What was your standard of living growing up?

[TazzyDrunk]

I would say it was fairly good , not overly impressive but no real financial problems that me and my brother noticed

We were poor, but I didn't realise it at the time as I didn't know any better and everyone I knew was also not well off.

Mum worked 2 or 3 entry level jobs to make ends meet. Dad was home but he was a manic depressive. He became schizophrenic as he got older. They both smoked and drank.

We never had holidays abroad. I didn't get my first passport until I was 20 years old and going to study in a foreign country.

We regularly used the food bank and didn't have so much fresh food to eat. Food was powder milk, peanut butter, pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, gravy powder mix, processed cheese, etc.

Shopped for clothing at second hand shops or got hand me downs from my cousins as they were a bit better off.

Mum told me to study hard if I wanted to leave that town and get away from dad, as she couldn't afford to send me to university (she and dad never went). I did good at school and got a full scholarship at a private university (I clearly ticked a lot of boxes for them: poor, female, mixed race, etc.) Left home at 17 years old and really never went back. It was at uni I realised the extent of my family's poverty.

Studied in Europe, got professional qualification and met my husband. We both have successful careers.

Me and my children's lives are so very different from mine growing up. We have a nice place to live. Their dad is great and we are still together. Good schools. New clothes. Food from the grocery store. Holidays abroad. They don't want for anything.

We never go back to my home town. Dad died many years ago. Mum's had many boyfriends and still lives very shabbily. Had bedbugs recently, still smokes and drinks, so really can't take the kids there to visit. We see her maybe once a year at my sister's house and chat weekly on Skype.

A fairly wealthy upbringing. I was born in the early 80's, we moved around every few years due to Dad getting promotions. Always lived in the "posh" parts of town. I only recall one brief period ( around 86/87) when money was a bit tighter than usual but nothing major.

I know we were very lucky

Felt rather poor and like my parents struggled a bit. My abiding memory is being driven around in an old vaxhall viva whilst my parents did the census survey to make some extra money. They argued a lot and things always felt stressful. When my dad got a well paying job in the 80s for a large American corporate company, his stress levels were immense and he often took it out on the family and and by drinking too much. It wasn't easy, growing up.

I was born in 1968. Mum was a sahm until I was about eleven. Dad always had a reasonable job and owned their own house. Always enough food but I remember wearing the same clothes almost every day at primary school ( may have been my choice ? ). We had one family holiday a year.

Dire, something I have come to terms with as can’t change the past. Little money, no experiences, poor adult choices, their wants coming first etc.

It gave me the determination that my children would never experience the same. Their childhood has been an exact opposite and I’d work as many jobs as it took to ensure that never changed for them.

This is such an interesting read, particularly those who were not aware of their parents struggles / differences in upbringing to others.

Mine was poor but happy. Although as Dad got qualified it increased their income but necessitated a lot of moving houses and schools which was quite disruptive for our education.

 to those who has such sad experiences.

Middle class, DF had professional job, DM Sahm to 6, we had enough to eat, had extra curriculars, annual family holiday (SC in this country), etc.

But often had barely enough to eat, no spare clothes (school uniform, a good outfit, tracksuit and top, that was about it). DM sewed a lot of our clothes and repaired most. Everything passed on to siblings (having started coming from extended family ). "Economy drive" where dinner was bread and jam, was not infrequent. I remember the tv being taken away. The holes covered with a plank of wood in the floor of DMs car.

DF had a company car, so we went tothe city at weekend for food shopping (major supermarket rather than small country convenience stores), borrowed new library books and , on good weeks, they had a coffee out and would get a soft drink each for us and share out 2 buns between us all.

Meals out were generally picnics. Pocket money didn't exist.

We have a lot more now - even the less well off in the family. But there was a lot of hiding of the real situation - using the company car to get good value food and other savings, DF grew a lot of our veg, DM baked a lot of the (rare) sweet treats etc. DF would go out after winter storms and chainsaw a fallen tree for logs for the fire (and I would swing the axe to make them into fire sized hunks). I already mentioned DM sewing our clothes. And we all pulled together at home.

I was a child in the 60s and looking back on it we would probably be considered quite poor, but we were better off than a lot.

We lived in a small village in Somerset. Dad worked in a printing works and mum was a SAHM until we were at school (two of us).

Neither of my parents drove so we didn't have a car and holidays were mostly in South Wales with my mum's family. We didn't want for anything really, House was paid for, food was plentiful..my dad grew a lot of stuff in his garden.

Takeaways aren't really a thing then..except for fish and chips, but we ate out in Bath fairly regularly.

Most of the village was the same so it wasn't until I moved away and met richer people that I realised what I'd missed.

I've been thinking about this thread all night.
Although we were poor the freedom we had was brilliant.
In the summer holidays we would go out in the morning my mum always said be back when the street light come on.
As kids we roamed everywhere. Something that would definitely not be done today.

We did too Parkhead - as much freedom as we wanted. We used to take a sandwich, drink and an apple and go off exploring the countryside. Cave wood - had rocky overhangs rather than caves - was great on a rainy day. It was proper famous five type stuff, we would light little fires and eat hawthorn leaves (trying to taste bread and butter 😂) and go home covered in black berry juice in the right season.

DD had some of that as we lived in the middle of nowhere for her primary years but today’s world is not remotely the same.

I am glad I grew up when I did and how I did with much less materially but far more freedom.

Single mother on a council estate. Not rich but don't recall wanting for the essentials.

Would I change it? God no, loads of blankets for bedding on a really cold day. The ability to dissappear with friends for the day without causing a panic. Bread and dripping. A Chinese was well posh. The Christmas day big movie.

Difference was you cut your cloth without a permanent sense of entitlement.

We were very well off.

i.e 6 kids all at private schools, 1 boarding. Petrol card for our cars, members of a country club. Holiday beach house.
Not so much now :)

We had enough to pay the bills and be clothed and fed but not much extra money going spare.

My dad worked in manufacturing which suffered in recessions so there was periods of unemployment. He did gardening on the side an my mum took on a cleaning job and we all had paper rounds from an early age to help out, and for our pocket money. I had 3 rounds once, morning, and 2 weekly locals.

No car, no latest gadgets, second hand bikes, lots of charity shopping. Holidays were days out at the park, and days away with my grandparents who lived by the sea.

I didn’t realise we were below average until I went to secondary school, I got a full scholarship to a local private school, and my friends were all much better off. It was never an issue, but it did make me realise that other families had more money, more stuff, holidays abroad. I wasn’t bothered though, and my friends were just as happy to come round my house than they were my other pals.

I made full use of the second hand uniform sales!

My friends parents were very generous with giving lifts, I never asked but they always offered. In return my dad would do things like meeting us from gigs at the train station late at night and walked friends home so my friends parents didn’t have to go out late at night.

But we were very happy. I used to help my dad with gardening, my sister would go with my mum to her evening cleaning job. We were, and still are very close.

Now their mortgage is paid off, my mum was left quite a chunk of inheritance, and they have okay pensions they have never been richer! Still live in the same house, but now have a car and don’t have to worry if the washing machine breaks or they need new carpets. I’m happy that now, after all their hard work, they can enjoy retirement. Nothing extravagant, they go to the theatre, concerts, out for meals. Stuff that we couldn’t do much when we were young.

80s child.

My family was ok financially, we didn’t feel as though we went without but my parents were on a tight budget and we knew they had to be careful with money.

Basic staple foods, the same meals repeated. Toys only for birthdays and Christmas and only one specially chosen (by us) toy for those occasions. Small birthday party at home with a handful of children every year. Only holidays were a few days once a year to visit grandparents. They also came to visit us for a few days once a year. No sporting or music lessons. Hand me down clothes only. We didn’t get a landline phone until the early 90s. No computers or technology.

Friends and neighbours all had a similar standard of living and lifestyle so I never felt as we were deprived or spoiled.

My mother was a sahm until my youngest sibling went to nursery school and then she got a school hours job, so we always had the benefit of her at home as well as the extra money which we knew was needed.

1960s, abroad ( away from U.K.)

Surrounded by ex-pats on expenses, we felt like the poor cousins. Not worry about paying the bills poor, but saving the penny for the bus and walking poor while school friends were visiting European capitals for the weekend as part of making the most of being abroad.

Imagine my surprise when as an adult, I discovered that my parents were more frugal than truly poor.

If only they could have known how long (or not) they would live. Now IHT. Sigh.

Awful. We lived in a beautiful house in the best road of our London suburb. I went to grammar school and wanted to be a doctor. Parents didn't agree with education for girls [or didn't want to pay for it more like!] so I had to leave school and went in to nursing instead. It was heaven living in the Nurses Home. Mother a selfish narc and father utterly charming living the life of Riley with multiple affairs, sports car, exotic holidays. Meanwhile we endured a very deprived childhood - different food to parents, second hand everything, no love or care at all. I just can't forgive them.

Lots of people describing a poorer childhood for them than their own children today. It is indeed heartening to see that lifting own self out of those circumstances has been possible for many.
People who like to glorify the good old days should remember that it wasn’t all that great back then, even in the 90s as I remember it. Romanticising about the 70s and saying how everything is crap today has become fashionable, especially in leftists circles, but just isn’t the truth.

Born in '69. Council house. Damp. No heating - remember making patterns in the ice on the inside of the windows and sleeping in coats and three pairs of socks.
Food was a real mixture (looking back it depended on pay dates). We would have chips cooked in a pan some days, veg from the garden, chops, sausages - never chicken and rarely beef. Smoked haddock every Friday with mash and peas.
Mum was a dinner lady and dad worked in a factory. We had a really old and battered camper van and went on holiday in that.

The difference now is credit.

Tough

My mum left school at 14 to be with my dad but my dad worked hard. They bought a little terraced house. They both (once there we 3 kids) decided to go to university so we lived in a 'family flat' (3 rooms) of university accommodation for 3 years.

We then moved to wales when my dad did teacher training and my mum worked. She was v shy and her job included conferences etc and she started drinking for confidence. It got out of control and they split. My mum wouldn't pay bills but spend money on drink and meeting married men and time away. I used to forge the child benefit book to get money for food. When I was 18 I had a place at uni but got a job instead to pay the mortgage as it was due to be repossessed. I bought my own house at 20 as couldn't cope at home.

We had a couple of camping trips and 1 holiday my whole childhood, charity shop clothes or hone made clothes and rarely new things. 1st takeaway I was 10.

We had the phone cut off and I used to sleep downstairs in winter in front of the fire as my bedroom was so cold, ice on the inside of the window and the curtains flapping because of the draught

Oh wow yeah I remember the phone being cut off. Had forgotten that. And my mum saying never to leave the windows open if we went out because a bailiff can get in that way.

I remember the first time I ate a bell pepper at about 19, and I said to my friend “wow! I wish we had things like this is the U.K. in the 90’s, they taste amazing!” and she was Also when we went out for a curry with my first boyfriends parents and I realised there were actually different types of curry that weren’t just spicy tomato soup with meat.

sst1234 thank you. my Mum says I am too indulgent with my kids now. But I just won’t spare love. The poverty is one thing but it’s no excuse to be emotionally barren as well. I just won’t ever ever put cigarettes or alcohol or “it’s MY life and I’ll do as I please” before my children. It’s not do as I say, not as I do in my house. They will have every missed opportunity that I didn’t, and if they don’t want it, fair enough. But the option will always be there for them.