to think that being poor is not what it used to be?

[oldenglishspangles]

When I was a child being poor meant
no electricity/gas/water - delete as applicable depending on whether money ran out.
We ate left overs.
No colour tv even though everyone else had it. We had a remote control though - us children!
We didnt have kettle a pan does the same job.
cardboard insoles, to cover holes in shoes holes in shoes
alimited number of non branded, hand me down clothes
Walking (not bus or cars)
No holidays
only a few toys - (a very limited budget which as children we understood and tried to get as mmuch as possible with)

yes I agree Shoe Zone trainers at least £7 or £8 - even for my youngest. I recently had to spend > £72 in shoe zone on trainers/school shoes/plimsols for my DS's.

no - even in the sales (and unfortuantely children don't always time their feet growing for when the sales are on) they're still usually more than £5 in shoe zone........

You obviously shop in a very different shoe zone from the rest of us

Well, I can't just pop into Shoe Zone. The nearest one is in Greenock and it costs me at least a fiver to get there, and that's with me walking the 5.5 mile round trip between the mall and the train station.

So when I go I have to buy what is there and even the stuff on offer isn't a fiver.

agree Expat, and besides - since when did children suddenly start having growth spurts when the sales are on.

I often desperately go and get my DS's feet measure when the sales are on in the hope that I can buy the shoes when they are relatively cheaper.

As yet (DS1 is 9 1/2yrs now) they've never once timed a foot growth with the sales..........3 weeks later - yes, during the sales.........no

yea but Riven - you shoe zone charges £14.99 for trainers

btw - did I "look like a Christian" when you met me (other thread cba to post on it)

ermmm, hmmmmm - well - yes I guess you did a little

yup - total give away

Well I know one thing. My folks were skint in the 1970's like everybody else at the time. Their weekly 'treat' to themselves was to have a packet of crisps each on a Friday night and my dad would have 2 cans of lager, with my mum occasionally having wine.

Fast forward to today, where as far as I can see, fags and booze are counted as life's essentials for many (including my sister, grrr) along with milk, bread, and shoes for the kids.

My sister will tell you how skint she is (and she is skint, I'm not belittling it) while drinking wine, texting her friends on the latest Iphone and arranging what pub to go to that night.

It's just different now.

I'm really enjoying these tales of 1970's childhoods. Mine was lovely even though we weren't in any way rich, or even "comfortable".

If we had luxuries, I didn't notice them and if we lacked necessities I didn't notice that either.

My parents worked opposite shifts, we were warm, clothed and fed, had toys and books, shared a room with my sister in a two-bed house in a nice new town. No gadgets but neither did anyone else.

We did have a colour television quite early on though, I remember my Dad used to thump it every single Christmas when "The Wizard of Oz" was on thinking that the black and white bit at the start was the set gone wrong!

I only realise what a struggle it must have been for my parents to provide me with that experience when I compare the '70's house to the one they have now. They throw nothing away and it is full of all the things they have bought since that time!

Same here - safe comfortable 70s childhood - mum sahm - one car b& w telly remember when a birthday came round berni inn or similar for a treat! Dimly remember a scampi in a basket type meal on holiday These were classed as treats not necessarily luxuries per se. We could afford them but it was a big deal. Today I popped into town with ds met a friend for a biite to eat in a pleasant pub with a nice beer garden. The bill for large lemonades cheesey chips and some sandwiches was around a tenner. I paid the bill without a second thought because I can afford to these days. At other points in my life I might have maybe just done the same ( stupidly) when actually skint and in debt ( student). However at the next table was a couple of Mums who came in with some primary school age kids 3/4 ordered similar for each bowls of chips / half pint cokes. I thought perhaps they come to watch the football ( sweet) but they left after half an hour. From the standard of dress ( cheap tshirts , lots of tatoos kids a bit scruffy and snotty ( sorry but battered buggy, laden with Iceland / wilko bags)it was clear they were not well off. People are entitled to eat and feed their kids what and where they like but like morriszapp said it Is different. My mum would have no more spent overthe eqivalent of a tenner feeding us chips and cokes as part of a town centre shopping trip than take us to the moon.

Interesting about eating out. We didn't live in a shoe box on the M6 or whatever (roffle at that exchange - brilliant) but we had a Chinese takeaway on Christmas Eve as a treat. So it was a treat. Didn't go to restaurants ever growing up except Wimpy maybe three or four times a year. Harvester when we were teenagers if that!

I find these threads interesting,

it makes me think alot about DH's great Aunt who passed away last year.
She lived in HongKong, she fell inlove with a man who was killed in WWII and never married, no state system to pick you up and help you.

she worked as a seamstress until the week she died (aged 86) earning £5 for a full days work. She survived by being supported with the basics by family who have moved to other parts of the world each sending £20 to her a month.
Her flat was the size of our sittingroom and her shower facilities were on the 1m wide balcony. when she died the only reason she was found was because of the smell from her flat.

She comes from a time and culture where you were defined as a woman by being married and having his wider family t support you.

Praise the lord that this country doesn't define women by the same things.

Where'd you go Riven?

I think when I last went to a havester there was a pudding called "aunt sally's whipped cream Yum Yum" - it has been a family joke ever since

Dh and I took the children to Pizza Hut for the first time ever out of desperation the other day and we were admonished for expecting free salad:

"This aint no Harvester innit"

I work near an estate that is classed as 'an area of acute social deprivation' and I regularly go there to use the post office. I can see how anyone can get caught in the poverty trap.

It is poorly served by buses, the nearest supermarket is three miles away (get there with no car, small kids etc), the prices in the local shop make my hair curl (£1.30 for a crap white loaf), £1.99 to use the cashpoint. At each and every turn the people on that estate pay more.

Get out of that one. I think that has always been the case though - shops used to sell butter by the ounce and jam by the spoon to the poorer familes - yet paradoxically it would cost them more to buy the smaller quantity.

Nutrition must be taught in schools - it is a necessary knowledge that is lacking throughout society

I'm poor now I have wine & fags when I've made a few extra quid, otherwise I rampage around in vile nicotine withdrawal - and make rollups from the leftovers of rollups [eeuwww] I have spent a total of £50 on clothes in the past 4 years. In the winter I have to choose between using the oven or getting one room warm enough (I'm all electric, on a meter). It's fucking miserable.

Having said that, I eat very well because I grew up poor and know how to get 5 dinners out of a small chicken & then make stock from it, etc. I REALLY miss being able to get a takeaway or pop into a pub; everything's so much work when you're poor! Can't go & visit friends because I haven't got a car and fares are too expensive.

I left school in the 70s and was excitingly poor for a while - I wouldn't find it so exciting now, but was only 18 at the time! Have to disagree with the OP - fags & booze were far more affordable, proportionally, so even if you were cold & half-starved you could still spend an evening with friends. Hitch-hiking was acceptable, so we got around quite a bit, and you could still find amazing vintage clothes, dirt cheap, in second-hand shops.

You know those stories about "when I were a lad, you could have 5 pints for a shilling and a penn'orth of chips on t'road home"?
My version is: "I remember the seventies, when you could still get a quid deal and be stoned for the weekend"

My parents weren't poor, just very careful, and I grew up in the 80s.

We ate in restaurants fewer than 6-8 times a year, often much less. We NEVER took taxis anywhere. Holidays were self-catering without fail, occasionally staying in a B&B for long journeys. I don't think I'd really stayed in a hotel until I was at university, and that was in 1997!

Then as a teenager some of my wealthier friends' families took me to posh restaurants, and at uni I started visiting London.

Nowadays I absolutely love poncy restaurants, intimidating wine lists, overly designed hotels, and black cabs! I am lucky in that I get do do a lot of that for work, but I rarely get over the excitement of someone booking me a flash car to take me to a new hotel!

On the other hand, I remember my mum tearing her hair out trying to furnish the house as she hated everything we could afford - days before IKEA!