless veg in the garden - the loo was half way down the garden and they went to a friend's for a bath once a week - they had no fridge even when everyone else was getting one , just a meat safe and they got sterilised milk (don't get me on that, the taste was awful) . 

This post and JackieO's gives us some context. Life used to be incredibly hard and we cannot go back to hardship such as this

Its getting tough because it's costing a huge amount more to maintain the everyday privileges that we and society as a whole has become accustomed to for the last 50 years (my living memory).

We probably do need go back to elements of that way of life though,  where people value what they have and buy what they can afford.   

As a society since the 70's we've borrowed more and more so we can have what we want now and pay for it tomorrow, look what that's done for house prices etc., even before you consider the inequalities    The time has come to pay some of it back and we'll all have to tighten our belts.

I know there are those for who it will be incredibly tough - I had a very hard childhood in the 70's/80's so I've experienced real poverty first hand.  Perhaps we could all go back to being good neighbours to ALL our neighbours not just those that are "Our sort of people".     There's certainly a lot less of a community where I am than there used to be, and what's there is more exclusive.

tooldle

I’d forgotten the Lino!. It was everywhere in our house and has seriously curled at the edges. My folks married in ‘61 and were ‘in rooms’ for a couple or years before buying their own place. They had the upstairs and the lady who owned the house had downstairs. She was a nurse and worked nights. The only bathroom was in my parents part of the house. Miss Fox would take her weekly bath whilst my parents were at work and, leave some cash on the side to cover the cost of the gas geyser. From time to time when I was small, we would walk over to visit Miss Fox. 

I also remember the Burco Boiler which seemed a ubiquitous presence  in our kitchen. We had a lively incident once when it sprang a very large leak, whilst boiling. Mum managed without it for a few years (irreparable despite Dad’s best efforts) and just after I moved away for Uni in 1988, a washing machine was purchased. A real milestone moment! As others have said the household operated on a save first, purchase when you have the money basis, and no credit ever. 

We had an allotment, no car (Dad rode a bike), no TV, no phone, holidays were days out on the bus, shoes were repaired by Dad and Mum made our clothes. Jumble sale finds were real treats as shop bought clothes were not within reach for many people. I do remember there being Charity Shops as well as a number of ‘nearly new’ shops in my home city. 
Very different times and probably unimaginable to many kids these days. 

Broomstick

Lots of memories here, thanks!  Something else that I remember so clearly in the late 50s/1960s was that we had no bin bags.  Any rubbish was thrown directly into the metal dustbin so it always looked and smelled horrible.  The bin men's job was many times worse (not that it can be that good nowadays).  It also meant that everyone could see what was being thrown away:  something that would really make people think now.  When were black bin bags invented?  It may be my childhood memories playing tricks but I'm sure so much less was thrown out then and so much more was mended or recycled, including visits from the rag and bone men, and the scrap metal merchants.

ladyholly

I suspect that vast majority of things that are thrown away are things like plastic wrapping, items that would have been mended/ recycled within the home and things like disposable nappies. I remember fruit and veg went straight into mums shopping bag with newspaper between veg with mud on and cleaner things like apples clothes were mended and adapted but I do wonder if the fabrics were better quality.

nannywindow

I remember in the 50's my Sunday treat was the last of the hm gravy and a round of bread 😋  There was always bread and scrape too 😁 but sadly you don't get much dripping from the meat now. Mum made the meat do for 3 days. Day 1 a roast, day 2 fry up and day 3 a watery stew to finish it off and sometimes there was a day 4, an extra day of pie which was mostly pastry, with lots of veg, now that was a treat. Dad luckily loved his garden and would be gardening every day after work so we always had plenty of veg, including potatoes, to bulk out the meals. Mum was always baking or taking apart a woolen item to re-knit, I spent many a happy hour sitting with the wool wound around my arms while she wrapped the wool into balls. Sadly most of the skills have been lost to the younger generations as times change/ move on.

marycanary

London_1 said:

Back in 1969 I was at home in London  with two small children under 3, I would walk to the butchers about a mile away as he would be knocking down the price of joints after 4.00p. I could buy a leg of Lamb for 17/6d (88p) and we had roast on Sunday, cold with mash and pickles on Monday, some of it minced up for sheperds pie on Tuesday, and the last either curried on Wednesday or Rissoles and chips and peas.
Thursday was normally sausage and mash, Friday H M fish and chips, and Saturday sometimes corned beef hash or occasionally kippers and brown bread and butter as my late husband loved kippers.

Breakfasts were usually cornflakes or porridge but if I could afford it we would have scrambled eggs and bacon with mushrooms. My housekeeping for the four of us was £8.10.00 a week and I would buy fruit in season and bake my own cakes and biscuits .My husband had a packed lunch every day and the children and I would have a sandwish and maybe HM soup for lunch. We ate reasonably well, and I obviously had to watch the pennies but there were no charity shops around ,but local churches had jumble sales which was handy for all sorts of stuff.

 I knitted most of the childrens stuff that I couldand we were living in two rooms ,no bathroom ,but shared a loo with two other families. We had no phone,but then we didn't know anyone to call
Holidays were a day out to the coast , or a bus ride out to the country side and a picnic . We rented a TV as buying one was out of the question .

Until my second daughter was born I didn't even own a washing machine. After I had her, we had saved up enough for a Hoover washing machine.Before that I had a Baby Burco boiler for nappies etc and a spin dryer that was third hand and sounded like Concorde taking off anything else was handwashed in the sink but I did have a glass scrubbing board which I used to scrub my husbands collers and cuffs of his shirts on.

Anything larger like sheets etc I took to the local launderette. We lived on the first floor but there was a tiny balcony outside the window, and my husband ran a long 150 foot washing line and pulley down to the bottom of the garden and tied it to a large tree and I used to get all my washing dried on my washing line as being high it got a good blow.

Life was tough at times ,but we saved for everything we needed and never bought anything on credit .The first thing we ever had creditwise was the mortgage on our first house which was in 1971.It was a delapitated Victorian three bedroomed semi which cost us £6750.00 which seemed a huge debt to us..We lived there for three years before selling and buying a more modern one.In the three years we never had a stair carpet ,only an underlay, and the dining room had lino on the floor as we just couldn't afford to carpet it . It did have a bathroom but the loo was downstairs in the wooden built-on conservatory at the back of the house.It was 1974 before I finally had my own bathroom and toilet and by then I had been married 12 years I had hard times and times when cash was short ,but we all survived them ,even when the mortgage rate hit 15-16%.

Today I have central heating ,double glazing and relatively few money worries ,but I still budget carefully as I have done since leaving home at 17. I still bake my own cakes and biscuits and make my own home made soups and cook from scratch as I have done for well over 60 plus years.

Todays problems will be tough at times but we will surmount them hopefully , and if it means people are a bit more economical and less likely to bin perfectly good food, then it won't be a bad thing .just prioritiseing what you need, as against what you think you want will help.

Belt tightening is on the way again chums 

JackieO xx

What wonderful memories. Were you able to afford to stay at home with the children when they were small or did you go out to work as well?

GaleSF63

MovingForwards said:

The good old days of sterilised milk, still makes me smile occasionally seeing the bottles in shops.

Growing up it wasn't food banks as we know them now, a local church would have butter and other staple items, people would be queuing with their income support books to get a few things.

When I left the family home and rented my first property, finally moving out of shared digs, I hit a jumble sale. Got my kitchen kitted out for a couple of quid, crockery, cutlery, pots and pans. My prized purchase was a pressure cooker for 50p and it served me well for many years.

I know what you mean, one of my prized possessions was a rusty old spin dryer I got for 50p (it even had a plug on). That was at John Pye auctions in the 1970s when he just had a shed at the cattle market in Nottingham with mainly house clearances. It lasted several years till I got an automatic wm - another prized possession as I think it was only about the second or third time I'd bought anything household new. 

My mother used to occasionally make me date and pear sandwiches as a treat - in the  days of dates coming in slabs - the whole dates were a really special treat at Christmas sometimes. Another treat was tinned fruit with Carnation. 

ladyholly

Perhaps we all need to go back to the days of food according to season. 

tooldle

Broomstick said:

Lots of memories here, thanks!  Something else that I remember so clearly in the late 50s/1960s was that we had no bin bags.  Any rubbish was thrown directly into the metal dustbin so it always looked and smelled horrible.  The bin men's job was many times worse (not that it can be that good nowadays).  It also meant that everyone could see what was being thrown away:  something that would really make people think now.  When were black bin bags invented?  It may be my childhood memories playing tricks but I'm sure so much less was thrown out then and so much more was mended or recycled, including visits from the rag and bone men, and the scrap metal merchants.

We lined ours with newspaper. It was often my job to do this and I quite enjoyed it.