We were so poor in the 70's...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember when a hole rusted through the floor of our car, and you could see a small path of the roadway blurring by if yo looked down. My dad welded a baking sheet to the floor to patch the hole. Problem solved!

We had that too, but we were just told not to step on that area.

[Anonymous]

Also, when we moved into a house in 1971, we just kept the paint colors. We went about choosing our rooms based on the color that the previous owners had.

[Anonymous]

You forgot polyester leisure suits. Woohoo.

[Anonymous]

Vacations were going camping in our beat-up Rambler and eating PB sandwiches at rest stops.

Went on vacay with a friend and they stopped at Denny's to eat and stayed in motels, which I thought was pure luxury.

[Anonymous]

We were middle class, but my parents were immigrants who grew up in the Depression (which was worldwide), not to mention war. They were beyond cheap. Soap - the cheapest at the store, that came in a bag. I longed for name brand soap. They saved everything - paper bags, string, tin foil. God forbid you dry your hands on a paper towel and throw it away. To this day I automatically dry my hands but save it, for next use. My mom constantly turned out lights, I could walk around the house in the dark, I was used to it. Cars were driven into the ground. Holes in the floor? You bet. Heater didn't work right - usually the Fords.

[Anonymous]

PP again. And forget great clothes. It was "wait until it is on sale." So whatever was on sale, that's what you got.

[Anonymous]

09:09 makes a good point, besides the fact that the entire decade was essentially a recession, we were being raised by people who had seen some really bad times as children themselves. They just did not see any reason to spend a penny unless it mattered. So yes, my parents were well educated professionals who made good money for the time, but my father would not call anyone in to do anything in the house. Every plumbing problem, every electrical problem, everything he would try to fix by himself.

[Anonymous]

We were relatively well off, but I remember taking broken appliances to the fix-it shop. I mentioned this to my kids recently and they said "wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy a new one?" I had to explain to them that things like hairdryers, portable TVs, record players, actually weren't that cheap to replace and that fixing things was commonplace. Times have changed!

[Anonymous]

I was living this thread til I got to the end and noticed its in the 50+ forum. When did I get old enough to take part in one of "those" threads?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were middle class, but my parents were immigrants who grew up in the Depression (which was worldwide), not to mention war. They were beyond cheap. Soap - the cheapest at the store, that came in a bag. I longed for name brand soap. They saved everything - paper bags, string, tin foil. God forbid you dry your hands on a paper towel and throw it away. To this day I automatically dry my hands but save it, for next use. My mom constantly turned out lights, I could walk around the house in the dark, I was used to it. Cars were driven into the ground. Holes in the floor? You bet. Heater didn't work right - usually the Fords.

We did this, but I looked at my parents accounts. They saved $400,000 for retirement. That is $1.28M in today's $. Good going savers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting thread, though some of the memories of frugality are really about the '70s more than SES. I grew up in an affluent suburb of San Francisco in the '70s and my sisters and I all patched our jeans, made skirts out of jeans, and wore cut-offs. We were doctors' daughters and traveled to Europe in the summer, but the '70s were about not looking and acting like you were a rich girl. Think Patty Hearst; think Hall and Oates' "You're a Rich Girl". The sartorial tip-off that you had money was owning a pair of Frye boots. When I came east to go to college, my roommate, a college professor's daughter from the midwest, saw my boots and told everybody I was a debutante.

This. We ate Hamburger Helper, my mom made many of my clothes, cut-offs and cut-off skirts we're a fun project, patches all over the jeans, home haircuts for everyone, scotch tape and rubber bands on eyeglasses and my parent sent 2 girls through Sidwell and 2 boys through St. Albans. Try doing that now--it can't be done. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Funny, the SES disparity was bigger, but no one noticed it as much back then. A blessing in disguise. Now, everyone has to have this or that to be happy. When did we turn into a flock of sheeple?

Such a shame, truly.

No, its worse now. Statistics are clear about the declining middle class, increased number of families who are poor or nearly so and the rich being richer and owning more than anytime since the robber baron years.

Remember-one old family car, a Rambler, new shoes once a year, new clothes only on true sale, but mainly from thrift stores, dependent on the garden for food as fresh was scarce during the winter, dented canned food the norm, worked for money from the time you could (newspaper route, babysitting, odd jobs until I got my first job at 16). Interesting memories!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those who describe themselves as poor in the '70s, three questions:

1) How would you describe your SES now?

2) If you have experienced upward mobility, to what do you attribute this?

3) If you attribute your upward mobility to postsecondary education, how did you finance it?

(DCUM -- where would all of us amateur sociologists go without you?)

1. Higher SES than one sibling, probably the same as the other but we live in DC and they live in NC.

2. My parents insisting our lives would be financially better, instilling that in us and then 2 of us following through on that.

3. Worked my way through school, paid loans after except one my mother paid off since they had given my sibs support but not me.

Also it was easier until about 15-20 years ago when housing and fuel prices climbed and stayed high. My friends who earn our income in other parts of the country are starting to feel the pinch too. College costs are obscene compared to what they were when DH and even younger friends attended.

[Anonymous]

"No, its worse now. Statistics are clear about the declining middle class, increased number of families who are poor or nearly so and the rich being richer and owning more than anytime since the robber baron years."

This is essentially what trying to keep up with the Joneses, or in this era, the Kardashians, looks like. If you give it this perspective, you will never be happy.

Good God, is it completely lost on people to suck it up and make sacrifices here? Some of us actually made their own wealth - with no hand outs from others or anything. What a concept! How do you people tie your own shoes?

Stop looking at the next guy and look at yourself, for crying out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Funny, the SES disparity was bigger, but no one noticed it as much back then. A blessing in disguise. Now, everyone has to have this or that to be happy. When did we turn into a flock of sheeple?

Such a shame, truly.

No, its worse now. Statistics are clear about the declining middle class, increased number of families who are poor or nearly so and the rich being richer and owning more than anytime since the robber baron years.

Remember-one old family car, a Rambler, new shoes once a year, new clothes only on true sale, but mainly from thrift stores, dependent on the garden for food as fresh was scarce during the winter, dented canned food the norm, worked for money from the time you could (newspaper route, babysitting, odd jobs until I got my first job at 16). Interesting memories!

disparity bigger, but standard of living for the poor has gone up