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 put all the remnant slivers into a mesh bag (eg. the ones that used to come with Persil tablets) & wash my hands with that.

My Dad was given a Mars bar "for your youngest two" from a colleague every Friday. Me and my brother would use a ruler when cutting it in half so we both had the same! This was the only chocolate we had all week. Even now, 50 years later, we have chocolate Friday. A whole bar to myself, 😊

I am the opposite of this. I cannot bare diluted liquids like this and it makes me genuinely concerned we will not have enough to buy more.

Dh says he struggles to get hoe I can stretch food stuff out for several meals.

I was teased at school about having clothes from charity shops. It's made me really really hate buying charity shop clothes for myself. Even walking into a charity shop and seeing the visual clutter, clashing styles and random assortment makes my skin crawl.

Weirdly, I am fine with buying used clothes on Vinted for my kids and increasingly for myself. I think it's because I can be very selective about what brand/style I am looking for, rather than being presented with something that will have to do because it (almost) fits.

One thing I've realised, as an adult, is how I've always made food last twice as long as it should. With an apple, I nibble at the skin and then eat the fruit, with certain sweets, I'll eat the chocolate off the outside, and then eat the middle. We didn't have that much growing up and I think I always did this to really savour what I did have.
Also, I go completely over the top at Christmas by buying way too much stuff, because we didn't have that when were were growing up. Luckily, I've got a very generous husband who doesn't mind that! Same goes for holidays and weekends away, we have lots, albeit cheapish ones in the UK, because when I was growing up a holiday was literally a day out to Southsea - not there's anything wrong with Southsea, but we only ever had a day there. I didn't get my first holiday until I was 14.

I make my son the best packed lunches, growing up everything we ate was smartprice when my friends would have a packet of quavers or penguin biscuits. I had sandwiches with mould on and out of date yoghurt etc (we wernt that poor just a shitty mother).
So now my son is known to have the best packed lunches, I even put things in for his friends incase they haven't got much.

This is a big one for me. There are so many items of clothes and other things I won't use because they're 'too nice' and should be kept 'fir best'. But really I should just use/wear them as I can easily replace most things when needed. It's so hard to switch mindset though!

I get that - we were the kids who got laughed at because my mum went to jumble sales and kids from school would see us coming out of them on a Saturday afternoon. Same with the really cheap shop in the local area - I never had the gumption to say to the little cow who would constantly laugh at me being in there that she was in there too. Now, I couldn't give two hoots and, quite honestly, I'd love to be able to go back in time and tell those kids that things got better!

I keep the inner liners inside cereal boxes, to use for rolling out pastry, scones etc - it’s a Nancy Birtwistle tip!

Oh a perfect thread for today. We were not very poor, but the last week before payday we would just finish whatever was in the fridge or cupboards.
And then I spent over a decade with an alcoholic who prioritized booze and cigs over the kids. That was horrendous.
So now my (grown up) kids always have tons of new socks and underwear, lovely clothes (usually bought in a 75% sale) and everything they can wish for within my budget.
I even bought my eldest a car!

But yeah; lights off, heating down, eat every last scrap and squeeze it all out of the tub!
And second-hand clothes, which I love to be honest.
My obsession now is shoes, and I’ve spent a small fortune on comfy and nice shoes. For the kids, and then for me.

But I don’t save things for best anymore. Might be dead tomorrow so I will enjoy my treasures now.

It's really not

I cannot bear to eat leftovers,if im finished,into the compost/food waste bin it goes

If food even thinks about looking 'off',in the bin it goes (im obsessed with freezing stuff straight from the supermarket to 'make it last')

I cant even eat off someone else's plate-finishing off the kids leftovers is alien to me (dp sometimes asks if he can finish off my meal once im done and it makes me heave)

It's definitely left me with food issues and I was damned if he was doing the same to my dc

My mother would pile our plates high with the free veg my father grew and was really stingy with food she paid for so 'fridge food' happened a lot

No way on this earth would i serve up a meal to anyone that had been in and out of the fridge for every meal over 6 days-its revolting

Oh, and reuse plastic bags AND the lining paper for the oven until it is about to catch fire 😂

Another thing that's a hangup from being poorer as a child, I panic if my cupboards are not full at any one time - I remember what it was like to go without. My mum did the best she could, but it wasn't easy growing up in a world where everybody's parents were together and there was a bit of money for them to buy 7 inch singles and other treats. I had to buy my books from jumble sales and only got new ones at Christmas, if I was lucky.

Deodorant, body spray, shower gel, and toothpaste for me. Growing up we often ran out of all of that, so now, as a married adult, I make sure I've always got plenty in reserve in the cabinet.

We call this FHB in my family! I still do it with mine when there’s a buffet at a party or something. I’ll whisper FHB to them as a reminder not to be greedy. To have a little, wait till everyone has had something and go back later.

Yes cutting open shampoo bottles to scrape the last bit out
I get driven mad by my partner throwing away toothpaste when a slightly harder squeeze would make it last another 2 weeks at least

Yes I recall reading that. I think it was the daughter who wrote it and had said she’d bought her mum lots of nice gifts for birthdays etc and when mum died she found them all unused and unworn with the tags still in. It was such a sad read.

Me and my friends have a phrase - “light the fucking candle” - to encourage each other to use all the lovely things and not save them for best.

This is me too.
I always over cater because we had so little when I was growing up and i worry about people leaving still hungry

Same!

DP always finds it odd that there are certain tins I like keeping in the cupboard (soup, rice pudding, chopped toms, beans) as I worry that we won't have any food.

Free school dinners was often the only meal I would eat all day.

I sympathise MightyGoldBear. I only really had my dad and also used my lunch money for tampax. At one point I had free school meals so had to swap my ticket for cash to buy them... 😂Aye aye aye those were the days!

I can relate to a lot of you actually and I'm the same re feaverishly wanting my kids to not have the shame at school of not having 'enough' money, new uniform etc. whatever it is. At the same time I think I grew up pretty well balanced with reasonable values and worry they will ... I don't know 'have weaker characters' 😂😂I know that's just silly though!

FIL used to do the watering down of soap, shower gel and fairy liquid, plus adding vinegar to ketchup and brown sauce to get the last remnants from the bottle even though MIL has a whole garage full of every sort of supply you might need - both a product of a childhood during rationing. Once when MIL stayed with us she told me we urgently needed loo roll. I was surprised as I'd bought a load the previous week. It transpired that my "absolutely plenty" and her "next to nothing" was the same quantity.

Ah, you sound nice.
I remember being that child too with the home made sandwich on school trips.
It wasn't great and was always noticed by the other kids.

Mine is in my buying habits- brand name cleaning products and posh toiletries as we often had really rubbish ones from poundland as kids.

Although I maintain that the more expensive cleaning products work better so you use less (and I also don't clean very often which probably helps....)

I save packaging material etc for re-use.

I dislike "cheap" clothing as we got lots of really basic stuff as kids and people used to tease. Once I became an autonomous teen I would always choose a few naice clothes over lots of cheaper stuff. Interestingly I've never really had scruples about second hand but it has to be "good quality". I now buy lots on vinted as I can get exactly what I want (looks at t-shirt Iwhich is my favourite boden style that they discontinued and I now hunt down like a tracker on vinted).

I told my daughter she could have butter OR jam on toast - my husband asked ‘why??!’

Tastes weird and decadent to me still.

That's exactly me and I thought we were supposed to grow up more frugally 😄I also absolutely love a good quality item hunted down with military precision at a discounted price.