Things your parents led you to think were 'special' or 'expensive' that you now take for granted?

[VladmirsPoutine]

for the po-faced

Growing up my siblings and I were wary over using too much kitchen roll - we'd get a sheet and fold it in half to tear before using, the faff was a PITA but to this day I still get a bit territorial over my kitchen roll.

We also had 'special' China plates, cups, cutlery, that sort of thing. Only used when we had guests or at Christmas - I didn't carry that into adulthood but whenever I visit my DM I still fondly look at the unit containing all those 'special' cups

My dad died when I was relatively young but prior to this death he used to always take us (siblings&I) to our weekend clubs when we were young, on Saturdays one of my sisters and I attended clubs that finished at similar times and it was always Saturdays that mum worked nights so the 4 us: dad+siblings would always get McDs and think it was basically gourmet dining.

I didn't have a deprived childhood by any definition but I do find those quirks quite funny looking back.

80s, my mum still uses hankies too. She hand washes them - shudder - and then sticks them on the tiles in the kitchen to dry, as that way they don't need ironing!!!!! How she's survived this long, I don't know.

Virtually everyone rented their phone in the past. And renting TVs was common. This because they were expensive items.

I used to love making gift tags out of old Christmas cards, as I got to use my mother's terrifying looking pinking shears

Also - harking back to the OP - I do tear sheets of kitchen roll in half. The roll is HUGE, and they are so thick, you don't need a whole sheet!

(And I don't use them very much anyway, mostly rinseable cloths for most things, but do use the half-paper-towels for wiping out grease from pans rather than sending it down the plughole to become a fatberg.)

The phones used to belong to BT, as it was all nationalised. You could only get a phone from the BT shop and you only had a telephone line from BT. I would just like to say I am too young to remember this, but I watched one of those Dominic Sandbrook programmes and it was on that!

My parents still don't see the need for kitchen roll!

Yes, renting the tv. We used to regularly walk to drop off the rent which took about half an hour to the tv rental mans house - a posh place at the top of a steep hill. Shitty old tv it was too.

We used to hire a 'chalet' in a holiday park for a week. Remember it had 2 bedrooms and a pullout bed in the sitting room. We managed to squeeze upwards of 10 people into it.

Remember eating out once a year when older, usually Berni Inn or Beefeater. Was a huge deal. Never had a takeout (unless fish n chips at seaside).

Bathed once or twice a week, otherwise strip wash with a shared flannel and towel. House was freezing with ice in the inside of the windows.

At Christmas had a small stocking and one main gift of fairly low value.
Grandparents would say how lucky we were as all they had was a hoop and stick or doll made from rags.

I remember regular house parties with extended family where the uncles would all get lashed and there would be midnight congos down the road. The sideboard would be laden down with cans of beer and bottles of advocat.

I guess we didn't feel deprived as didn't seem like anyone had much of anything.

The average salary in 1966, equates with £14,997 today. But there was no welfare benefit like working tax credit for low earners, although there was child benefit. So many people would have been poorer then.

Was stuff actually more expensive back in the day, or were our parents just skinflints?

Owning a freezer: I was 11 when we got one. My first 'frozen meal' was baby onions in white sauce that came out of the bag as little onions and white crumbs, which miraculously melted on heating into a creamy sauce. My Mum cried in the freezer shop (yes in those days you didn't buy frozen food at the supermarket: there was a special shop!) she was so happy.

My dad said he earnt £30 /week in the early 70,s he said this was an average wage? They owned a home (two bed terrace in greater manchester) and a car and went on holiday every year usually to Wales and my mum didn't work untill I was seven we did start going abroad in the 80,s

Mars Bars! My dad also used to cut them into slices to share.
Cornettos.
Fresh orange Juice
And opening more than one packet of cereal. There was always a fight to open a new box in case it wasn't your favourite.
Leaving food on your plate. You'd get it at the next meal - cold. I still feel guilty leaving food on my plate.

My parents didnt get a VCR untill I was about 14/15 We begged and begged for one this was late 80,s and it was a thing to get a video on a Saturday night ,plus neighbours and home and away were really popular, and for some reason for the first couple of years they only showed neighbours at lunch time and first thing inn the morning so if you were at school you missed it those lucky enough to have a VCR taped it

My first job was working as a Christmas temporary sales assistant at my local M&S.

I reckon it was around 1979/80.

I was paid £1.74 an hour. Our uniforms had 1 long thin pocket just big enough for a pen to make it very hard to steal cash from the till.

The best bit was the subsidised canteen. 5p for a main course for lunch, and 5p for a pudding. All from the M&S food range, which was v posh, even then.

Using the phone was not allowed either. Needless to say we used it whenever we could to make prank calls.. I blush to think of it now.

To be fair, we never really went without. My Dad was a collier, my mum didn't work. We had a warm house, good food, lots of treats and toys, trendy clothes. I suspect we were what would be unkindly called "chavvy" today.

Frugality was just more normal then.

My Dad actually spent an awful lot of money on fags and booze.

oldlaund, I think consumer goods were more expensive. Relatively speaking clothes, cars, white goods etc were more expensive to buy than they are now. There weren't shops like Primark or Peacocks or the huge out of town hypermarkets. Cheap stuff was generally bought at old fashioned outdoor markets and even then it wasn't cheap like stuff is now.

Property was relatively speaking cheaper though, although still not cheap.

Was stuff actually more expensive back in the day, or were our parents just skinflints?

I think it was a combination of parents who may have been brought up during wartime or in the fifties where there was still rationing, waste not or want not was a big motto in our house. Buying things on the never never or being in debt was seen as shameful. Also, things were much more expensive compared to today, pp have talked about being able to buy 4 bars of imperial leather for a pound, a box of cornettos, you can buy 4 rolls of kitchen roll for a pound and fruit and veg aren't seasonal any more. Also, they didn't have a things like pound shops in those days!

I had no idea anyone else had parents who sliced up Mars Bars and ate them one slice at a time, putting it back in the fridge between whiles. (My mum did this.)

If you look at comparisons of prices now and then, and various websites do it, some foods are the same. Clothing and consumer goods are much cheaper. Houses were cheaper then, but most people rented because getting a mortgage was difficult, Banks were very traditional and risk averse. Foods from abroad like grapes, etc, were much more expensive. And wages were in real terms, lower. Also nothing like DLA. If you couldn't cope, you were told to put your child in a residential home. So much tougher for parents with disabled children.

Was stuff actually more expensive back in the day, or were our parents just skinflints?

I get the impression that clothes were expensive so people didn't have loads of different things to wear. Especially things like coats and shoes.

My parents grew up in the war and still view the following as expensive even though there will be an IHT bill to pay when they die :

• eating out
• phone calls
• new clothes
• fancy food
• food at motorway services
• tech in general

If they knew how much DH spends on Costa/Nero they'd have a heart attack. They are very much of the make-do-and-mend generation.

I'm having flashbacks at the memory of Izal medicated toilet tissue (made great tracing paper) and Dad's face as he struggled with the decision to let us have soft stuff instead.

I'm another one who was a kid in the 70s. Dad treated orange juice like medicine that he only drank because his doctor advised him to. Everything in the house was second hand and he could fix it all so buying new was pointless.

However, Mum insisted on drinking tea out of a bone china cup and saucer. Whenever her current one got broken there was a trip of great ceremony to the nearest city to buy a new one at a department store.

I remember going to a restaurant with them and being worried sick because Dad hadn't paid before we started eating.

We got a colour TV in 1974 and a phone in 1980. We got a video player after I had gone to uni in 1983. I got an Amstrad tower HiFi for my 15th or 16th birthday and it was my pride and joy, (I frequently mention it when we are watching the apprentice, much to my kids irritation).

We always had a car though, ate out fairly regularly and always went on holiday. We had takeaways too; fish and chips or Chinese, certainly all through my teens.

I think people spent a bigger proportions of their incomes on food then, as well as clothes and consumer goods being more expensive.

We got our first microwave oven in the mid 1980s and I think it cost £350 . They cost a fraction of that now.

Also far fewer mothers worked, so most households had only one income. Plus also more time to make packed lunches etc.

But a lot of the things we are talking about didn't exist in the 1970s and 1980s, or were confined to big cities. Things like coffee shops, lots of takeaways, fast food places, and a huge variety of places to buy lunch.