what can you remember your parents doing to save money?

[HoraceCope]

we had to clean the bath with cold water
my dm would reuse foil

I can't bear heating in the bedroom.

Gift bags are different though, they are literally bags.

Surely you're not saying that you throw away gift bags after one use @Loveduppenguin ?

We have gift bags that go round our family for years. They get reused multiple times before they start to look tatty and are thrown away.

Sharing an ice cream (🤢) on days our or not having one at all, just buying for us kids.

Buying in bulk

Home cooking - like home made “takeaway” that they convinced us was just as good as the real thing

Not having sky tv

Library books instead of buying them

Taking picnics instead of eating out if we went to the zoo etc

It was crap then and, in my case, due to poverty. I have no fond memories of poverty. I don’t expect those having to use food banks now harking back with fondness. I was born in 1966 and can still remember the shame of doing these things because of necessity when most of my peers could afford to take the bus rather than walk to save 5p, adequate food plus some luxuries like crisps or chocolate or even take aways or the Bernie inn, shop bought clothes, clubs and nice holidays etc. It singled us out as poor. Different from those in our community and not in a good way.

My mum tried really hard to make jeans and knitted the school colours on my jumper when I started high school. I was bullied mercilessly because this was not the norm. I never told her but suffered my social exclusion in silence because I knew she couldn’t afford Wranglers or the proper uniform. Her buying patterns and fabric from the market and skill on the old fashioned peddle Singer sewing machine (couldn’t afford an electric one) did not make up for this.

I don’t believe that everyone had the same experience or still do most of these things like make their DC school uniform or they only wear hand me downs or get clothes and toys from jumble sales. Back in the 70s it was just me and some other poor kids.

There is a difference between avoiding waste, not wasting money unnecessarily, being mindful of reusing rather than replacing and frugality resulting from poverty. That difference is choice.

Buying clothes from jumble sales.
Accepting hand-me-down children's clothes from colleagues who had slightly older children.
Using a razor blade to cut the toe tops off children's shoes when they got too small and turning them into "sandals".
Unravelling old, holey jumpers bought from jumble sales and re-knitting the wool into children's jumpers, hats and so on.
Cutting up old, out-of-fashion dresses bought from jumble sales and using the fabric to make children's clothes.
Darning socks.
Re-threading elastic into knickers that had gone baggy.
Mending ladders in stockings and tights rather than throwing them away.
Mending clothes and continuing to wear them till they fell to bits, rather than replacing them when faded, holey etc.
Sewing patches onto the elbows of jackets and the knees of trousers.
Using up all food leftovers.

I remember a lot of this especially the mending, turning sheets (and when they failed again they were cut up into handkerchiefs which I had to hem...), clothes made from other peoples hand me downs and unpicking and reknitting wool.

We had a large garden so a lot of home grown fruit and veg - an annual swaparama between friends at planting season. An autumn extravaganza of picking and freezing the fruit and the last of the veg and very scratched hands from blackberrying followed by jam making. Followed by another mass swaparama of mums blackberry jam for someone else's crab apple jelly or eggs etc etc.

No heating at all upstairs and fires only in the kitchen in the morning and sitting room in the evening. So chilblains every winter.... Scavenging for firewood whenever we went for a walk. Ditto mussels and seaweed.

All the ends of soap were saved, melted and moulded into new bars. The smell was vile.

Yes to the Christmas cards becoming gift tags (and the backs into shopping lists), keeping and reusing wrapping paper and string and never writing a name on or sealing an envelope.

Going to the docks on a Friday to buy from the fishing boats - we ate a lot of cod in the days when it was something you fed the cat...

Trips to farms to buy half a pig/sheep etc for the freezer and then to select and chop down the Christmas tree. (Dead Christmas tree eventually made it on to the fire as well).

No im saying i dont save wrapping paper. I keep the gift bags.

I reuse wrapping paper now and have a collection of bags to reuse.

we did have to use tea bags twice,
or more likely use a pot with tea leaves

I realised a few years ago that my parents were actually quite well off when I was young,compared to a lot of my friends' families. We had a car (admittedly second-hand),a landline phone (considered something of a luxury in the early to mid 70s),a colour TV (most of my friends had black and white) and a summer holiday every year. My brothers and I also got new clothes whereas a lot of my friends were dressed from charity shops. But.... my parents persisted in acting like we were on the verge of poverty in a lot of ways! I think it must have been because they were both teenagers during the second world war and had been brought up with rationing and the 'make do and mend' attitude. My mum would make the Sunday meat joint stretch to meals for the next 3 nights,she would re-use tin foil, would never buy 'fancy' drinks for us kids (e.g. coca cola). We had to have water or squash. When we went for days out,we NEVER ate out in cafes or restaurants,we always took our own food. As for buying 'luxuries' like ice creams, forget it! I remember when I was 17,I went on holiday to Jersey with my parents,and when we went to the beach on the first day we were there,my dad offered to buy me an ice cream from the van parked nearby. I nearly fainted with shock! 😂😱

No holidays, no phone line. Tinned food, no after school activities part from free school clubs. Hand me downs. Cheap shoes. Skipping shopping some weeks. Never went to the cinema or anywhere where it costs. Sad existence and it really shows how money is important.

Library books instead of buying them

I don't think of that as frugal just sensible!

We could never have shelved all the books we read!

Blakey's on shoe heels.
Homemade insoles.
Hand me downs.
Shared baths.
One outfit worn all week.

I am reading my childhood in other comments. Cold and character building!

A lot of these things are normal now although often in the name of greenery rather than money-saving. Reusing wrapping paper etc, turning the heating down, hand me downs, etc etc. We are rich but I still share bath water with DH. Agree with pp that all this stuff is more enjoyable when it’s done through choice though.

Did you find it sad at the time though or was it normal compared to you friends lives?

We do that now

• never ever eating out or even having a cup of tea in a cafe even on holiday
• having the soles of slippers repaired
• keeping every single elastic band, sheet of wrapping paper etc.
• mending everything - clothes, ornaments, utensils, crockery etc.
• reusing foil - I still do that!

I don't know. My mother was born in 1936 and never scrimped. She still doesn't. DH's parents were just tight and DH and I are sensible.

Something I've just remembered from yesteryear was that for our school dresses we could order and collect the fabric the pattern required. Our mothers were expected to make them. Fortunately my mother couldn't sew and mine were made by a dressmaker and fitted well and were decent.

I do remember being an utter glutton at other people's birthday parties/ get togethers as there was so much food and/ or branded items, the things I'd see on TV adverts. I'd be told off by my mum as me piling my plate high with Mr Kiplings French fancies would embarrass her.
Even now I have disordered eating as I eat as if I'm being starved. I have cupboards full of snacks, I can't bear my own kids not having access to all that I can give them.
Because it was bloody miserable always feeling that you're missing out on the fun

i was a bit of a glutton at other people's houses, all the treats never seen before!

Boiler chickens for endless soups/curries and sandwiches that lasted a week. Shared baths. One bar only on the electric fire and god forbid if you used the "big light".The communal wash house. Second hand clothes.No central heating and single glazed windows. Green shield stamps. Returning empty bottles for pennies at the off licence and collecting stamps weekly from the milkman exchanged at Christmas for a hamper containing a tin of ham and a Dundee cake.

A mash of potato and carrots for dinner.

Our phone had incoming calls only. If anyone had to make an outgoing call we had to walk to the phone box down the road.
Clothes from Charity shops.
Bare minimum toiletries.