Things your parents led you to think were 'special' or 'expensive' that you now take for granted?

Wrapping paper. Used for family birthdays and Christmas presents, but if I went to a friend's birthday party I used to have to give them their present in the paper bag it had been bought in, much to my shame when all the other kids started teasing me about it. Mum refused to wrap friends' presents, even in paper that was saved to be used again, which we always did.

Another thing for me was cars and driving generally. Neither my Mum or Dad drove. Taxis were far too extravagant so we walked or went on the bus everywhere. Again, at friends' parties, if we were going anywhere such as swimming the highlight of the party for me was the ride in a car to and from the destination. Was a real novelty for me. My DH likes to make out his family were really poor and working class, but to me they were really rich. Not only did his Dad drive, but both his Grandads did too. So we're talking driving and owning cars way back in the 1930's. That's super posh to me!

Inspired do by this thread I asked my now adult son what he thought we were tight about when he was growing up.
He had an answer ready. - coco pops!

I never bought them and he said he loved being invited to sleepovers as other kids were allowed them!

I still wont buy them!

This is a lovely nostalgic thread.
Mine is a fish and chip supper on a Saturday night that we had to walk a mile to collect. There was no such thing as delivery.
Fizzy drink was only allowed at birthday parties... and only 1 glass allowed because of all the E-numbers that used to mess with our brains. 🙄

Tv times only at Xmas and Easter. Amazed as adult they on sale all
Year.
Writing paper- mum would write a note on a4 paper to say you had been sick. She would then fold it and rip it so it was just bigger than the few lines. Why she couldn’t have used a whole page I don’t know. Even then a4 pad wasn’t that bad for occasional notes.

STAMPS. Even if we went on cheap caravan Holiday and bought grandparents a postcard a stamp was to expensive or wasteful. So paycatds had to be given in person. You could never do any competitions or send in tony heart gallery work because it
Needed a stamp. Seemed so restricting what was very cheap!

Eating out.

Not sharing bath water - I hated having to use my sister’s grubby, not piping hot bath water. And only 2 baths a week - Sunday and Wednesday nights. Oh, and only 2 clean school shirts a week, plus no antiperspirant. I hated feeling so grubby and looking back, I must have whiffed.

Mushrooms - they must have been either pricy, or hard to get hold of, because they were a real, and very occasional treat - I will now have a whole punnet of them in an omelette, for lunch.

Drawing paper - occasionally we’d get bought a pad of drawing paper each, but once it was gone, we couldn’t do any more drawing until the next time they lashed out on more paper for us. When we had the dses, I bought them reams of cheap paper, so they always had something to draw on.

Haha I also had the experience of fresh juice only coming out at Christmas, if you asked for juice you were given squash, I now can't stand it!

My parents still to this day use tiny, thin towels. When I discovered (at university) that there were "bath" size towels that you can actually wrap all the way around you and cover your bum I was stunned!

They just spent over £10k remodelling the bathroom but still use tiny towels

*fish
*chocolate custard

School dinners! We weren’t quite poor enough for free school meals but I was so envious of friends who got to pick up a sectioned plastic dinner tray and add a different item in each section. Especially when fist and chips or chocolate crunch with chocolate crunch were being served and I sat amongst the school dinner kids with my naff cheese sarnies and piece of fruit. Yet once a year, I was permitted to enter their world...on the Christmas lunch day. Oh, what a marvellous treat that was.

Tizer fizzy pop. Although my gran occasionally treated us to that.

Timotei shampoo. The tv advert mesmerised me but we were only allowed own brand shampoo.

Foreign holidays.

Hair conditioner was exotic and interesting...never before had we thought or cared what condition our hair was in.
There was only washed/unwashed , brushed/unbrushed.

Dull, lifeless, fragile, bushy, over dried, brittle, oily....problems we didn't know we had :)

Fizzy lemonade was only for Christmas.
Lemonade only, no cherryade or orangeade allowed.
Never even heard of cola or sparkling water.

Lucozade was only for the seriously ill.

Brandy snaps were a delicacy only for Christmas!

Pickle onions only for Xmas!

Ah come on now. That's only civilised.

Pickle onions only for Xmas!

It's just dried goods so nothing really to go off. Especially as they are air sealed too.

Eh? Normal cereal has a BBE date of 2-3 years I think.

I want one now

real butter

Cereal always has a date of about a year on it. Look in the supermarket or on the boxes you have.

draylon
Just bought a couple and the date is 9 Sept 2018 which opens up the next issue which is.....what the hell is in them that they last best part of a year?! I am choosing to ignore that :o

Oh Zaphod you've made me so nostalgic for Christmas stocking cereal. Such a treat.

I am now the proud owner of a cereal advent calendar (special trip to Tesco). The DC rather hopefully suggested I buy them one each, rather than one to share. I made a Daddy Pig noise and said they could take turns.

Incidentally £4 for 24 boxes is the same as buying the multipacks in the cheap shops.

I think Ribena genuinely was expensive back in the day, because it's pretty expensive now in comparison to other squash (but not so much compared to things like Bottlegreen elder flower presse or those organic low sugar squashes most supermarkets now stock)

Definitely the mini packs of cereal. These were considered a luxury because the only time we got them was when we were on holiday, normally staying in a B&B or self catering.

FIL still does lots of his own DIY. There was something electrical that needed fixing on their oven and he just did it himself. Neither myself nor DH would have considered tackling that ourselves.