@mathanxiety, back in the early 1960s, my parents were barely able to survive on my Dad's salary. They'd got married confidently expecting that my Mum would go with her teaching job for another three years and then they would start a family. I had other ideas. I was born just under a year after the wedding. 
Money was so tight that it was an absolute godsend when my Mum got word that her uncle, who had a flock of chickens, was sending them one for Christmas. It was sent by Royal Mail - can I be imagining that it was just handed in with a label tied to one of the legs? - and tragically (for Mum and Dad's Christmas) by the time it was released from the Sorting Office it was utterly rotten. 
My Mum has often told me how embarrassed she was asking the butcher for a quarter pound of mince. My Mum is extremely easily embarrassed and always assumes that everyone else knows all about her and is judging her, just as she would if the tables were turned, but even so.
I think this is one reason why once money was less tight, my parents always prioritised spending money on food rather than holidays or any other fripperies. Another was my parents' desperation for sugar after years of rationing when they were very young.
Unlike many other people on this thread, I remember lots of sweets and other snacks in between meals. We are a Scottish family and we had a diet heavy in saturated fat, salt, refined sugar, starchy carbs. Fortunately for my long-term health, unlike many other Scottish families, we also had plenty of vegetables, oats and pulses, and we got some fruit and fish.
Our usual evening meal ('tea') was something like:
Main course - not necessarily hot in the summer months, might be cold meat or tinned fish and salad then, but mostly there was a hot element. Typically it might be:
Meat pies from the butchers, home-made chips deep-fried in dripping/lard, baked beans (sometimes there were no beans and on those occasions my Mum substituted tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce 
)
Cold meat or tinned salmon, home-made chips, salad, salad cream/mayonnaise, pickled onions (we always had this on Monday to use up the last of the roast beef from Sunday)
Macaroni cheese with sliced tomatoes on top
Shepherd's pie with beans or veg
Once a week, fish and chips which my Dad picked up on the way home from work
We washed this down with tea. Alcohol was reserved for Christmas and the rare occasions when we had visitors.
Also on the table we would always have:
Sliced bread, butter, jam
Slices of cake or fairy cakes or fruit tealoaf or iced buns (usually home-made, sometimes bought - anything involving yeast would be bought)
Chocolate biscuits
We ate early, not much after 6pm. Mid-evening, as we were all sitting in front of the TV, sweets would be offered around. Sweets were also routinely offered on car, bus and train trips. My Mum carried them in her handbag.
Fruit on the other hand was rationed. When my brother and I were little my Mum usually cut an apple or orange or pear in half and gave us each one half. I was one of the few children in the country who would spend my pocket money on buying fruit. I often bought big oranges as we never had those at home and I got to eat one all to myself.