What mundane item/experience was a luxury in your childhood home?

[FirstFallopians]

I remember being jealous that mum and dad had pillow protectors under their pillowcases. I thought they must be the height of decadence until we got an IKEA and I saw they were literally £1.50 each.

Real butter instead of margarine.

Ordering a takeaway and getting it delivered instead of picking it up. Debauched.

Buying any food whatsoever from Marks and Spencer’s was akin to doing your weekly shop in Harrods Food Hall.

Middle income family in the 1990s, no money worries and not otherwise frugal.

Anyone else grow up thinking very normal things were real luxuries?

Video recorder
Didn't get one until I left home and went to university.
Saw it once, one holidays.
The house was then burgled.

I was a 60's child but all of this resonates with me. We also lived in an old rural house. We had a cesspit for sewage and coal or log fires for warmth. We didn't have a phone, freezer, a TV and the washing machine had a mangle. My parents usually had a car but sometimes we didn't even have that if it failed the MOT.

My mum didn't buy fizzy drinks or breakfast cereal. She made her own lemonade in the summer and we had porridge or eggs for breakfast. Everything we ate was made from scratch and grown in our large garden, including chickens!

When a new housing estate was built on the edge of the village and I made friends with the new influx of children, I was amazed to visit their houses. I thought everyone lived like us, but they had phones, automatic washing machines, fitted carpets etc and would talk about going to Spain on holiday.

A bathroom
Indoor toilet with soft loo paper (not old newspaper or Izal - horrible slippery stuff)
A fridge
My own room/Privacy instead of bunk bed with male sibling or "aunty"
New clothes, instead of second hand stuff from the market stall
A colour TV (on rental) long after my friends had them

1980s-mid 90s .Eating out.
Dual income family not particularly short of money.
We went to the fish ams chip shop every so often but going to restaurants wasn't a thing like it is today

Mr Kipling cakes.
Mum always made plain home made cakes and always scrimped on the sugar, (even in stewed home grown fruit, which was sour as buggery, ) so anything shop bought was luxury. But she never bought any!
My "aunt" always had shop bought stuff and it was always Mr Kipling, and a corner shop to buy sweets. So I stayed at her house a lot over her summer!

Fizzy drinks were reserved for Christmas and bought from the milkman or Corona man
Taking the Corona bottles back to the offy and getting 10p for the lids!
Macdonalds was only visited when someone was having a birthday party.
Getting a VHS video recorder to replace the Beta max, as the video shop only rented VHS. The excitement was palpable! 😂

I was born in '79 and I guess my main memories are from '84 onwards.

My mum and dad were well off and we had pretty much everything and went out for meals a lot.

Mum uses to do all the food shopping in marks and Spencers which back in the day didn't sell any branded stuff it was own brand everything. I remember being so embarrassed and pleading with mum to go to Sainsbury's like everyone else as I wanted the same ketchup as them and Mr Men yogurts. She didn't go!

I also really wanted a pair of stonewashed jeans and a perm. I wasn't allowed either as they were deemed 'common' by my mum. I also want allowed to watch Grange Hill!!

So it just goes to show you always want something but I realise mine are less fundamental than some people.

I do remember people having a McDonald's birthday party and sitting in the Ronald McDonald train.

Duvets !
I was born mid 60s and getting duvets just felt so continental. I believe they were called continental quilts at that time (about early 70s). Maybe they still are. Felt so unbelievably modern when the brushed cotton candy striped bed sheets and candlewick bed spreads disappeared.

Oven chips. All chips I had when growing up were made using the deep fat fryer. I can still remember being presented with a plate of the horrible things

Any drinks apart from tea or water. Squash was saved for days out. Even now the thought of warm squash left in the car for hours isn't a happy one. Ditto the cheese, marge and white bread sandwiches.

My Mum didn't have much money when me and my siblings were growing up, and herself as a child had been essentially left to fend for herself from the age of 8 so we did have some unconventional foods at times. Tuna and baked bean pie I remember as being a particular favourite of ours. Don't knock it till you've tried it!

I remember this. My dad made a huge fuss about getting them and I thought wow. They would have been quite expensive and glamorous

Warm squash on the beach with sand in it. Yum.

@bombastix same ! My parents were happy with themselves at this move into modern times. But also of course this spawned the beginning of the dreaded duvet sheet change. 50 years later and it's still a royal pain. 😂

Having any of:
A telephone with push buttons rather than a revolving dial
A shower
A microwave
A computer
A TV that didn't require hitting in order to work
stainless steel saucepans

Going anywhere on a plane

Disney world. Still haven't done that one.

Kitkats. Any biscuits really.

A fridge-we didn’t get one until I was about 10-mid 1970s-and we had to buy sterilised milk and keep in a bucket of water before that-so no fresh milk in the house! A.so we had no heating apart from a fire in the living room so a warm house would’ve been an unbelievable luxury. We had no phone so had to wait outside the phone box for it to be free. However, because we had no washing machine (twin tubs were common then), we used to send our bedding out to be laundered even though we were terribly poor-no that seems quite a luxury thing to do!

@FirstFallopians I remember butter was for posh people 😂 Takeaways were almost unheard of. I got one for my 18th birthday as it was such a big milestone. Pot noodle was an annual treat in the summer holidays. The excitement of picking this year's flavour. And chocolate dread was decadent beyond belief.

Anything that was processed food like crisps/chocolates or fizzy drinks/ready meals.
We did have treats on holidays and Christmas but nothing otherwise.
My DM baked cakes and made puddings so we still had nice food.
I remember going to a friends after school and they had a big tin with crisps and chocolates that she could have one of after school I was shooketh!

It's interesting so many people reference biscuits and chocolate, crisps etc. These were very limited in my childhood too, no snacking permitted.

Of course everyone was a lot thinner in the 80s

Top deck on a double decker bus. We walked or cycled everywhere as kids, long distance was train, plane or car. Going upstairs on the bus at the front was thrilling.

Going out for the day had to take sandwiches and bottle of watered down squash and flask of tea.. Never paid for entry to anywhere. Friends at school went to the fun house in Southport, so envious! Model village, no chance, train on pier no . Only cash spent on these outings was petrol, did a lot of window shopping as well, no money needed. My dear go would not be impressed lol

No snacks really, if mum was able she bought the odd packet of biscuits and maybe a bottle of fizzy pop but not regularly. We ate decent home cooked food nothing processed. My abiding memory is visiting the home of a school friend, we would have been about 13, her mum came in with a grocery shop and I was amazed to see sanitary towels in with the shopping. Every month I had to ask mum for money to go to the shop for a packet. Also when I went into the bathroom I discovered that they had a face flannel EACH. We had one shared between the whole family and it got washed when it went slimy.

As much Angel Delight as you would like.

We used to have a packet between 6 of us...no money worries at home, just a bit careful with the food bill!

On birthdays we could choose fish and chips or Chinese takeaway with a friend round for tea.
I've never ordered a takeaway and I'm 57.
Dad getting a new company car and we would all go out for the ride.
I agree about chocolate.
Mars bars were chopped by mum for all to share.

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