Things that used to be rare/ luxury/ unusual but now really common

[Chubbychic]

When tablets (iPads etc.) Came out, I thought what on earth is the point. There's phones and laptops why would you need basically a combo. No way anyone but tbe very rich will own them...

And now I have one, dh has one, ds and dd have one.

Also lip fillers/ botox
Back in the day only celebs had it done. Now nearly every other person on my Facebook have had their lips done and quite a few have had botox.

Contract phones actually too. Used to all be pay as you go but that seems really rare these days!

I'm old so computers at all used to be a huge luxury let alone dd and I basically having 2 each 1 of which we can carry everywhere easily, such a huge change in a relatively short period of time!

I remember my IT teacher confidently saying it wouldn't be until out children's lifetime and we'd passed that computers would be up to recognising handwriting and speech, now I sign handheld pads for nearly every delivery and use Siri regularly

I still don't have a dishwasher and I've never had one that still seems a luxury to me, at times I've thought if I could get one but no idea where it would go in my tiny kitchen especially when the need to plumb it in to consider.

Loads of food and drink (there's a thread in classics on this I think).

Coffee machine I don't have either.

Anti depressants? I think you'll find the change there is nothing to do with "posh" but because in the past the same ailments were treated mainly with tranquillisers which we now know are highly addictive and not suitable for long term use.

Inside toilet, shower/bathroom as opposed to a tin bath, central heating. Didn't have these until the mid 60s when we left London for one of the New Towns.

My list is endless as I'm ancient compared to most Mnetters

Cars
Record players
Televisions

and I'm really not that old!

Posh crisps
Pesto - I remember vividly the first time I had pesto
Ice for drinks at someone's house, because we all only had a tiny freezer drawer
Takeaways

Meals out
Fizzy drinks
Kiwi fruit, seedless grapes
New clothes

Toys. Remember when you bought a Barbie and then requested clothes. These days you just get a new doll for a fraction of tat price.

In the 80s my mum thought a family friend of ours was sooo exotic because he wore open toed sandals and he'd once visited SAN Francisco on business

Fitted carpets, I grew up in the 70s. Usually your dad would fit a roll of carpet, or reuse one donated by family.

Double glazing/central heating.

Seedless grapes, they used to be tiny and although easy to get hold of in the average greengrocers, they were seasonal.

Foreign holidays, although my gran and grandad always went abroad for their holidays. They started in the 60s, my grandad really enjoyed his foreign holidays, although he was limited in what was available/affordable.

I can’t drink lucozade even now- it just reminds me of being ill
Used to come in glass bottle with knobbly beads on the top bit and a cellophane wrapping
Think my mother saw it as something you had to ‘pep you up’ after you’d been sick

Seedless grapes. We always had the ones with great big pips when we were little as the seedless variety were super expensive.

Chinese takeaway once a month on payday

Schloer only at Christmas and After Eights

I remember my Mum making spag bol for the first time and taking 12 strands of pasta out of the packet for four of us saying three strands each was loads because it swells up. I couldn't convince her otherwise until I found a recipe in a cookbook

More than one pair of shoes.

Showers.

Douvet

Colour TVs

French bulldogs/Pugs
Minimum 2 x luxury car households

The dog thing really bothers me actually...the likes of a French Bulldog are an expensive pedigree. Like a previous poster said, literally every family I see on the school run now has one or similar. I worry they're from puppy farms

Definitely pesto!

Laptops

Fizzy drinks only ever at Christmas, Birthdays or other occasions. Never for "everyday" drinking. That was Squash (ugh!), water or tea.

We had bath night on Saturday, with hair washed ready for church on Sunday. We had a shower (over the bath) installed in 1982 when I was 12.

Washing machines (my mum used a mangle), tv and then colour tv, colour photos, central heating, hair conditioner, bubble bath, dish washers, microwave, olive oil, computers, ordinary phones and later mobiles. The list is endless but I am in my 60s.

@Absolutepowercorrupts what's the racist bit? (Genuine question)

Eating out (we very rarely did and if so it was a Sunday lunch in the pub).

Getting new toys (was nearly always Christmas and birthday - now kids seem to get new stuff all year round).

Getting new books (as above - I had a relative that used to take me to the book shop and get me a load in one go - they had plenty of cash - but otherwise it was just Christmas and birthday).

Days out to theme parks, national trust places... that kind of thing. I'm sure that when I was young, most weekends were spent at home or at least local to home.

*Girlfriend
*
I suspect the first poster meant 'breeds' to mean posh girls with cash and the second poster to mean black girls?

Air travel. It used to cost a fortune and you were really pampered. It really felt exotic.

We were the first of our friends to get a DVD player and all my friends and family gathered to see it. The choice of rentals was sparse and we ended up watching My Best Friends Wedding. That was mid 90s and it cost around £250 . Now they're pretty much obsolete and you can buy one on fb for a fiver.

Cruises
Orange juice and melon (used to be a starter in my day)
Manicures

Video players, when they first came out, were ridiculously expensive. I remember my best pal at primary school having the real privilege of "looking after" somebody's while they were away on holiday. They only had two cassettes to play (which cost about £40 each at the time, circa 1984): The Sound Of Music and Grease. We watched them to death, and I still feel I remember the scripts of both