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. 😬

When I first met my future in-laws in the very early 1980s I was amused and baffled by the fact that they had quite a large TV for the times, but it was black and white. Quite a few people still had black and white sets, but mostly because they only had space and/or money for a little portable set. In this case, my husband-to-be explained to me that it was because his Dad refused, out of sheer tightness*, to pay the higher licence fee that was due if you had a colour TV. I seem to recall we watched a nature documentary while we were there. Underwhelming!

When that TV conked out, it proved impossible to get a new b&w one, so he was forced to cough up for the colour licence, and our weekends there became marginally less dull.

*They weren't struggling financially. One reason for that was that he was extremely careful with money.

Born 1970. I was always aware that we weren't well-off. It was just part of life. I had no expectation that I could have what I wanted.

When I first met my future in-laws in the very early 1980s I was amused and baffled by the fact that they had quite a large TV for the times, but it was black and white. Quite a few people still had black and white sets

We had a black and white set in use until the early 90s. It worked by a tuning knob, adjusting the aerial on the back and thumping it when it still didn't work. Three volumes: Off, intermittent and too loud...
We got our first video player in 1995 which was very exciting.

Both my parents worked F/T in the 70s and my mother had mental health issues that meant there were periods that she couldn't work. I began working too and contributed to the household finances. Things were tight. That was the norm for many families.

When we first married we rented a TV as buying one was way out of range.

I remember having money worries as a child n the 80's. When my uncle lost his business the whole family rallied round and sent what the could.

They wrote to everyone in their Christmas round robin to say thank you, and that the church also thanked them for the third of the money they tithed to the church.

The falling out among the family never really recovered!

When we first married we rented a TV as buying one was way out of range we had a Radio Rentsp on our estate, pretty much no other shops just a radio rentals and a rip off grocery shop.

This thread’s really brought back quite a lot I hadn’t thought about in a long time, thank you everyone 😃 I spoke to my dad earlier, about when he and my mum first got the mortgage on the house, and he said “we were bloody terrified!” 😂

I remember TVs with a slot for coins so you paid when you wanted to watch it, as an alternative to monthly rental. It was more expensive than monthly rental.

Yes. I was born in 1967. I know my mom sometimes didn’t eat so we could. I know the house was cold. Tbh nobody had much more do I was a bit oblivious.

the current situation is making me anxious.

@Ocularpatdown I do think that people who went bankrupt and lost so much must have suffered more than those of us who were in families who never made it good .

This is all so interesting ,I'm fascinated by the glimpses into the upbringing of posters whose names I'm familiar with .
And by the different circumstances affecting people .So many in houses ,even tiny 2 bed ones .Not so many mentions of living in a flat on a council estate .Maybe that's more prevalent in the older urban generation ?

@mathanxiety I'm shivering reading your post .No hot water bottles or heated bricks or stones ?

And no mention yet of Youth Hostelling ? That's what we did for our not so jolly hols .

No, never. Single parent, professional.
People have ridiculously overstretched themselves now.

@peridito we went youth hostelling. It was incredibly cheap and you had to do chores. They seemed full of people who were really skint. At tea time everyone seemed to be making cheap food like beans on toast. And hostels then did not provide paid meals.

Oh and yes the lack of money was a source of friction and concern ,my mum was always unhappy .I don't ever remember her being happy .
She got a cleaning job but kept it a secret from my dad .

And I remember my dad taking us to the pictures (a v unusual event ) .I walked home alone (I was 7 ) and missed the film because I suddenly felt v sick .My mother's concern was not for my health but whether the money had been spent on my cinema ticket ,it hadn't.
She snapped at me ,I was heartbroken as I so so wanted to see the film , Tom Thumb .I think she apologised later to me after I'd taken myself to bed .

And in the 80s too. I remember my mum going through the bills with me. My dad was hopeless which drive her mad.

@antelopevalley a fellow YHAer !
I can remember being in some far flung YHA with a stream for washing in .We did have a meal of sorts provided , i think it was too off the beaten track for dad to carry food for all 6 of us and maybe it was a special arrangement .We had soup ,Mulligatawny. It consisted of curry powder mixed with hot water .Yum .

It was pretty normal to have 2 jobs back then I think, both my parents did but they had a lovely big detached to finance.

My parents rented a TV until long after I left home (end of the 70s). No idea how it compared in cost terms, but (a) getting the capital together to buy a set would have been an issue earlier in their marriage and (b) the huge advantage of renting from Radio Rentals was that if the set went wrong (crisis! it was on all the time once we were all home from school/work until bedtime/shutdown) an engineer would be sent asap and if he couldn't fix it he'd come back with a replacement set from the back of his van. Every couple of years an engineer would turn up with a new set as a standard part of the contract. They did go wrong quite often back then. What seemed to happen from the 80s on was that they became much more reliable and also cheaper, so there was no longer any reason to rent instead of buy.

Born in 1981. I don't remember parents talking about money but we were broke. I remember my Dad's uncle died and we were all called to the house. It was mid January and they had no money for the bus. They put myself and sister in the pram and walked 7 miles in the freezing cold. We had no central heating until the 90s,a little heater was moved from room to room. Clothes were dried around the open fire and the sofa would be pulled closer to it in the evening time. I regularly remember them looking down the back of the sofa to get the odd back of chips from the chipper. It didn't affect my childhood,I was warm and fed and loved.

We were fortunate to have relatives we could stay with in the summer. We lived a long way from them so we'd have wanted to see them anyway, but they lived in a place it was actually quite pleasant to visit. Most years my parents also scraped together enough money for us to spend a week or a fortnight in a static caravan or a chalet or a tiny little self-catering place. Always in the UK. By the later 1970s my brother was asking every year why we couldn't go to Spain on a package holiday like his schoolfriends, and my parents were frowning and saying that people should get to know their own country first before travelling abroad. We all knew this was just a way of saving face. The cost of taking all four of us abroad was beyond them.

Born mid-1970's, my parents didn't talk or argue about money in my hearing, but they were v. frugal as they were desperate to pay off their mortgage ASAP as interest rates were so high. I remember going to the building society with my Mum in the early 1980's to make the final payment. She laughed afterwards and said she wanted to celebrate, but she'd literally used up their last pound on the payment!

We also did YHA holidays, they were fun!

No. Years later they told me they did but we were never aware. Not sure if that was because everyone else lived a similar life. So we didn't appear to be deprived compared to neighbours.

I was a parent in the 70s, children born 1972, 73 and 78. My husband was a teacher and I was sahm but we were always short of money. We didn't live near family, and no child care available, so I didn't want to go back to work but just had to in order to pay the mortgage. I was a nurse so fortunate in that I could do relief work . Still look back in horror to doing night duty and coming home to look after a 3 year old all day. I used to go to bed same time as the children on those days.

I don’t remember any money worries; we always had a UK camping or caravan holiday every year and nice things for the house, and great Christmases, but weren’t particularly ‘well off’ . My mum went back to work after she had my sister, in 1975, after havin been stay-at-home since having me in 1964.