Early 90s we had one really old car and one new one. I had to drive the old car in high school when my friends had new cars.

Anonymous wrote:I remember going to see "Star Wars" as a kid, and my mom popped our popcorn at home. We had to carry it in a brown grocery bag. There were oil stains from the popcorn. I remember feeling embarassed as I saw everyone else getting the movie popcorn and candy.

Now, I cringe at paying $8 for a cup of popcorn with fake butter. Mom was right.

Star Wars was THE treat for the year. We made a big deal out of going and we knew not to ask for anything else.

I remember going to see "Star Wars" as a kid, and my mom popped our popcorn at home. We had to carry it in a brown grocery bag. There were oil stains from the popcorn. I remember feeling embarassed as I saw everyone else getting the movie popcorn and candy.

Now, I cringe at paying $8 for a cup of popcorn with fake butter. Mom was right.

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.

I remember the Frye boots = rich girl.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fast food and KFC was a treat -once or twice a year.

No public meltdowns. Ever.

YUP

This. I don't think it matters if you are rich, middle-class, or poor. I was raised middle class and we live as such now, and we don't tolerate public meltdowns, period. 3 kids and all the drama associated with them, I would rather be stressed and frazzled at a dine-out with the kids than to let them rule the roost there. My kids will NOT ruin other patrons of their enjoyable evening.

I am in my 30's and you are describing how we live right now. Paycheck to paycheck. I think it gets better when you get older.

Anonymous wrote:Fast food and KFC was a treat -once or twice a year.

No public meltdowns. Ever.

YUP

Used the Sunday comics for wrapping paper. Hand made tags for gifts.

Never made along distance phone call until I was married.

Fast food and KFC was a treat -once or twice a year.

No public meltdowns. Ever.

I also remember the cut off jeans that you could split the crotch, stich it, and somehow make a skirt.
I remember my 5th grade teacher using a jelly jar to bring her juice (kool aid) to school in. I always thought it could break.
Jean Nate made a good gift, you could get it at the drug store.
Christmas was board games, socks, pajamas.
You cut your own lawn.

OP here.
We will be buying a house that will tighten our budget and I am going to set some serious limits for our kids.
I almost want them to experience a year on the cheap because they just don't get it. The consumption is obscene,
Anyway,
I remember my father changing the oil in our car, and any other belts and so on.
I remember a big garden that was meant to feed us.
I remember canning for the winter.
The house was never really heated in winter, we just shivered.
A/C was window units and only at night.
No camp.
Mom cut her sisters' hair and they did her's...everyone was done at home.
You saved that brown paper bag.
And yes, bologna in scrambled eggs

Anonymous wrote:That we used to add lenghts to our jeans as we grew taller.

Man does that bring back memories. My mother always got me jeans that were 9-12 inches too long. Then she would tuck the legs inside and hem them. As I grew, she would let out the legs, so I always has these white lines around my pant legs from the shin down where the edges had gotten worn before being let out. I wore a pair of jeans until they were really worn out and had at least two holes (the first hole was patched) somewhere (usually the knee). Then the legs were cut of and I wore cut-offs for shorts or swimming in the summer. The legs were saved to make patches for future rips.

Other things...my mother used to coupon and we would go to stores and buy up large quantities of items on sale, then store them in the basement. Sunday morning was the time to go through the paper to find all the coupons that we would use. We would spend the time to drive to three different grocery stores so that we could buy only the things that were on sale at each. We would buy things in the large economy sizes and then separate them into smaller portions to use.

My dad used to raid the office for office supplies that we used for school supplies. But back then, we had one pencil for each semester, we would get one large loose leaf binder for the whole year, and one tablet of paper that would last most of the year. we made subject separators from the cardboard that came on the back of the tablet of paper.

We were a one car family, but Dad carpooled with 2 others and only had to drive about twice a week so Mom had the car the days that Dad didn't drive.

We're a Chinese American family, so ate a lot of stir-fry and such that didn't include a lot of meat. Typically we used about 1/2 lb of meat for our family of five for a dinner (lots of veggies and rice in our meals).

Used a lot of hand-me-downs. I remember that I frequently wore my brother's clothes and shoes and only got new shoes when I wore out shoes before I fit the next size.

PP here/denim cut off poster

-my dad wore hand me down worn out shoes with holes in the soles. He shoved newspaper inside to keep his feet warm and dry.

-his family drank gallons of Kool Aid

- he and his brothers were "sent away" to a summer camp for at-risk boys, sponsored by the police department

At college I was always hungry. We ate the same things all the time: eggs and hash brown potatoes, cheese quesilladas, carrots, lettuce with bulger wheat and a dressing that tasted like meat. Repeat. Have trouble eating eggs even now. Have not made hash browns since.