Quirks from a poorer childhood that have followed you through life.

[Motorwayview]

Inspired by the tight people thread.
No matter how much underwear I have I am always slightly panicked that I'll run out of clean underwear so have been known to handwash and leave overnight to dry. Ive got draws and draws of the stuff now - BUT growing up for a while I had just enough to get by on but only if DM washed them every night. ( 3 pairs knickers) Sometimes we didn't have the 50p for the meter to use the emersion heater or boil a kettle (this was the '70's).
The one that drives DH mad is that I have to use every last drop out of a bottle even if Ive got 3 more of the same in the cupboard ( shampoo ect) .
Anyone else ?

I danced for joy the day I finally grew out of my dreaded, pale blue taffeta 'party' dress with its horrible scratchy lace round the armpits, big bow on the back and the awful rustling noise it made when I moved.

My DH always comments on how fast I eat, I’d never really thought about it before but I googled and it’s common in people who grew up poor because whenever they ate they were starving so wolfed it down but also because you knew there’d be nothing else for hours so…

Interesting. The only other place I’ve heard this phrase was in one of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows (she said it in the dinner party scene after the recipes).

I assumed it was just a joke about reining in their enthusiasm for food with her sister, who was at the table at the time - not something people actually said because of not having enough food for everyone.

It’s strange because I didn’t have a tough childhood with regards to finances although we weren’t rich but I really really struggled in my late teens and twenties trying to raise four dc and literally having no money quite often.

As a result I get quite anxious if I don’t have a full stocked cupboard and I hoard and hide loose change in case of emergencies. I try and use up everything, cut the tops of tubes etc.

My kids were quite poor then, I’ve come to realise, because of their father. We didn’t have enough for new school uniforms every year, and they were the last to get mobile phones in their year groups.
But they are very resilient and happy with the stuff they have. Study hard, work as they need to but not too much. Enjoy life and its little pleasures, and will hopefully travel more than me.
So it’s not necessarily the end of the world. Mind you, I’m very happy I got us out of the poverty and that I studied and have a good job now. I enjoy being frugal when I want to, not because I have to.

In the 1970’s my sister worked at the Rowntrees chocolate factory in Yorkshire and on a friday we used to have bags of Kit-Kat rejects…

They were rejected for sale because they had no wafer in them and were all chocolate!

@turbonerd my dc didn't get new uniform every year. It was replaced when it was outgrown or beyond repair. We were far from skint.

Family hold back was a common phrase in my childhood. It was when you guests and wanted to put on a generous spread but there wasn't actually enough for everyone. You were expected to refrain from taking meat or more than a small amount of anything other than bread or potatoes.

If I am short of money or am hungry, say at suppertime, it's jam sandwiches for me. Mum always had loads of homemade jam, so this was always a go-to thing if we were hungry.
Mum and Dad always had bread and butter with breakfast cereals or with desserts like trifle or fruit and tinned and evaporated milk. Apparently, it was done to eke out when items were scarce, rationed, or not affordable.
I always wondered, though, why Dad had so much sugar in tea or coffee. Turns out, when his father was alive, and they were growing up, his dad worked as a driver in a jam factory. Though it was rationed in WW11, his dad had some sugar as part of his pay, so it was always available in their home.

Food hoarding, although that has got better since DH took responsibility for shopping, and spending far too much on the gas and electric pre payment meters to make sure we don’t run out. Rationally, in my head, I know how much it costs to heat and have the lights on in our home each month. But if the meter goes below a certain amount, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.

My worst one is second hand stuff. It doesn’t matter what it is, (clothes, furniture, books etc) or how much I like it, I don’t want it in my home. I have an actual visceral reaction to it. My SiL loves a charity shop and I love hearing about her bargains. I would never, ever judge anyone for shopping in one (not that I feel that there’s anything to judge, I just want to make it clear that I’m not looking down my nose at anything) I understand completely it makes more sense both financially and environmentally. I just can’t do it. Just the thought of it makes my skin crawl.

I do this but then best never comes. I remember reading an article about this and a woman going through her childhood possessions and finding some pristine stationery that she had never used because she was saving it for the right moment. That moment never arrived. That was so sad and I’m trying to remember that when I find myself “saving things.”

Plus I didn’t have many nice clothes growing up - so now I am always buying clothes despite living most of my life in gym gear.

Same issue here. We always ran out of food when I was a child, so I have an obsession with stocking up on food.

Yeah, the phrase is about making sure your guests aren't left wanting. Even if that means making up an excuse about not being hungry etc.

I have so many memories of my mum comparing the price per kg etc in the supermarket that I have always loved just being able to buy the food I want. However, I genuinely believed for years that the oven was ruinously expensive to run and was shocked at how often my husband would use it, for midweek meals no less! And then when I got over that, and baked just for fun, I’ve realised very recently (I’m 42) that I’d never baked shortbread because my mum had told me it was too expensive because it used real butter. I use real butter in every bake, I don’t know why it took me so long to twig that making shortbread would not bankrupt us.

My parents bought me a dress I really wanted. Normally I had hand me downs and jumble sale stuff. It hung on a hanger on the bedroom wall for ages. Used to go to sleep looking at it. I wanted to wear it but it seemed too nice to wear. One day I put it on, and it was too small!

You’ve just taken me back forty years. Vespre came in a navy blue and white box that opened like high end tissues didn’t they?

I had them just once or twice as a teen, opening the box and seeing them there all crisp and white felt like the most luxurious thing in the world!

Usually it was Kotex which were stuffed with lumpy paper pulp or something, and had long string loops that attached to a belt! (Early 1980’s).

It makes sense. I grew up in a council house in a very working class northern village though so we never had guests, nobody did, you could only afford to feed your own family.

I couldn’t even have a little friend over for tea because even if we had enough my mum would have been too ashamed of how much we were obviously lacking, materially.

Your MIL is very sensible!

Oh my gosh - this!! And painfully freezing feet!

We also had the one Mars bar cut in to 3 , put in the freezer so it took us longer to eat.
Also giving the ice cream man 50p to fill up a bowl - special payday treat that was.

Always having a well stocked cupboard and plenty of toilet rolls. Remember having to use torn up newspaper we frequently ran out. Grim.

I do this with shampoo and body wash even the cheap Lidl stuff! Not even sure why as it’s saving me about 0.01p or something!

I always had hand me downs never had anything new. We had the mars bar, but cut into 4 pieces.
I still ask now if it’s ok to put the heating on, even though, I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission and we can afford it. I still check it’s ok though.
I always panic if we’re running out of bread. If we have bread we can always have something to eat.
My children have never gone through what I did and never will.

I don't throw out any shoes unless they are extremely worn out - byproduct of only having one pair of shoes at times that I wore until they were completely broken.

Not eating certain things because they were sure signs of "it's the end of the money, but there's still a lot of month left", one of them is "sugar bread". So basically a slice of bread with sugar on it once jam had run out.

And then there's stockpiling so I don't run out of things, washing up liquid, toilet paper, shampoo and washing powder/liquid. Having multiple types like for wool, all purpose or colour, never mind brands, was completely out of the question when I was a child.

The local paper wasn't great😖