What luxuries do you have that your parents wouldn't have?

[GrabtharsHammer]

Following on from my thread about the reasons younger people can't buy houses due to iPhones and sky telly?

We have Sky Q and iPhones etc but I'm really thinking of things that would have been available in the 70s/80s but were real luxuries.

Mine would never have had a second car. We went out the the Harvester on special occasions, always the early bird menu and only about twice a year. Holidays were camping although we went to France twice to stay in a friend's house.

Day trips to Chessington etc were very rare, once every couple of years. We had piano lessons but that was our only 'extra', we wanted to ride horses so had to wait until we were old enough to work on a yard (12/13) and earn lessons.

I don't think we ever had a takeaway, the closest was a family bucket from KFC once in a blue moon.

Having said that, my dad smoked sixty a day until we were in our teens, and my mum always had a bottle of sherry a week.

What else? Black and white telly until we were about seven or eight (so 86/87). We had a video recorder but it was a huge luxury.

My dad had a computer but he was the only person we knew with one.

Once a fortnight we'd rent a video.

We had one pair of school shoes, one pair of trainers and wellies. I remember being bought a pair of red patent shoes for a party and thinking all my Christmases had come at once. Mum made most of our clothes.

How different is your experience of modern life to your parents? And so you think things are much cheaper or that priorities are so different?

Lots of clothes and shoes..I also had school shoes and one other pair ( trainers) I bought my daughter three pairs of boots this year, plus she has party shoes x 2 ,wellies and snow boots.

Things are cheaper now ( which just means that we consume more)

We are richer than my parents were and it's totally the norm in our social circle that we have two iPhones, a mac, four iPads etc. My children live In a bubble and are surprised to hear other children haven't got their own iPad 😳 I can guarantee my parents would have had maybe one iPad between us all, not one each.

I was reminiscing About what I got for Christmas, we had a budget of £50 growing up, a bit more as teens, you got the Argos book and chose. A bike would have been a rare treat if you needed a bike. ( we buy our children isla bikes as needed not as gifts)

To be fair we are much more restrained than most of our friends, but it's scary how much they get.

Tv on demand is a good progression tho.

I grew up in 80s & 90s...we probably have similar to what my parents did, our house is (much) smaller though.

And, in fact, as a child we had 2-3 holidays abroad (often long haul) every year. My oldest is 4 and has been abroad (only Europe) twice.

We probably eat out more.

We will definitely have less in old age / retirement though unless there is anything left to inherit (which we don't count on).

Grew up in 80s. No telly no freezer no microwave. No central heating. Holidays camping only, never ate in restaurants or got a taxi or went in a plane until I left home. I think we were quite poor compared to some others.

Holidays yes that's also different, as children we went to butlins or camped.

This year my children went abroad three times (. Including skiing) plus had two uk breaks including centre parts.

I'm now jealous of my children's childhood ( it is much better than mine was)

Gosh I feel spoilt now compared to how it was back in the 80s. I think travel is one of the main differences. It's so much more affordable now, especially to Europe. It's hard to turn down £29.99 flights to Spain on Ryanair. We booked a round trip to Houston the other day from MAN for £211. Travel has become a necessity for some. I got invited to my cousins gf hen party to Las Vegas. They can't afford it, I think it all went on loan (I didn't go). But that's the lifestyle people desire, apparently.

No soft play or Sunday shopping either. Wet, winter Sundays could be very boring in the 50s when I was born and the 70s/ 80s when my children were born.
Don't get me started about Easter. Omg I hated it . Weather was usually dreadful, the tv would drone on wth some awful chamber music. It was like three Sundays in a row

As a child in the 50s we didn't have takeaways as there weren't any. Fish and chips was your lot. We lived near the coast so dad always went for fresh fish on a Friday.

We had a black and white tv. We got colour in 1973 . I was 20 then. We got a car in 1956 and we're the first ones in the street to have one . We went to Spain in 1956 but never had another holiday abroad . Maybe because we went by train!
Maybe it really put mum off.

We had a new council house. Lots of houses had been bombed in the war but my town was quite forward thinking and really invested n social houses, so we have swathes of still very good houses. There were no problem families in my area. So it was like being raised in a modern new housing area. I feel very fortunate about that.

Me and exh were able to buy our own house quite cheaply too in 1975. It cost £8000 and had a garage and central heating a gardens front and back.
At one time we had 5 cars parked out the front of it every day rising to 7 when girlfriend and boyfriend visited.

Now there's only two ( sad face) mine and dh. I like a busy house. I have had a more affluent life than my parents. I owned two holiday homes in two separate cou simultaneosly but mum and dad weren't deprived. They were out every night socialising. Three foreign holidays a year ( Vegas twice and a European trip in winter) dad was only ever on a modest salary.

For a long while we didn't have car. Mum and dad have only got a secure data car recently.

You have to love autocorrect.

I think materially my parents had it pretty good - I grew up in the 80s.

We had several long and short haul holidays a year. Probably 3 a year. 1 would be camping but the other 2 hotels/villas.
3 cars.
5 bed house with nice garden in a nice area.
All mod cons - dishwasher, WM, TD etc
Cleaner.
Ate out probably 1 a week.
I was privately educated.
My parents have good pensions.

They were more frugal in many ways - mum used to turn the collar on my dads shirts for example. Make do and mend rather than buy new all the time.

They were both in 'normal' professional jobs, not talking top lawyer or bankers.

I probably eat out more. Holidays on a par. Would no way be able to afford private education. House a lot smaller and not as nice. But that is in London and on a single income.

If they could afford private education in the 80s, they were not in normal jobs.

My parents weren't well off at all. They're doing a lot better for themselves now though, but in terms of differences ...

No car
Almost nothing in the way of new clothes (mostly hand me downs), I probably had two pairs of shoes at any one time, no more than that
No luxury, preprepared food (though my Mum was a good cook, so it mattered less)
Very little in the way of mod cons. No dishwasher, VCR later than most people
No foreign holidays, though we did have a bucket and spade type break most years
Very limited family days out
Meals out only on significant birthdays (I think I remember every single one of them)

However, they did find the money for extra curricular activities, I did lots of drama, music, sports when I was growing up. And we were lucky enough to have excellent educations (mostly for free).

Their 3 kids are all doing a lot better than they did at the same stage. However, our starter home is still much tinier than their starter home. Though it is in a much bigger city and costs many multiples of the price.

Did anyone else have mice and potatoes for dinner - not in a pie with cheese on top

No, no matter how poor we were we never had that

My parents are quite liberal and 'modern' for their age (70s) and were the same when I was little. My mum had a car even though it was a decrepit Mini, they grew veg, we had a colour TV in the 70s, central heating in 1974, video in 83 etc. We had a BBC micro by 1985 too.
Duvets, disposable nappies, a tumble drier and a microwave made my baby rearing years a hell of a lot easier than my mother's along with the internet and a DH who does his share of child wrangling.

Oh. Double glazing. I was long gone before their whole house was double glazed!

I literally don't have anything that my parents didn't have.
I earn way less than either of them did. My mum used to tell me we had no spare money while buying herself a bottle of cava every night, regularly taking us out for meals or getting take away. And going to Europe a lot. Mostly without me.
I've had mental health issues since I was a teenager and they have impacted on my ability to get and keep a job loads. I finish my degree in June next year but I don't expect it to help me much. It's a pretty useless subject out in the real world. Anyway, I don't really care that I have less than they did. It never made us happy from what I remember.

Did anyone else have mice and potatoes for dinner - not in a pie with cheese on top Yes mince and tatties about every second day.

ha ha, sorry Blueraccoon it was mince not mice!
It wasn't so bad in 80s!

• the 80s I can't type today as my hands are so cold from my central heating not working - life is tougher now clearly, we always had heating growing up.

Not the same, but my Mum marvels about the technology I have for baby DS that would have made her life so much easier when I was born. Especially my Perfect Prep machine, MAM self-sterilising bottles and pre-made cartons of formula (I know they weren't available in the 80s when I was born).

She had to ff me from 4 weeks and always says how it would take an hour plus to make up a feed for me.

Going the other way though, difference in their mortgage compared to ours. They bought their current home in the early 90s and it cost 1.5x my Dad's annual salary. Our home is worth 5x DH's annual salary. (Roughly same size and style houses in the same city). They didn't have a lot of disposable income while they were paying it off, but they didn't have the mortgage for anywhere near as long as DH and I will!!

Takeaways - they were saved for special occasions (except perhaps chippy tea once a month). I remember being soooo excited about having a takeaway pizza and getting it delivered .

Mid-sixties baby here. After an early seventies flirtation with a succession of old bangers that died in various smoky ruins, we didn't have a car till long after I'd left home. Ditto phone and central heating. As I knew no different those things didn't worry me, but I swore that when I grew up I'd have as many books as I liked and there would always be snacky in-between-meals food available.

What I (1970 birth) had in childhood that my parents didn't:

My own bedroom (from aged 5 onwards)
Indoor toilet and bathroom
Colour television (sole one in house in lounge)
Holidays, although never abroad
Gas fire 🔥 in the living room rather than coal
More presents at Christmas and birthdays

There's more, obviously, but that's off the top of my head.

What my children have that I didn't have: where do I start?

Fully centrally heated house cf one gas fire in lounge
Shower
Duvets instead of blankets that no matter how many you had never kept you warm in winter
Double glazing - my kids have never had the joy of ice on the inside of their bedroom windows, nor their breath frosting indoors.

Televisions all over the house, as well as endless phones, tablets, computers etc. Basically 24/7 entertainment.

And yes, soft play.

Bathrobes! I wish I'd had a snuggly hooded robe for when I stepped out of the bath in our unheated fucking freezing in winter bathroom, instead of a towel wrapped around my middle third, wet hair dripping everywhere, shivering on the way downstairs to the living room fire 🔥.

More clothes as our automatics make washing much easier than the twin tub of my childhood.

I'm sure there are more…

Other posters are reminding me now - we had no house phone or car until I was ten.

liz when you put it like that, my dad was a child who didn't have hot running water. It has to be heated off the coal range.