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. 😬

dm having a clear out and found she was off sick for a month in 1976
she had statutory sick pay
£7.80 per week!!!!

I was born in the early 70s and money wasn't a problem. Or if it was, it was never mentioned. My mum was a SAHM and has never worked since we were born. My dad was a CEO (still is). We had a nice big house and garden and several cars and ponies and dogs and went to private schools. We didn't get much pocket money (though didn't particularly need much, as we didn't go anywhere other than record shops) and didn't go on holiday abroad (because of the animals). I think expectations were also lower - we didn't eat out much, didn't have the heating on unless it was properly freezing, didn't go for expensive days out, didn't constantly buy new clothes etc. My student DC think it's completely normal to meet friends for lunch in restaurants, go out for coffee, spend a fortune on takeaways, pubs etc, and want to have the heating on if it's less than about 25 degrees. We occasionally had Kentucky Fried Chicken as a big event.

Sadly I somehow failed to recreate my carefree childhood in adult life. My DC will definitely remember me worrying about money, especially now.

Yes. In the 70s and through the whole of the 80s too, through a range of changing circumstances. Things were very, very tight.
It’s affected a lot of decisions I’ve made as an adult and particularly as a parent.

No, but in hindsight we weren't well off at all. My Mum had a part time job when I was about 10 which meant coming home to empty house after school. New stuff was only ever for Birthdays/Christmas but I treasured every thing I had. I didn't feel anything negative but I expect a lot of my friends families were probably in the same boat.

Mmm,born start of the 50s here .We were definitely poor ,poorer than those around us .Parents definitely struggled and miserable .Horrid childhood .
Going to university with a grant (nothing from parents obvs) was ,as they say ,very heaven .
And holiday jobs were plentiful for students and new graduates .

Constantly. My mum was widowed in the mid sixties and left with debts and a mortage. It was just her and I after 19743 when my sibling moved out, and she was constantly stressed, trying to work and get me looked after. Awful times

The food was terrible then. I made some 70's/80's dinners a while back and they were sick making. All the mentions on here of suet dumplings, liver, corned beef etc. We are lucky to at least have a better choice now.

Yes my Nan and Grandad used to buy our winter coats for our Christmas present. One year we had to hsve them early because it was so cold. My Dad built all our furniture. We didn't have a TV or a telephone in the house until the 80's. They were happy times though. We were always fed!

My mum always worked. Only as an adult did I realise that .y dad's mental health was precarious. We always had food on the table, basic clothes, heat. Never had holidays in any form (again in hindsight prob down to my Dads mental health as well as money).
Common memory with my friends was how angry parents got over anything being broken, cups glasses or similar. Or stuff getting spilt on carpets.

I lived through it all as a child and yes it was a huge contentious issue in our household. We nearly had the house repossessed and it’s caused me to be incredibly careful with money as an adult, as a result.

Yes. Definitely. DM was a single mum by then (divorced my dad) and she had to rent out rooms in our house and we were mostly veggie and as far as I recall not many others had lots of money either.

I was born and raised in California where we had (still have, I believe) a big aerospace and defense industry, the industry my dad was in. And in the 70s, that industry took a big hit. I don't remember my parents ever arguing about money. I remember them talking worryingly over coffee at the kitchen table because every week that my dad dodged his pink slip was another week spent worrying about its inevitable arrival. Everyone and their dog was being laid off. This coincided with the gas crisis. I just remember that number plates ending with odd numbers could get petrol on certain days, even numbers on others; the even-odd system that's been implemented in various countries during different gas crises.
Mum is Irish and arrived in the States with very little. The Ireland she left was a very poor Ireland and the young people had left in droves.
Dad was a refugee from Poland whose family had lost everything and each other in the war and the Holocaust. I have no relations on his side. They all died.
So, together, they handled our times of being poor very stoically. And we, amazingly, never went hungry during our hard times. I think if you're Irish-Polish-Czech you appreciate how much oats, potatoes, and dumplings keep a belly full!
My parents grew up hungry, particularly my dad who grew up watching the value of life disintegrate before his eyes. He was mentally so so sound, broken in many ways, yet an utterly sound, stable rock to us, regardless of what life hurtled in his direction. I really only knew we had so little because of what the neighbourhood children said to me! If they'd said nothing, I'm not sure I'd have really noticed we were poor. I just thought that my friends had more than us because their parents were American, not European. This was just how my child's mind sort of worked things out.

Yes, born in 1970. By the standards of today we were poor, but back then it was normal. Mum knew the prices in all the local shops and would walk/bicycle round all of them to get the cheapest, must have been exhausting. Wasting food was a sin (leftover from war/food rationing) but mum was a good cook who could stretch what she had to feed us. Clothes came from her catalogue and were never trendy so plenty of playground teasing. No holidays apart from one year when we were lent a caravan for a week.

on the other hand, there wasn’t the same social pressure/expectation to have “stuff” and people that did like to ”keep up with the Jones’s” were mocked - think a working class version of Margot in the Good Life.

Not at the time because I was born in the late 70s but my father was in the military and he pursued postings abroad to countries where the pound was stronger than the local currency. He told me when I was older and moaning about moving so often. Most of the 80s was spent abroad and thus we had a good standard of living and they could afford to buy a big house when we returned to the UK.

"but there was one key difference to now - back then, mortgage affordability was calculated on the basis of one income, not two,"

This is not true, or at least not for all Building Societies or Banks.

Our first mortgage was in the 1970s; not only based on 2 incomes, but we had to be married, as well.
Friends of ours (a couple), the wife was obliged to sign something saying she would not give up work for children for at least 3 years; (something I thought ridiculous, as no one could guaranteee against redundancies anyway, and it was easier to get rid of employees in those days.)
(The right to return after pregnancy was only just coming in, towards the end of the 1970s)
Secondly, there was a time when building societies were restricted in their lending to only first time buyers (I think they had a limit each year), and this applied even though we had been saving with the same BS for many years. (ie, when a few years later, we had to remortgage, we were subsequently refused outright, because it was not our first mortgage).
This was a second mortgage, and so I eventually applied thorugh the same BS, but one in London, near where I worked, which had not exceeded their limit for that year.
It is generally assumed that in the past people had a single job for their entire working life. Althiugh this may apply to some people, it definitely did not apply to us. It was much easier to 'get rid' of people, and although there was nothing then described as the 'gig economy', there were, just as there is now, temporary staff, who had very few working rights.
Fixed mortgages were much rarer in those days, and it meant that repayments fluctuated with the inteerst rate, which as I still have ALL my mortgage statements, I know they reached 15.25 percent, although this was only for a short while (mainly 10, 11, 12 percent).

60s/early 70s childhood here. Money was obviously tight but mum was very good at hiding it. House we lived in (a big Edwardian terraced house, rented from a very large local private landlord) was always cold, only one outside loo for a family of seven, and the bath (shared water on bath night) was in the kitchen. I believe my parents were offered the house at £2,500 (in around 1970/71) but they couldn't afford it. I saw the house for sale recently at £1.3 million. 🤣

Yes, and my dad's a professional but in a traditionally poorly paid profession.
We always went to "stay with friends" for holidays so that was usually driving to the other end of the country and sleeping on the other children's floors.
Mum made her own bread because it was cheaper, and all our clothes ditto, and went back to teaching when I started secondary.
Lots of things were "too expensive" including butter IIRC.
I remember staying in a proper hotel on holiday for probably the first time when I was about 18 - in France - I must have passed my driving test because they wanted me to drive so they could taste wine!
My grandparents lived overseas and they always paid our fares so we could go and see them (they were much better off, and less hit by recession where they were).

[Answering OP only, haven't read the full thread]
Yes, a lot. Inflation was sky high in the early 70s and my parents, after much anxious calculation had taken on a mortgage to buy a new-build house, which probably wiped out most of their savings. My Dad had what looked like a decent job but it was in retail management and not very well paid. My Mum was a teacher who had done the odd bit of supply work when we were very young but once we were both at primary school she went back to a permanent job, albeit part-time to start with. Then the UK entered a period of financial cuts (probably late 70s when the Labour government had to go to the IMF for a hand out) and it was clear part-time posts were going to be first for the chop, so when the chance came to move up to full-time she took it. Her salary did help a lot. We got our first colour TV in the mid 70s, rapidly followed by central heating, an automatic washing machine and a few years later by a fitted kitchen. Luxury!

We were well off compared to most, none of the mams worked, all of the dad's did, this was the 1960s\70s council estate.

No car, no phone, holidays meant a week at a relatives house. Meals out at the pub once a year, a big treat.

Having said that, rent was cheap, only fuel and food and clothes to find after that, I never thought we were poor. Dad got a few hours at the pub Sunday evening but he had to be in by 9.

There seemed to be two or three types of family locally or at my primary school.

Richer (so families with both mum and dad in jobs or good jobs and living in normal semi detached house), these families afforded things like VHS recorder, soda streams, holidays to USA, newer cars etc.

Average - probably working class/council house - they still seemed to afford nicer toys, newer clothes, the DM either didn't work or worked part time.

Below average - definitely dirty, didn't eat a lot or if they did it seemed like they didn't. Torn/dirty clothes.

Certain families had central heating others had gas fires or oil heaters like we did. No phone, used phone box. A few families lived in flats in big houses or sometimes one or two older grandmas moved in/lived with families with kids.

There were benefits but don't seem to be as many as now. Credit cards/loan/hire purchase were around but credit cards didn't seem to be used as much.

I think I was actually lucky as DM trained for a job, got one.

Yep - I was five in 1970

very little money - fortunately we had free school dinners. Evening meal was often just bread and butter maybe with a boiled egg if we were lucky

often we had to hide behind the sofa to pretend we weren’t in when the milkman came round for his money

House was always cold - one gas fire 🔥 n the living room. No heating in any other rooms.

one incident I always remember was my mum sending me to corner shop to buy chocolate digestives as we had some visitors coming round. For whatever reason they didn’t show up - I then had to take them back to the shop and get the money back. I was gutted as I’d never had chocolate biscuits before :(

Didn't grow up in the UK but Scandinavia. We were poor and my.mum was very open about it. Too open imo I didn't share as much w my children when they grew up.

Yes definitely. We weren't as badly off as some on this thread but my dad was a teacher and they didn't get paid much in those days (or now of course) and my mum didn't work till much later on. And there were 4 kids, I wore a lot of hand me downs 😂
People were better at being frugal in those days I think because so many had lived through WWII.
My mum baked and made us clothes and she was a really good cook. We never went out to eat, that I can remember, until my oldest sister was at uni.
Our car broke down once, when we were coming back from visiting her and I remember being really upset and anxious because I knew it would cost a lot to get it repaired and I was really scared that we wouldn't have any money. God knows how they ended up paying for it!

No, but both of my parents worked FT (mum did supply teaching from when I was at playschool, dad 'up the works') and then they had their own business selling bedding plants, hanging baskets, and other bits. Before mum had been able to work more they did B&B and dad sold fruit and veg at the works that he got wholesale as well as doing the plants.
Even then, I guess things were frugal - we never had food out or takeaways, mum made our clothes, no holidays apart from going to the grandparents

One of the outcomes for me was that when my own DC came along I went a bit mas at Christmas, because I remembered that feeling of really wanting something and knowing there was no hope of getting it. I definitely overcompensated with them.