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Rosa_Damascena

Reading the thread title made me realise how much wisdom my own grandmother had through having to live during very hard times, and how little I valued it as a child in the 1980s. I do remember it though.

bouicca21

One man’s idyll is another man’s nightmare.  I grew up sans grandparents in a bland London suburb just over a mile from the nearest bus stop.  One overheated room, the rest of the house was an icebox.  I shudder at the memory.  Give me hot water any time I want it, central heating, and shops and public transport within easy walking distance.  And no chilblains.

I did however learn a fear of debt and how to cook and budget.  

comeandgo

You seem to have had a lovely childhood with loving relations which I think helps the past look rosie.  My childhood was rather different and being cold with frozen fingers and feet is not something I ever want to return to.  I know if I ever get so hard up I would not eat rather than suffer the cold again.

London_1

As both of my parents were middle aged when I was born my late Mum 45 and my Father 55 I never ever knew my grandparents ,but everything I learned growing up came from my late feisty little Scots Mum.She could make a shilling do the work of three at times (and often did) not that my Dad was particularly hard up as he was a chemist but the 1940s-50s was a period of austerity that I wouldn't want to see return.

Many food shortages ,in fact shortages of almost everything you could think of ,food,fuel ,furniture, clothes, wool,you name it ,it was in short supply.

We had very little, because even with money there was very little choice of stuff in the shops .
Post war recovery meant that factories were being rebuilt, and stuff being made meant toys were waaay down the list of things that were essential.

My late eldest brother made an awful lot of my toys ( a dolls house from ex orange box wood from the local market) and scavenging bomb sites for material in London was a common past time. Everything that was reusueable in any way was reused. whether it was clothes ,wood, even food was streeetched because of rationing. it was a way of life I think my generation just were used to not knowing anything else.

But on the upside it made us pretty resourceful, and the boom and bust years that followed ,although hard at times were the be all and end all of life.

Sadly in a way its affecting people more ,as they have never really had to 'go without' or 'make do and mend' and reading a lot of stuff on the internet the feeling is that "In the 21st century its our right to have a better life " indeed to enjoy a better standard is great, but no one has the "right" to it

You have to -as my late old Mum would have said 'Cut your cloth to suit your means'-  and if doing that you have to curb the throw away society that has become norm in todays world then its not too hard . A lot less landfill for a start.

Its a case of adjusting to the circumstances of how things are at the moment .We are going through a tough time ,but as in all scenarios we wil get through it, and hopefully come out older and a good deal wiser about the important things in life .
The 'needs' not the 'wants' are the way forward this winter. 

So I suppose if you need to get through the coming winter, look closely at your 'needs' when you are shopping especially . what ever you are buying, think can I adapt something I have already in the cupboard ?, can I make the sauce for the curry with a few ingrediants I already have in the cupboard, a tin of tomatoes, if whole are usually cheaper than chopped ones ,easy enough to chop them up yourself with a knife and takes only a minute.

Small economies in all sorts of things. I know a lot of folk are strapped for time but find if you can an hour or so a week and batch cook a couple of meals for the freezer rather than buying an instant meal.or when cooking make extra one for tonight and an extra one for the freezer Make your freezer your go to friend for that extra meal,  instead of the take away . Even if its only an extra box of chilli sauce or a chicken curry or cottage pie thing of ways to streetch your food to an extra meal if possible.

Every Sunday morning, even now and I live alone, I still prep my veg for the coming week, spuds, carrots etc and put in water in the fridge .

I am retired and don't need to save time really but it does save me standing in the kitchen every night peeling veg. I usuall sit in the sitting room with the radio on peeling my veg, and it goes into a long tuppaware box in water in the fridge so I can take what I need when I want it during the week.
I change the water every two days (water usually goes in my 'grey' water bucket in the conservatory) In the summer to water my garden, and in the winter to flush the loo. Old habits die hard, and nothing goes to waste if I can help it in my house .

So many ways to cut back, its a habit that onece to get into it you can't break.

Sorry for the ramble but I'm just really thinking out loud ,I have so many things that I do automatically it would take me a month of Sundays to get through but I'd love to hear what other things folks are doing to help get through the coming winter. Martin was right in saying heat the body not the house, and with a little careful planning I have managed to get my heating down to one hour a day in the morning. But then I don't have little ones running around leaving   doors open or unnecessary lights on. We will get through though and the boom times will come again as they always do, perhaps the pandemic has put the world on hold for a time and this is our chance to recover and be more conscious of waste.

Take care everyone 

JackieO xxx
(A GtGrandma)

annieb64

My grandparents never wasted anything. Left over veg were eaten by Grandad for supper. Grandma made jam and bottled fruit. They were among the first people in the village to buy a freezer. Once they got that they went back to their wartime practice of having a pig killed twice a year. Grandad was a farmer and the pig was always the one that wasn't quite big enough for market.

Grandma made a lot of their clothes. Old cotton frocks would be cut down to make aprons. In the early 1970s she crocheted us all ponchos using leftover yarn. She actually made me one in a fawn yarn. Once ponchos went out of fashion she kept it and in the mid 1980s I was given it back and told to unravel it so I could knit my daughter a cardigan.

She ran the needlework stall at the Church fetes and any of her work that didn't end up on our backs was kept for the stall-more aprons and ponchos and little ponchos for dolls.

On summer Sundays their treat was to go for a drive and take a picnic tea. Later in life they did manage some nice holidays.

Grandad was born in 1901. His Father was a farm labourer and they lived in a tied cottage. Great grandfather died in 1913 and the family were evicted. They always felt that they only narrowly escaped ending up in the workhouse. Great grandmother had to go and work in the fields to keep a roof over their heads. Fortunately her three sons were soon able to leave school and start work.

Grandad always regretted missing out on an education.  He made sure his children went to the local grammar school. When a library opened in the village he became a grat reader. When I got a place at university he was so proud. He took me to one side and made me promise to come to him if I ever needed money. Of course after that I was determined to manage on my grant.

Katiehound

I think all these stories point to the fact that if you were brought up in/ after hard times, or family members who had experienced such times then make do and mend was a way of life. I also think that if you inherited such mentality then it is likely to have stayed  with you: being frugal certainly helps now.
One of my friends didn't realise until she was well into her late teens that you could buy clothes, wool etc all year round as her mother only shopped in the January & summer sales, and pretty much everything was home made knitted or sewn from older garments  !!

I wish I could say I had an idyllic childhood. I didn't, it wasn't. A fairly evil Victorian grandmother who lived with us. My mother was a widow (widowed when I was 4 months old) so she had no option- she had to go out to work. I won't dwell on it: it was only about 15 years ago that the full picture dawned.....

Yes, I grew up with ice on the bedroom windows, we only ventured out of the front room with the 'courtier' stove if it was vital, the rest of the house felt like an icebox. The wretched stove kept in all night with coke / coal nuts (smokeless zone after the pea souper fogs) but I had to riddle it every morning & take the ash out before school, oh and refill it!.(At this point I tried to add a photo of one- but I can't see how as it is cut & pasted from google)
 
I really wouldn't give up the central heating even if I don't have it on long or the thermostat set high.
I wouldn't give up the automatic washing machine- I remember heaving sheets through the wringer over the top of the single tub Hoover machine! (which had to be filled from the Ascot over the chipped Belfast sink.) Nor would I give up the fridge / freezer- knowing that food will be kept safe if stored correctly. I won't give up my computer but I don't have a television!!!

So I do try to reuse things and recycle as much as possible.

Love reading everything on the forum, especially Old Style Money saving

Thanks to everyone who contributes & helps us through this period of... austerity?

Take care all

Muddy_Walker

This is a great question. My dad was in the forces (I was born late 60s) so we moved a lot and I didn’t see my paternal grandparents but seeing my maternal grandparents about once a year reminds me of smells and tastes really. Gran was always baking and Grandad grew a lot of veg so I remember shelling peas and B-road beans…..I remember Ice on the windows and walking everywhere which is what I tend to try and do now…..
I heard on a daily basis “we can’t afford that” but never why or ways to adapt which is probably why I went off the rails a bit 🤣
I personally think in today’s society people are very entitled and think they need stuff and generally don’t know how to adapt.
for me convenience foods and frozen veg are a godsend as I absolutely hate cooking with a passion and would live on sandwiches and crunchy carrots otherwise! Oh and the internet as it’s opened the world right up.

theoretica

The other side of old style living is of course the time cost. My grandparents were of a time (and social class) where the woman was very likely to give up paid employment once she married, and grandad basically never cooked or cleaned, leaving them both comparatively time rich.

Rosa_Damascena

theoretica said:

The other side of old style living is of course the time cost. My grandparents were of a time (and social class) where the woman was very likely to give up paid employment once she married, and grandad basically never cooked or cleaned, leaving them both comparatively time rich.

You are so right! I am time poor and have all kinds of time-saving devices. Restricting when I am prepared to actually do the housework is biggest time-saver of the lot.

diystarter7

theoretica said:

The other side of old style living is of course the time cost. My grandparents were of a time (and social class) where the woman was very likely to give up paid employment once she married, and grandad basically never cooked or cleaned, leaving them both comparatively time rich.

Very true and the kind of man I am. However, since leaving work at 55 I have changed a little. The only difference between my grandparents and us is Mrs DiY worked and did almost everything inc helping me with Diy. I call her superwoman. Men on the whole still do a lot, lot less than women. Both of our daughters are like me and our son is like his mum. Not everyone fits into a stereotypical category.. 

However, where I am different from the grandparents is anything and almost everything we buy, do to the house, cars, rentals etc is a joint decision inc furnutire etc.

Nice thread, OP.

Thanks