If you were a child in the 1970s do you remember your parents worrying about money?

[gordonsntonic]

I do. They used to argue about it at night, and I remember asking my mum what "in the red" meant. Then I remember my mum getting a part time job, so I had to go to friends houses or my Nan's after school. I just thought my dad was bad with money, but with hindsight, this would have been around the time that the UK had huge interest rates. We got through it, but there was one key difference to now - back then, mortgage affordability was calculated on the basis of one income, not two, so my mum going out to work would have helped to bridge the gap. Things are obviously different now. 😬

Very much so. Both my parents worked; my Nan lived with us so did the childcare. I always knew not to ask for things as there was no money going spare. We ate very healthily as Dad grew vegetables and both Nan and Mum were good cooks and bakers. They had all been adults during the war so were used to not wasting things. Mum made most of our clothes apart from school uniform and holidays were in a mobile home borrowed from someone Dad worked with.

I remember money worries at various points, it was a bit of a rollercoaster.

I'm sick of people saying high interest rates now are fine because we had high interest rates before, as house prices are so different now.

No, it was kept from us entirely. We always had everything we needed although looking back money was obviously extremely tight. We lived in an area where nobody had much money though so we didn’t feel like we were missing out. In fact, we were one of the few families on our road who owned a car so we were better off than most.

Funny, just thinking back - when I was primary age (70s) literally no-one I knew owned their house, we all lived very happily and securely in council housing. I think there was maybe one person in my primary class that had 'a bought hoose' and that was unusual enough that we all knew about it. We were skint but we were certainly insulated from any interest rate issues.

80s were brutal for my community because of Thatcher and the miners' strike. It didn't directly affect my family but we were all hyper-aware of it.

Personally, we were always worried about money but that felt like it was more to do with our individual family than world events.

I don't necessarily remember them worrying about money, but I do remember wallpaper hanging off walls (first home they'd never had the money to do up) and just two comfy chairs (well wooden with cushions) which three of us had to share - not much other furniture other than beds and parents had wardrobes - I had hooks on walls. I've since heard my DM talking about cutting back on meat/never buying clothes then. I do remember early 1980s? though when mortgage rates went sky high and remember that as a worrying time.

I was born in 1970.
I don't remember money being particularly tight but looking back, I remember going camping for every holiday, and never being allowed ice creams/ rides on the beach etc.nearly all clothes were passed on to us or from jumble sales (I loved jumble sales-a proper great Saturday afternoon out😁). My mum tells me that sometimes we would have home made chips at the end of the month because there was little money left. I only remember homemade chips being a treat!!!

They never
My mother had three part-time jobs cleaning and bar work.
My nan brought us a bag of groceries up each week out of her state pension. She d

I was a newly qualified secondary teacher in the 70s, I remember the male members of staff donating their unwanted shoes. These were covertly given to the boys who could not attend because they had no shoes.
Mens shoes were very expensive, there were no ‘cheap’ clothing shops.

No never. My father worked abroad and it was just me and DM at home. She didn't work. We had holidays, weekends away, DM insisted on shopping for my clothes in two little boutique shops.

I went to nursery school until 12 each day. I was sat down to eat lunch watching the news. I remember the miners strike, the electricity going off regularly around 6pm, three day week.

They argued, but not about money. It was only later in the mid 80s that things got a bit harder for them.

Yes

The arguments - sitting on the stairs when I should have been asleep , so scared

The doing without - holidays ?!

Being laughed at for not having what others had - one pair of shoes for school and play for example

They did buy their first house then which didn't help when interest rates where rather high , but obviously now they are hated by many for having the audacity to own a house they live in

Sorry, phone playing up.

My parents never mentioned it, but looking back it's obvious we didn't have much. Not just the no central heating, food subsidised by nan's groceries (even though she herself didn't have a pot to piss in).
My parents were the first in the family to own their own homes. However, they saved for years for a deposit, living initially as lodgers with an old lady. Every penny from their minimum wage jobs was accounted for. My mom had 3 part-time jobs to keep us afloat.
Dad had a job that purposefully came with a car -
We did have one holiday a year in the UK sharing an old house with 2 other families.
At the time I just didn't realise.

With 4 (and later 5) kids I think everything was a struggle for my parents. Mum worked at 'home' businesses like knitting (on a machine) so she could also look after kids. Grew a lot of food, kept goats for milk, baked bread etc. No central heating, pipes that froze in winter, often no car so we walked a lot. All clothes were hand me downs - I didn't really get my own from new until I was a teen. We had free school meals and some kind of school clothing allowance. They even had a pay phone installed in the house after a few incidents with 'friends' running up large bills.
However everyone we knew was in the same boat, it didn't feel out of the ordinary. And there was lots of love and laughter and huge amounts of freedom.
Things improved hugely once we were teens (though they added the fifth child at that point, for more shits and giggles I suppose).

I was born in 1970, and as an adult I now they were pretty hard up, but as a child I was oblivious, my parents didn’t fight or row as they were always on the same page, and pretty much everyone around us was on the same page

Life was different then consumerism wasn’t a thing, in my circle, the parents were the war generation with the view that what you’d never had you never missed. We had a group of families that clothes were passed round, and clothes went through about 5/6 girls! We didn’t feel hard done by, but you were excited when a bag was handed in😂.

I was discussing with dh that I always remember my dad wearing a vest, a shirt and a woollen pullover in the house, but we now expect to wander around the house in T-shirts all year round-that’ll be changing very soon in this house😂

Late 79s baby and I very much remember it in the 80s. My sister and I had to leave our private school and our house was repossessed in the recession. I remember being on holiday in France and my mum crying watching the news about interest rates.

Like @middleager my parents were the first of their friends/family to own their house,, they actually built it before they were married and mum always said that their families all thought they must be loaded, when in fact they had the least disposable cash as family were paying rent/rates of £1 a week while their mortgage was £14 a month, with rates on top of that

I don't think I realised how poor we were at the time, but my mum was a single mum to us four dc. And looking back we were skint.

Cardboard in the soles was normal, new clothes were a huge treat, I still remember getting quality street in my Christmas stocking. These would be saved until new years eve as they were such a treat. Mum couldnt afford a big tin but would buy a small bag from the weigh and save......we never had central heating and didn't even get a housephone installed until around 1990 which I remember seeming like a huge luxury at the time. We had semi cold showers from an electric shower for years after she got ripped off getting a new boiler installed, no hot water became the norm.

No child maintenance and she only ever did low paid work, we did however have days out and a holiday to Butlins each year. Her one saving grace was she got the £5000 house in the divorce, so housing was secure and the mortgage was small.

Looking back we were very poor but baking would be done each Sunday and one room was always kept warm. We never went without food, I definitely feel families are worse off now. Maybe that's because expectations are higher though ?

Things were different. We used to go to my Nan's over the road for supper. At the time we didn't really think anything of it but of course I know now it was because they would feed us and both of my parents were out working for another few hours to make ends meet. My mum would finish at 8.30pm. Meals were things like minced beef in gravy with potatoes and tinned vegetables, a slice of corned beef with mash and beans, stew with lots of pearl barley and dumplings. Suet dumplings featured heavily! Bread and butter with every meal to bulk it out.

My grandparents would give us a chunk of fruit cake or angel cake so it felt like a real treat. I have fond memories of George Formby movies and angel cake sat in front of the fire.

Oh yeah

The UK was much poorer then, although much less division between rich and poor.

I knew we weren't well off but we never went without although looking back we only went on a couple of family holidays. I do remember if I asked for anything new I would be told to wait "until the end of the month" (by which time I would have forgotten - my mum wasn't silly!).

73 baby here. I really relate to your post because everybody we knew didn't have much either. There was no keeping up with the Jones' and yes, our baby boomer parents had grown up very poor and were not materialistic.

yes dm went to work
i had to go to the neighbours after school
i had to go to the butchers for mince as dm was embarrased about keep buying mince <<it was cheap>>

I was 10 in 1970 so the 70s really was my decade. We didn't seem to have money worries. My parents were going up in the world and doing much better than their own frugal, working class backgrounds. Dad has worked hard training to be a Civil Engineer, laboured on building sites and anything else while he was training. He then always worked a lot, sometimes more than one job, but they partied hard too. We started going to Spain on holiday in the 60s, we had a dishwasher, early colour telly etc

I grew up in the 70’s. My parents didn’t bring their money worrries to me, but I knew we had less money. In the early 7’s I had Free school meals, uniform vouchers, only drank water, we had holidays but very basic, no car, no fridge. Ice on the inside of windows, but they managed to pay the bills, so no debt collector or bailiffs. Life got a lot more comfortable in the late 70’s and 80’s as both retrained to different careeres my dad flew bombers in the war and unfortunately it didn’t train him for work in civilian life. It took a couple of decades To recover from that.

My parents , particularly my dad had grown up in real poverty in the 1920s/30s so were careful with money. Nothing was wasted. My mum was a seamstress so was able to earn extra money working from home. There was no spare money but we were fed and clothed. The problem for me, looking back, was my parents seemed to behave as if it was us children's fault that money was tight. Constant lectures day in day out about what we have and how we should be grateful we weren't starved and beaten on a daily basis, we had shoes on our feet etc....
We never dared answer back, just nodded in agreement and silently pledged to try and breathe less oxygen 😉

Yeah, Mum used to lose her hair with worry, she 'd left a very violent man, my so called dad wouldn't give her any money, despite a court order to do so.

Social wouldn't help because she was living in a house left to her by her parents, so told her to sell it, rent and then when all the money is gone, come back...

We used to shoplift, pick flowers to sell and go without, mum was a brilliant cook so could make a meal out of anything really but the thing i remember the most is the cold.