What made you realise you might have been poor growing up ?

[LanaL]

As the title suggests - when you think back to your childhood is there anything that makes you realise you were poor ?

When I was younger at Christmas , we didn’t have stockings at the end of our beds , we had carrier bags . Like Asda carrier bags . I loved it, I always found it magical to wake up and Santa had put presents in our carrier bag!

Again at Christmas , every individual thing was wrapped - I always remember having mountains of presents , but looking back lots of them were cheap and small ( not that it mattered to me ! ) one of my favourite presents that we used to get each year was a paper folder full of plain white paper. This folder would be decorated with our name and drawings of things we liked ( I remember one year it was decorated with drawings of hedgehogs because I loved hedgehogs ) and separately would be a packet of felt pens wrapped up . I loved that , my mom and dad would sit with us and we would all draw and colour together !

Asking for snacks / drinks - we never , ever would have dreamed of going to get a bag of crisps without asking. We could make squash but fizzy pop had to be asked for . Also - milk ! It was like a luxury , never could we just pour a glass of milk ! Very rare that we actually ever drank a glass of milk . Looking back I think my parents struggled but you don’t realise that at the time . I’m the total opposite now , my children do have to ask for unhealthy snacks so I can limit them but there are always plenty and they don’t eat loads so I never really say no and things like fruit or food - like if they want toast or a sandwich - they can help themselves .

Pudding / desert - I always have something available , it may not always be a cake but there is always something - cookies , muffins , yoghurts etc always something they can have after dinner but as a child we never had it and if ever we happened to - mom had got a cake or baked - it was a huge treat .

we never ate out. I can’t remember a single time we ever went out to a restaurant or a pub for food . I don’t have a single memory of going for a meal with my family as a child and , actually, I remember arranging a meal for my 21st after I had moved out and I’m pretty certain I remember thinking that this was the first time I had been for a meal with my family. One of my brothers weren’t there so I don’t think I’ve ever sat with my parents and all my siblings at a meal .

I never saw my mom in new clothes until I was an adult and her and my dad had seperated. I remember her wearing very random t shirts, that had been my dads or I know someone had given to her and my dads t shirts were work ones , he always seemed to be in work clothes .

I remember some of my clothes being what people had given to us , or my aunt worked in a video store and she always had merchandise so i remember having t shirts with film logos on .

Shopping - my mom would go out most days with her shopping trolley , walking , to the high street and she would do this most days with a list that has prices next to each item ( exact prices , like £1.59 ) I now realise that she was on that tight a budget that she counted every penny , went with the trolley to get what she could and walk home as she couldn’t afford taxis or buses. She walked everywhere ! My dad had cars on and off but would work during the day .

Holidays - we went on holiday once as a family that I remember , vaguely , as I was about 6 . I went on holidays with family friends and family but not as a family .

My mom never had her hair done . I vaguely remember her having a perm once , that’s it. She used to shave my dads head , and my brothers . Me and my sister would have our fringe cut by my mom and a family friend would cut our hair. But I do remember when I was in secondary school mom would take me for haircuts at the hairdresser. I wonder know how much she had to budget for that .

As a parent now , I realise how much my parents struggled and how they sacrificed for us because in light of the above this is what I also remember :

Every Christmas my brothers would have the latest console and I would have what I had asked for , along with loads of small presents that I now realise were to bulk up .

Once we were in secondary school - our PE tracksuits were named brand , always from the lady over the road who ran a catalogue . Our coats in secondary school were branded - again catalogue- as were my brothers shoes . At our ages it was “rock port “ or “ kickers “ they always had them . Our bags were what others had . My shoes were what all the other girls were wearing . No matter what clothes we may have had at home or the budget they were on they made sure that we never went to school in anything that could get us teased . The fact this was from catalogues makes me realise they must have really struggled to do that .

We went on lots of picnics ! To local parks , and we would have to go to the high street to go to “ kwik save “ to get the things , it would be own brand , but my mom would make it so exciting ! She would play games with us on the long walk , she would get some nice cakes , treat us to cans of pop .

At home she would sit playing consoles with my brothers , playing with my toys with me .

I remember being surprised one day and told I was going on holiday that day with my moms friends and their children . It was the best thing ever and I remember a few days before we had gone around charity shops and had got me some new clothes- I didn’t think to myself that we were buying second hand things I just felt really appreciative that I was being treated !

We clearly didn’t have a lot . But I never thought that we were poor because my parents ( mainly my mom ) did everything in their power to make sure we lived a good , normal life .

Think I want to go and give my mom and dad cuddle now !

Well I wore a lot of secondhand clothes
Had to bake the bus into town
I was never allowed games consoles
Or anything branded. No matter how hard I begged I was never allowed a Nike jumper or kickers or anything the "cool" kids at school had. My shoes came from shoezone.
I could count on one hand the number of foreign holidays we had, I mean we always had a holiday each year but it was always in the UK.
I wasn't allowed free access to snacks.
We didn't have sky or internet until I was 15 (and then only because it came with my dad's job!)
I remember our old beige Skoda and some other really horrid bangers of a car
I remember always feeling like I didn't have enough and I couldn't wait to get a job, earn some money and buy myself some nice, brand new clothes.

Does that all make me a poor child? My parents also owned a 4 bed detached house that would be worth almost half a million today and on one income as well as they could afford for my mum to be a sahm. So the opposite of you OP - I felt poor but in hindsight we really really weren't.

If you're a child of the 80s or early 90s that was just average. You have described working class life, not poverty.

Yes. I started babysitting when I was 13/14. It was just a few quid for the evening but I'd give it to my mum or use it for school dinners so she didn't have to give me the 50p a day. It felt good to be contributing.

I would agree with others - this just sounds like standard working class family life a few decades ago. I think generally everyone's standard of living has gone up so much so that normal ways of life in the 80s and 90s would now be classed as poor.

Not saying that people aren't living in poverty now. Just that standards have changed.

Yes it was how things were but I don't think we can say it's not poverty when people can't pay their bills or properly feed their kids and people just did without basic things.

If we say poverty is not being able to meet your basic needs then a large proportion of the population were very poor back then and we just saw it as normal because we lived on estates where we were all the same. We didn't expect to have anything more than we had iyswim.

We were only poor when I was very young (in the 70s when my dad was made redundant). I didn’t really notice…we still had enough food and I ate like a sparrow anyway. But even when we had a bit more money, my mum was always very frugal. People now have higher expectations (me very much included) and it’s harder being poor now because there’s more inequality. “If I hadn’t seen such riches I could live with being poor” comes to mind.

In the 80s people lived differently….we had a Chinese takeaway a couple of times a year and maybe ate out at a pub once a year or so. When we went into town on a Saturday we’d have chips but there weren’t many cafes or restaurants. People didn’t go to coffee shops. Most people were still eating basic English food….it was only in the early 90s that we started cooking Italian meals and my FIL called it ‘foreign muck’ and said the smell gave him heartburn🤣.

I think also back then you either had the cash or you didn't and if you didn't you saved up or just accepted you couldn't afford something, or you rented it like us with our TV.

Nowadays everything's on credit, be it credit cards or bnpl, pay in 3 sort of things and it's very much have it now then work out how to pay it off rather than save up for it then buy it.

I am from a household where we knew we were poor at the time (mainly grew up in the 90s, a little late 80s). Council flat, dad left us in serious debt, mother tried but was unwell herself and spent a lot of time caring for her unwell mother.

Clothing was gifted from family friends, as was furniture etc.

We regularly ran out of food on a Saturday or Sunday and gas & electric (key meters, payday was monday). Weekends were cold, dark and hungry. At one point we didn't have gas for well over a year, and only had gas heating.

I remember having a new bed bought for me by some organisation or the other when I was in infant school. I can't remember what I had before, but I loved that bed. It was still my bed when I moved out at 16.

Christmas and birthdays would be a few items that were needed and a couple of cheap luxuries, such as toys or bath stuff etc. bars of chocolate wrapped up too.

My grandfather took us out for a meal once a year or so. And I remember him taking me to the cinema once, a theme park once and the zoo. So I did have fun too! He also paid for all school trips etc so I didn't miss out in that way.

I can remember having a small amount of money when one of my grandparents died, and it felt magnificent to buy some clothes in a shop. It's was only a few bits but I treasured them.

Expect for a very occasional bag of chips to share I never had a takeout until I was about 15.

Luckily we are pretty comfortable now, and my children have no real idea what it means to live in poverty. However we are very careful to teach them the value of money.

Plimsolls not shoes for school.
Not having wellies for a primary school 'field day'. My Mum gave me her own boots & stuffed the toes with newspaper. We had 1 'meal out' before I left home aged 18. Christmas gifts could be practical - remember being given slippers &, one year aged about 8, bedroom curtains. I knew we were poor as we were usually cold & often hungry.

Coffee shops like Starbucks weren’t around until 1998 but you did have donut shops in USA and UK which were popular. People did go to cafes but often for meals, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Wimpy was popular but wasn’t everyday.

No shops like Primark for cheap clothes, I’m sure markets were more popular for cheap clothes (and knock offs).

My username keeps switching between 2 I have - I actually thought I was locked out of one but I’m not clearly! So I’m OP and so is @Scottymom !

I certainly don’t think we lived in poverty and there were definitely people worse off but I don’t think we were comfortable either , I would say poor maybe everyone’s definition of poor is different. My parents were definitely just scraping by . They never owned a house and never will , unless something drastically changed. They are seperated now and my mom lives in a flat , she works all the time ( never did growing up , she stopped when she had children and always thought she would never be able to work and wouldn’t have been able to work around my dads hours anyway so I’m really happy that she now does and she enjoys it too. She’s not on any benefits now , whereas we were always on benefits and she’s really happy with that. She’s still just as frugal even though she doesn’t need to be as much but she has no debt and she does now buy herself clothes and get her hair done which I’m so happy about ! )

Thinking back really helps to give me a reality check sometimes . I’m in a lot of debt - a history of buying things I can’t afford to be honest , always trying to keep up with people and go out for meals , go shopping etc when I can’t afford it and using credit cards etc . We had a big financial hit to us last year and it’s meant I’ve got into arrears with bills … but sometimes I’ll have some self pity moments where I’m thinking “ I work full time and yet i never have a penny spare “ but then I think of how I actually live . I have a car , I drive , I probably could save money by shopping how my mom did but I don’t I just go to asda. I never don’t have food , I get my hair done , I’ve never had to buy my children second hand clothes …. Don’t get me wrong , I borrow from Peter to pay Paul - but it makes me realise that I am not “poor” . It’s gave me a better outlook on things

Yes I’ve thought that before ! I’ve never had to buy second hand clothes , but a lot of clothes are from Primark , M&M , Asda etc … so they are cheap and would probably be the same price as charity shop clothes ! Had primark been around when I was a child that’s certainly where we would have had clothes from !

Does anyone remember the EU (I think?) surplus food that was distributed to those in need? I remember the stewed beef in tins with blue labels.

I remember my mother making all sorts from it, and we ate it gladly. Although tinned meat does give me the shivers now, although I am sure there is plenty of perfectly nice stuff out there!

OP, your childhood sounds a lot like mine!

I never really thought of us as poor and I suppose I don't now. Just that money was probably a bit tight and my mum grew up in a poor family and so probably had some frugal habits leftover from that - she was pretty young when she had us (21) so maybe not a huge of experience outside her own childhood.

But we had plastic bags for stockings and decorated them each year with felt pens and stuck on shiny paper.

No food or drink was available for us just to take when we liked - except apples and bananas (but only so long as it wasn't more than one a day). But again, I think this was just about different expectations and money not being abundent.

We went on about 3 or 4 holidays but they were of the 'tent in the Lake District in rainy season' variety.

But it was a very happy childhood and I wouldn't swap it for the world.

Free school meals

I remember patching the soles of my shoes with bicycle inner tube patches, frequently gifted to me by friends. They would last 2 weeks on average where I had the bliss of dry feet.

Your parents, your mum especially sound bloody awesome. This post gas actually made me well up a bit.

It’s all about food really. If you could eat whatever you wanted, you were never poor.

We were only a bit hard up, in the 80s, but I remember being so cross I was only allowed one cup of fruit juice a week and at dinner it was one slice of bacon each and a potato, Mum got so annoyed when I complained I wanted more bacon or sneakily took an extra cup of juice cos that meant no juice for someone else that week.

For me, it was when I started going to friends homes and they had towels and toilet paper.

We had a bed sheet that we all used for a towel and then hung up to dry before being put back on the bed.

And we would have free newspapers and we’d use this instead of toilet roll.

Your post is lovely OP.

My own DD has grown up with very little but I have tried very hard to make sure that she’s had a good life, just like my mum did with us.

My clothes were second or third hand until I was about 13. My toys were always well used before I got them.

We had enough food but all fruit & veg was home grown and everything was used up, nothing ever thrown away. Meat was once a week on Sunday, cold on Monday, minced or similar thereafter and when it ran out we had chips. Lots of chips from the homegrown spuds. Bubble & squeak with an egg on top, cheese on toast.

No car, there had been one but it went and we had bikes.

Everything that could be re-used was kept. Bags from cereal boxes, bread wrappers, used for packing sandwiches in for lunch.

Clothes were repaired until there was more repair than garment. I had one pair of boots for winter which lasted until I outgrew them and they leaked, my feet were often soaked and freezing cold. Bedsheets were cut up and resewn 'side to middle' when they wore through in the centre, and when they finally gave up, the good bits were made into pillowcases.

Agreed, we were wealthy by any measure. Parents had inherited wealth and very well paid jobs too and we had a private education, a cleaner and au pair and a large house

But we never really ate out unless travelling somewhere.

We had ice inside the windows because they were all single glazed.

We only drove if it was actually too far to walk. If it was somewhere in the village you walked there, no matter what the weather was like
.
some of the stories on here are genuinely eye opening for me though.

I knew at the time. Last week my DGD said she never gets anything, she’d spent £165 on trainers. And £87 on cosmetics. She wanted an iPad . I had to laugh. I never had new clothes until I started work.

Yes I'm aged mid 50's and things were tight particularly in the 80s recession but I wouldnt say we were poor. But we didn't eat out except on very special occasions (thinking back now I suspect my grandmother paid for most of those day trips) and didn't have a foreign holiday until I was in my teens, which was perfectly standard amongst my friendship group.
Dad had a car for work so Mum walked everywhere too including shopping daily. She was a lot fitter and slimmer than I was at that age!