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?

Actually, I realise I grew up as a full citizen of the country in which I grew up: which my mother, born in pre-Independence India, didn't.

Clothes dryer. I do all our clothes drying in the machine. Hang drying is only ever done in summer and only if I can be arsed.

When I was young, I lived in an actual slum. My mum said it was very looking after two young kids in that environment. Also no nursery, nothing till we started school, except playing with the neighbouring kids.

Apart from things that didn't exist - nothing. Growing up we had a holiday chalet thing on the south coast and went on foreign beach holidays most years plus camping in the lakes. Before DD we tried to go skiing on a cheap late deal every couple of years. Other holidays camping or staying with friends (or paid for by parents).

We have a computer, they didn't until the late 90s - probably more due to interest than finances. Ditto mobile phones - they still barely use theirs.

We have ex council semi in non railway town they had detached walking distance from station - they didn't drive - eyesight/ability. We have 2 cars because public transport is non existent where DH has to work.

We have more gadgets but definitely fewer clothes for adults. DD has loads but as she's a toddler she needs enough for a bad day (have got through 5 in a day before now!).

Our house probably looks "posher" as we've done it to our taste which is fairly simple/classic but we did everything we could ourselves and hunted for bargains. We trawl auctions for furniture and have found a cheapish source of flatpack furniture online which is handy.

Our wedding was probably more extravagant than theirs but we didn't spend the average - it looked a lot more expensive than it was!

Probably an expensive wedding is a modern luxury An expensive wedding is no indicator of how much money a couple have IME. We could've had a £30k wedding but tagged that money onto our deposit for a house instead.

"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."

Yes, I think that was the case with both my parents too. My dad (75) talks of having baths in front of the fire/range, and I know that my mum's (she's 71) childhood home didn't get a bathroom built on until some time in the 70s, when one of mum's brothers paid for it. Tough times indeed.

Born early 70s

We had no car
No central heating
No takeaways be cause there weren't any
A lot of the 1980s both my parents had no job.

No holidays
No trips to the hairdressers. My mum cut my hair (badly) until I was 14yrs.
New toys only at birthday and Christmas.
No phone
Rented black and white TV.
Twin tub washing machine that regularly flooded the kitchen.
Handmade clothes or clothes from a charity shop
No holidays abroad. Usually a few days in Scarborough every couple of years.
Can't remember my mum and dad drinking and they definitely didn't smoke.

Yes expensive weddings in the past were for rich people. In my grans day, lots of women did not even have a wedding dress, they simply wore the best clothes they had.

People expect to travel a lot more now. I remember my gran telling me that in the 1920s her parents took her to Winchester. (They were living in Yorkshire). On her return, she was asked to stand up in assembly and tell the whole school about the cathedral - it was expected that most (working class) children probably wouldn't ever travel that far. Now my ndn goes to New Zealand and I barely ask her how it was!

My childhood was certainly not harder than now. I was an early 70's baby. We had a 5 bed 2 bathroom house and even from birth had a washing machine and dishwasher and tumble drier. We always had central heating and had a bath every single night without fail. We had a "daily help" who came every day to clean and help my mum and when I got older we had a cleaner twice a week and a gardener and a babysitter every Saturday night. We also had aupairs on and off over the years. We had 2 cars, and ate out, not always but enough to remember going to McDonald's, Pizza Hut, garfunkels, spaghetti house and to Chinese restaurants.

We only went on holiday every 2 years, always driving to France although went to Greece and Spain when I was young too. I remember going to the Zoo, theme parks and to the theatre from being very young. We did ballet, drama, brownies, youth club.

We weren't early adopters of technology, my parents still don't have Sky and we were the last people to get a video player and it was a Betamax one. We were strictly censored on our phone use too, parents couldn't bear us chatting. I never had my own Tv either.

McDonalds didn't come to Britain until the 1980s though.

We grab stuff from the bakery more than mum and dad would have and get lunch from the local cafe-bakery (pizza, samosas, vegetarian side dishes) which they would not have done.

I put that down to being a single parent so a bit more worn out.

Mum & dad could afford to have holidays out of town and save for retirement, luxuries I don't get.

My parents didn't have a car, or use the central heating that they had saved up for, except when there were visitors.

Didn't eat out except on holiday and that was only once a year, in the UK. No days out. No takeaways except very rarely fish and chips when I went home for a visit.

No ready meals (if that can be considered a luxury).

Was just thinking about this in the context of food. If we had a chicken it was a big deal and it would be stretched to the max: roast on the Sunday, stew on the Monday, soup and sandwiches on the Tuesday.

We used to have a Viennetta at Christmas only. It was a HUGE treat.

'Holidays' were to the Isle of Wight with my dad's work; he was allowed to take me and my mum with him. Wouldn't have gone anywhere otherwise, except for stretching to a caravan in Skegness a couple of times.

Fish and chips was a massively exciting and rare treat, usually when it was late on the way home from a day out.

Daughter, why do you let your mum dictate whether or not you should be an NT member?

"We used to have a Viennetta at Christmas only. It was a HUGE treat."

THIS!!!! x100.

DP will often buy himself one and eat it in one go due to his unresolved middle child syndrome ishoos.

I think the price of things has flip-flopped though? Food was more expensive as a percentage of your income when I was a kid. We are very plainly (badly). Now it's all sub-dried tomatoes and goat cheese round ours (though being vegetarian cuts down on costs & I do buy what's on offer vs full-price when at all possible).

Our parents could purchase cheap homes but the food was pricier (I assume, struggling to justify the horrible things my mum served up). And of course food just wasn't a hobby/delight as it is now. I grew up in Canada but didn't taste an avacado till I left home, garlic was seen as very exotic and odd, and all cooked vegetables had to be boiled till there was no water left in the pan.

My parents did not like turning the heat on, so I was always a bit frozen. I am not a fan of huddling under two layers of blankets, while wearing a winter coat & clutching a hot water bottle just I watch telly. If being warm adds a year to my mortgage, so be it.

Sorry, really should proofread. Ate plainly & sun-dried tomatoes.

Jack, you know the really daft thing? Much as I adored Viennettas, I've NEVER HAD ONE since my childhood.

I keep meaning to buy myself one but somehow never quite do. Maybe this Christmas! DP thinks I'm nuts on this issue

Fabric softener, squash.

My parents:
They put the carpets in in 1979/1980s. Still have them.
I think they've decorated twice in that time.
Most of the furniture is the same-although they did have the chairs in the lounge reupholstered. A lot of the furniture df made.
They didn't get colour TV until 1987.
VHS player in 1995
Didn't get a fridge freezer until 1998 (and their old fridge had lasted 35 years at that point and was held together with masking tape and blue tack)

We never had a foreign holiday.
Eating out was 1 pot of tea between the parents. 1 can of coke between the 3 of us dc (and sometimes df as well) and a Chelsea bun divided in 5 (although db had to have 2/5 of it-dm's piece as well because you see he was more hungry than everyone else)
Very rare to have shop bought cakes. usually donuts (which were divided into 2, so you only had half)
1 set of school uniform
Afterschool clubs for me was brownies (20p per week)
Not allowed to use the phone before 6pm.
Heating set on 13 degrees, and not allowed on between beginning of March and end of October.
Never did days out that you had to travel far too (more than 5 miles) or cost.

A trip down memory lane for you.

www.flickr.com/photos/38301877@N05/albums/72157619206330728/page2

And another.

www.flickr.com/photos/lavalampmuseum/3589623811/in/photostream/

My parents were much better off than I am, and I'm struggling to think of anything I have now that they didn't have at my age, and the only thing I can think of is a smartphone, because they hadn't been invented yet. And my children went to more baby/toddler groups than I did.

But they ate out more, went on more holidays, had a car, bought nice clothes, we ate well, lots of theatre visits, new books etc.

We never had heating upstair, so could never have friends round in the winter. Hated feeling cold.
Colour TV only in 1980 - rented TV then
They got a landline when I moved out.
They have only been abroad once.
My sister and I went away with the school and I had a dog - the best present ever.

Viennettas are only a pound in Tesco at the moment Sapphire.

I wouldn't recommend it tho. They're really not what they were. Some things are best left to nostalgia.