What normal things did you not have or not have in your house growing up?

Double glazing (not until I was in my teens).
Central heating (ditto, or maybe a bit sooner), we made do with an electric fire.
A car (only while I was a baby when my dad rode only a motorbike! We had one later).
Holidays abroad (never- didn’t set foot on a plane till I was 20 and didn’t fly with my parents until 2022!)
Fabric conditioner- yeah, us too. My dad hates it.
A shower- baths only until I was about 15.

I had a very happy childhood and not impoverished. This was the 80’s.

I think a stable existence really. I'd lived in 4 different towns, went to 4 different schools before age of 11. 3 in Cambridgeshire and 1 in Lincolnshire. Nothing to do with moving jobs either ie job and property come together, like farming for instance.

Once we moved to Lincolnshire, we stayed in 1 town 👏🏻 👏🏻 but I lived in 6 different houses. Went to same secondary school 👏🏻 👏🏻 Over a 10 year period for the house moving.

None of the houses were RENTED by the way. My mother was just never satisfied with anywhere. I actually think she's mentally ill.

My late father probably died from the stress of constantly working and decorating houses. He passed when I was 20.

It's definitely affected my education and I had trouble making friends in my early years. No Internet around then..

Not one of the houses had a shower though lol

Paracetamol.

My mum would buy one pack if I was at deaths door with flu - not a cold or a headache, had to be full flu.
Otherwise, she thought all pain killers were "junk" for posh people and wimps.

I suffered badly with period pain. It wasn't until I got to university and a boyfriend bought me a pack of Feminax that I realised I didn't have to suffer.

I buy paracetamol every single week in the shopping now. In my bathroom I currently have 32 boxes of paracetamol, plus boxes of other pain killers, and a box of paracetamol in every handbag I regularly use 😬I'm making up for lost time.

I’ve never had double glazing.

Oh yeah and no double glazing till I was in my late teens so frost flowers inside the windows for half the winter! I quite liked them but I didn't like going to bed in a hat and coat ! (Vast rooms with high ceilings and big windows so even with central heating it barely made a dent in the temp)

I grew up in a pretty wealthy home. It was a vast house. Big gardens. Music room. Ponies. Ski lessons. Private education etc

Things we didn't have that were normal I think in the 90s

• a TV
• any gaming devices
• take aways/McDonald's etc

I think my parents felt they were doing the right thing for us but it made me feel really excluded from a lot of conversations and I used to spend a lot of time at friends houses so I could experience these things

We had fruit but microwaves, duvets, home tumble dryers, showers in "normal" houses, and suncream as in sun protection and factors didn't exist. Central heating was for the massively rich. I think we had our own brushes and combs but they were "gift" items and not necessities.

Yes safeguarding was quite dire, wasn’t it? School were quite happy that my broken arm was the result of “someone” twisting it up my back, never probed who the someone was.

No fabric conditioner. No washing machine for a long time. Dad used to do it all by hand in a bath with a board... Please have this really grin washing up liquid that smelt really bad cuz I think it was actually some sort of hand cleaner. Dad got free from work 😅 oh and we didn't have heating in the first house and then in the second house mum and dad seemed quite heating adverse 🤣

I still date is fabric conditioner cuz I don't see the need but I do have proper washing up liquid

A car, central heating, double glazing - I remember frost on the inside 🥶, fruit, microwave, tumble drier, going abroad, suncream, a shower, duvets, coffee. We had one hairbrush between us all, like why? We had an outside toilet.

this pretty much for me too.

I remember when I was around 10 we moved house after my mum left. We'd already downsized from a 4bed to a 3bed council property (we exchanged with a neighbour in the street who had more kids than dad had). We ended up moving out of the 3 bed into a privately rented 2bed as it was a house that belonged to my dad's sister. It was cramped for a single dad and 3 daughters and we didn't have a bath in that house. The bathroom was tiny and had a shower which didn't work for years so we had to fill up buckets with hot water from the kettle to have a wash-boiler also didn't work and putting the hot water on caused a leak Looking back he was stupid to give up a three bed council house with a bath and fully functional boiler

80’s:
No TV, which all my friends thought was weird.
Central heating too- but that was quite normal.
Fizzy drinks.

I would also say a walk in shower or anything that you did not have to hold over to wash yourself was pure luxury!! We had one of those rubber hand held showers! This was in the 90s early 00’s!!

Same list as you OP, house was always warm with food - my mattress was so uncomfortable with springs sticking out I got a new one myself when I started a PT job at 16!

I would also add there were never period products, I had minimal clothing and shoes with holes my feet always got wet 😔😔

We had no nice furnishings and didn’t have a landline, and there were never cleaning products. Everyone else seemed to have all of these nice things, I didn’t grow up in a well off area but others had a lot more.

I am a similar age to you and grew up in the 90’s, and there was always money for cigarettes for my DP.

No electricity upstairs, no bathroom, inside toilet or central heating, as for items like paper towels, even toilet rolls, (we used newspaper cut into squares) nope.

I cant say we missed those things then, because what you never had you can't miss, so for us, that was 'normal' living.

Thank God those times are past.

Same my mother left when I was 9 and honestly she wasn't a very nice mum up to then either. We had the basics we were fed clothed and had a warm home with beds to sleep in but not really had loving parents. Mum was nasty and abusive school saw plenty of black eyes and bruises that were always explained as "accidents" Dad wasn't much nicer after she left either he had weird friends and seeing him drinking every night was seen as normal for years. On the outside he seemed the perfect parent. Friends were jealous of all the holidays we got as kids but honestly I'd have rather had parents who actually loved their kids

I always thought that people who used teabags instead of loose leaf tea were posh!

We were lucky enough to have money for all of those things, but what I never had was sober parents.

Not sure how normal but we weren't allowed ribena unless me or my brother was at death's door.

Household items and travel are proportionally much cheaper now, but the essential costs of living such as housing and utilities are far more expensive. They switched around the end of the 90s. Cutting out netflix and a holiday wouldn't allow one parent to stay at home.

Carpets. We had Lino in every room with a massive square rug. Probably seen as trendy now but I knew it meant we were poor.
We only went to the cinema (pictures) if it was someone’s birthday. Same with eating out. The thought of just popping into a cafe for lunch was unheard of. We didn’t have a washing machine but we always had enough food. I was never cold or hungry and for that I am very grateful.

In the 90s we didn’t have a sofa because my dad refused to buy one, we had 2 old chairs from his parents house which meant there was nowhere for me to sit. My mum bought one with her own money in 1998!

No heating upstairs.
New clothes were rare. Most came from jumble sales as did most books and toys.
No pocket money. No holidays. No days out. We ate stew a lot which was mostly vegetables with a bit of meat in it. Shared a bedroom with two sisters.

I did have a happy childhood. We played out a lot, reading and education was encouraged and we all did well at school.

No bathroom and just an outside toilet! I have memories of a tin bath in front of the coal fire every Sunday. I was born 1968. My mum died in childbirth so I was raised by my very working class grandparents in a 2 up 2 down terraced house. I was probably about 6 when they finally got an actual bathroom added to the house. It felt very posh! We were definitely poor, clothes came from jumble sales. Occasionally my nan would take us to a shop in town that allowed you to take things 'on tick' to be paid weekly and we always had new pants and socks from there for back to school. We did have caravan holidays, family was important and it was a very happy childhood. My kids don't know they're born! Even though we're very comfortably off now, mortgage free, good income, no debt etc, my poor roots stick with me I hate food waste and begrudge wasting money on kitchen roll and get annoyed when the kids use too much of it 😂