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. 😬

@Elleherd

You are a born writer.

Please, please use your gift.

Publish using another name.

Yes, I remember rows and upset over money. I also remember that we wouldn't have a sunday joint when times were tough as my parents couldn't afford any meat other than mince. Also I remember that my parents never ever went out and we never went out for a family meals. As for holidays - we visited grandparents.

Yes.

No my parents had a lot of help from one side of the family, enough to almost buy a house. My mum never had to work. Then they inherited a lot of money. We always had plenty to eat, holidays in seaside hotels every year, birthday parties, hobbies that cost money, lovely Christmas presents, pocket money. My dad had a car which wasn't that common then and we used to go on lots of picnics and outings in it. We were the first people who had a phone in our street.
They avoided central heating, thought it was the work of the devil so we froze to death once when went upstairs to bed in winter.

My parents spoke about being hard up all through my childhood. My dad had 2 jobs and my mum got a job in the 70's having previously been a SAHM. I was always being told we can't afford it if I asked for anything. I started working part time jobs to make pocket money from 13.

No. We were comfortable and happy. Both my parents worked. No money worries. We didn't have any spare money but ate well and lived well. No days out but one holiday in Spain - villa with a pool - we thought we'd died and gone till heaven.

Oh yes. Well not so much in the 70s but in the early 80s, when my dad lost his job that was linked to mines. He eventually found another but he hated it. In the meantime we were all out most evenings after school doing all kinds of delivery work and leafleting to keep the mortgage paid.

I worked for something better through education, only to watch my wages being devalued as minimum wage uplifted those lower wages to my level and tuition fees and resentment destroyed educated wages. Plus having to watch house prices quadruple, and having to move region to afford anything. In the end I am no better off than my parents were for all the extra work I put in.

@mathanxiety I doubt you could do that without being outed pretty fast. I doubt the police would be too happy if I started talking about police involvement in my childhood. Probation services wouldn't appreciate a light shone either.
The majority had nothing to do with my criminality and corruption and everything to do with theirs. It kept my mother out of prison and a sibling over the age of criminal responsibility from a record, and later Guardians and council employees from justice, and sharing my disgrace. There was scant reward and I doubt I'd be let open up those cans of worms somehow, and doubt I could bear being disbelieved. I think maybe plays allow things to be expressed without going into too much detail to make sense of events, and don't have to be 'owned' as autobiographical.

@JamMakingWannaBe I don't read or watch misery or horror but have heard of Angela's Ashes. I just read the Wiki on it. I realize I'm out of step with the world and I don't mean to be rude to anyone, because I realize it's normal and it's me who's not, but it's a total mystery to me why anyone would want to immerse themselves in that. It sounds like unmitigating misery.
I wouldn't want my children and grandchildren knowing too much. Inter generational damage and inherited misery worry me.

I have to go to work, but I'm really interested in @RosaGallica's post. The idea of leaflet piecework to support a mortgage is a revelation to me.

I would love her (or others in the same boat) to expand on "I worked for something better through education, only to watch my wages being devalued as minimum wage uplifted those lower wages to my level and tuition fees and resentment destroyed educated wages. Plus having to watch house prices quadruple, and having to move region to afford anything. In the end I am no better off than my parents were for all the extra work I put in."

This bit particularly interests:"to watch my wages being devalued as minimum wage uplifted those lower wages to my level and tuition fees and resentment destroyed educated wages."

Yes ,I'm not sure I understand @RosaGallica 's comments .

I hope I'm misunderstanding I worked for something better through education, only to watch my wages being devalued as minimum wage uplifted those lower wages to my level.
And I can't follow tuition fees and resentment destroyed educated wages.

I read Rosa's post to mean she had a senior role, perhaps in public service - as minimum wage increases came along, management role wages have not increased so people with significantly more responsibility have hourly rates which are pennies more than those on minimum wage.

You see it in the care industry - carers on minimum wage, senior staff with huge responsibility on maybe £11 per hour - barely more. Also retail - shelf stackers on minimum wage, asst store managers on £11 per hour.

Don't get me wrong, I think all care workers deserve far higher wages.

Not really the 70's but definitely the 80's.
Dad was on the dole. At least in the 70's he always had work.

To some extent I agree. My parents grew up in semis, one privately owned, one council. Mum worked as a secretary, later promoted to office manager, Dad for the electricity board as was, so skilled workers. I remember my dad going to night school. They scrimped pretty hard for a three bed detatched in the midlands.

I went to uni, and got a degree and ended up as an office manager in a job which didn’t need a degree (and didn’t pay for it!) and DH worked in sales, which also didn’t need a degree. So if both my parents I had stopped there, we would have ended up about the same, despite the degree. I might well have been worse off, because dad could have done well if he’d had stuck to his trade, I think.

Neither my parents or I settled down there, but if we had, I might have felt like that too. The difference is I was able to retrain and we took some ghastly risks because we didn’t get married and try for kids until I was thirty. My parents lost it all, split up, remarried partners with different skills and we all were massively advantaged by buying multiple houses and got lifted by the housing market. Although they could start over because had us young and we were independent. Oddly, we are now at a fairly similar level again. Lucky timing, that’s all.

All the time. They would argue about money when they thought we couldn’t hear. Whenever we needed anything we had to wait until the parents looked at the budget. And we all had our shoes stretched over a broom handle to get more wear from them.

To a degree yes, I remember my Dad bought us (me and my db) an ice cream from the ice cream van one weekend, and he rode his pushbike to work for a week as he couldn't afford the petrol. Mum would make us clothes and Dad was always fixing the car.

I also remember that we only holidayed in my grandparents tatty old static caravan in Wales as we couldn't afford anything else, we never ate out etc. but it wasn't an unhappy childhood

I was talking to my df the other day and he mentioned when the interest rates went up to 15% there was a definite possibility of us losing the house. He said he got a bonus from work which he'd never had before and was really pissed off because the iron broke and they had to use the bonus to replace the iron.

No they kept worries from us. I remember it being cold. We were relatively well off, both parents had full time public sector jobs, but we lived frugally compared to how some people live now.

That said they had enough for them and us to do sport or other hobbies and be social, but we never ate out, had days out, holidays, or takeaways, had a coffee or bought a sandwich, and the spend on technology just didn't happen in the same way then and we used the library.

I remember us moving from council to our ‘own’ home at the time of the jubilee. They borrowed to get it and worked hard to have it. The early 80s we were fairly ok, perhaps comfortably off. We had holidays abroad, house was redecorated in Laura Ashley (v of the time) and I had lots of lovely clothes etc that my older sisters hadn’t. Late 80s, dad put all his eggs in one basket and lost almost everything. I remember that being worrying. When they divorced, mum was v hard up. We had to sell up, she moved further away from the town I grew up and I got a bedsit. I stayed a year, then had to move to my mum’s which I didn’t like.
My early to mid twenties (late nineties) I had every store card, loans etc, madness.
I think now homes and living standards are different, social media expectations play a large part of that.
As I have been skint as an adult, I can over stock on food and treats, I saw the covid purchasing as a bit of a challenge, like a prepper.
We live in a fairly affluent area, and we are certainly the least well off of other parents. I’m the only mum to work full time. Ds has never been abroad but does always get lots of presents and a fuss at Xmas and birthdays.

No because both my parents worked FT with my Mother having a very well paid job. She was the only woman manager in the UK for a global firm and faced overt sexism from colleagues. But she was a bit of a trailblazer and had lived under apartheid in South Africa as her ex husband had been sent there with his job and had been very outspoken about it, she got prosecuted for letting her black maid sit in the front seat of her car. She was then widowed when I was almost 14 so I ended up running the house due to her career. I remember being given cash to go off and buy the weekly shop, my friend used to come and help and our weekly reward was any cake we wanted. Taught me about budgeting very young, I never had a list. She had taught me how to cook very young, make jam, bake and all that, never used scales. I still don’t and it still bother DH after almost 30 years as he is a scientist and measures things by micrograms.

I do remember her worrying about the shortages and the strikes and hating the nightlights in the bathroom because of the powercuts. She was a complete Tory so despised it all. Her own Mother had been a strike breaker in 1926 and driven a bus through a picket line, I mean not many women could even drive back then. I of course was also a difficult woman, I became a Union steward.

Very much so. I can remember having to hide from the rent man. Nothing was ever paid before we had the “red” bill.

Yes, 70s and 80s, I remember GPs having to give DM cash to help with bills. Although we were never actually told money was an issue because it was apparently rude to discuss or ask questions about anything financial so it was all hidden under a cloud of secrecy and we knew not to mention it or ask about it..

DM would snap at us for asking for anything new, and say we couldn't afford it, but would then buy other things she wanted or thought we should have, so it was quite confusing.