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.

After 8s were the height of sophistication - we kids always troughed what was left of the box after dinner parties.

speakout I am sorry for you.
My mother knew how to buy a cheap cut of meat and cook it well so we always had the semblance of a Sunday Roast.

We didn't have a telephone until I was 19, in 1980.

Timetogetup0630

Thank you. But no need to feel sorry. I think a Sunday roast is an English thing, and I grew up in Scotland. None of my friends or neighbours had a sunday roast either.

Scottish people and poverty are close allies. The closest we got to a Sunday roast was a haggis, a delicious mixture of offal, lamb trachea and lung.

Having the nice regular coffee in the morning, as opposed to the value undrinkable one. Nice coffee was reserved for when having guests over.

Adding a log to the fire. Only when the fire was going out and after checking everyone would be staying downstairs for the duration the extra log would burn.

Eating out/buying sandwiches/having a drink somewhere - I almost had a heart attack when my mom suggested we get coffee after visiting a museum last week. No idea what happened to her

Cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and sparkling water also were on the luxuries list

Fruit corners
Variety packs of cereal

speakout that explains why my MiL from Ayrshire doesn't know how to cook a roast! She just burns it.
And her mother used to boil sausages...and boil cabbage until it was soggy and then mash it with margarine.

No car, no television, no phone, no central heating, just one room kept warm in the winter. I remember ice on the inside of our bedroom windows. I was born just after the war, so things were still on ration. Never had fizzy drinks, rarely had sweets, I don’t remember ever seeing fat children, we were all skinny.

Timetogetup0630 yes, my mother boiled sausages too,

Pot of water, sausages, some Bisto if we were lucky, and yes mashed over cooked cabbage with marg.

Mint vicounts and Mr Kipling cakes! We only had them on school trip days. You can buy a pack of vicounts for 49p!

We never had bought cakes. Mum baked whatever treats we had. She also sewed or knitted almost all of our clothes and made all her own, with a few exceptions. We had lots of fruit from the garden, which was eaten fresh or turned into jam - raspberry, gooseberry, blackcurrant, loganberry, plum, rhubarb. Also lots of fresh and blanched and frozen veg - beans and broccoli, and fresh veg all summer, with onions in the shed for winter. We had two apple trees that supplied the wherewithal for pies all winter..

mathanxiety- sounds lovely.

Frozen stuff though-we didn;t have a fridge, never mind a freezer. Certainly could not afford a shed,

Anything that wasn’t in a plain white ‘value’ packet was rarely seen in our house.

Luxuries:
Penguin bars
Frosties
Biscuits other than digestives
The ice cream hierarchy was real! We were allowed Mini milks (10p each) that was it.
Vienetta was a rare treat
A McDonalds happy meal was a celebratory event

Technology. New furniture. My mum has furniture that she got as a wedding present in 1966. I forced her to get a new bed about ten years ago but have failed on the sofa.
We got a second hand video player in about 1989, only replaced with a DVD player circa 2005.

I do remember my grandad (born 1924) that a major treat was the final stub of a candle left in his room when he was going to bed as a little boy. He'd watch it enthralled then it'd burn out.

Popcorn at the cinema. My mum always made it at home before we went out.

Eating out. My dad still raises his eyebrows if I go to Costa or somewhere for a quick lunch as if that is shamefully decadent.

awe make popcorn before we go! It's extortionate prices at the cinema!

We don't tend to have lunch out unless a planned meal as that would easily be 30-40 quod for the 4 of us on nothing really!

I kinda miss the days where all this stuff (that would be considered crap now) was such a treat. Our kids don't really yearn for anything do they?

Another one - my dad would make us wash our hair with soap, even though we had shampoo and conditioner in the house for my mum.

I quite miss the days when these little things felt like such a treat. The other day I saw some kids in a restaurant looking utterly bored and playing on their phones. Being taken to a restaurant was so rare for us that we'd be sitting bolt upright in our seats wearing our best clothes and looking at everything in amazement.

Cappuccinocake I don't buy popcorn at all now, it's such a rip off, so maybe I'll start making my own again!

Cream soda and golden wonder cheese and onion crisps (blue packet back then).

mathanxiety do you know how those onions in the shed were stored, please?

mathanxiety We had huge bags of tatties outside in the shed.

My Grandma had a small jar of Nescafé, and that was the posh coffee for visitors. Everyone else was given either Camp Coffee or a coffee and chicory mix.

My mum only bought steak on my Dad’s birthday.

Adora last time I grew onions I harvested them, left them on the patio table in the sun for a few days to dry, then twisted the leaves around lengths of string to make ropes of onions (think I googled it) and just hung them from the shed roof.

They were absolutely fine for the couple of months it took us to get through them; home grown onions are noticeably tastier.

The ice cream hierarchy. Oh yes! For us it went:

You might get a Mini Milk on a trip to the park if it was a sunny day.
You rarely got to go to the ice cream van when it stopped on your street, but if you did, you were allowed a 15p lemonade or cola lolly. Never a 99 Flake cone (I coveted those ice cream oysters which were whispers one pound fifty ).

I grew up thinking quite shitty branded processed foods were really special, as my mum was a cook-from-scratch/brown bread type of gal. I loved going to friend's houses who were allowed Kellogs variety packs of cereal for breakfast EVERY DAY and who's mums bought things like McCain microchips and Pop Tarts.

Thanks for that Tinkly