The Summer Budget

And I expect Jane, Niggly and Roses because many were in the same boat we didn't actually think of it as anything other than normal, especially with young families. I think children definately had less expectations and were happy for trips to the beach, local park, swimming pool, other people's houses.

I remember having a recipe book called 'left overs for tomorrow' that had umpteen ways to use mince, bulking it out with pasta,lentils, even chickpeas if you were feeling really poor!!Dumplings, for both savoury dishes and puddings were on the menu. No I wouldn't have used a food bank, but I certainly went to the supermarket late on Saturday evening, (before Sunday opening) as there were often good bargains to be had. Also the local weekly market, again if you or a friend could get there late in the afternoon there were more bargains. I remember buying broken biscuits very cheaply, great for kids and again jelly with a biscuit base was a favourite in our house, cheap and easy, and we were young with energy that now eludes me!!

Some of the people who use food banks do not have the money for fuel, so mince would be useless to them.
They are given items that do not need cooking.

I'd forgotten the late Saturday shop Niggly. As you reminded me nothing opened on Sunday so there were good bargains to be had if you timed it right. And the butcher would give you a ham bone 'for the dog' free, which boiled up for pea and ham or ham and lentil soup, often with good bits of ham left on it.

Broken biscuits! Had forgotten those too.

Yes, we were young and creative and knew how to peel vegetables and eek meals out for days. And not too proud to eat leftovers.

Good points about resilience and expectations.

I think though, that back then, there were also the ideals of being able to get out of your situation.

Do poorer people have those ideals now?

Aspirations?

The unemployment rate is maybe less than it used to be.

But on the other hand, I think it is safe to say that the divide between rich and poor is wider.

I dont think I was necessarily thinking of aspirations.
More a case of do they think that their situation is hopeless, if that makes sense.

I am talking generally. I dont think that any large group of people can be lumped totally together.

This thread is beginning to drip with condescension. The "our generation was better than this one" club seems to be back. Solutions may differ but the vast majority of the "younger generation" try just as hard to make ends meet but they are coping with a different world - just as the vast majority of ours coped with a different world to our parents - although in our case it was much improved from the past.

I am beginning to feel even more sympathy for those younger people who have a go at the self-satisfied older generation.

Not self satisfied. Just looking back on how we dealt with hard times (which we didn't even think were hard times at the time). Resilience and different expectations were key. How are current youngsters dealing with it?

I've said this on another thread so sorry to repeat myself and bore everyone but back in the day the corner shops fed the poorer people in our communities.

Everything was on 'the bill', pay day in our area was Thursday so the bill was paid, a basic order purchased then off they went again. The corner shop was the pantry until the following week. Most had gas and electric meters so a shilling for the gas was not unusual on a Wednesday, on the bill of course. These weren't feckless people, on the contrary they were hard workers in a traditionally low payed industry.

The advent of the supermarket and the demise of the corner shop took this option away. It wasn't the best way to live but it did keep people fed.

Picking up on some of Anya's points; we were in a more fortunate position than she was but even so, DH was just starting out in first paid post after 6 years on grants and scholarships when DS1 was born and I gave up paid work. But everyone passed on baby's and children's clothes, ate left-overs and took a picnic to the park for the exciting outing. Bus ride on the top deck! Feeding the ducks! Choosing a book at the library! It's right that every generation should aspire to do better than the one before and that parents hope their children will have secure and happy lives. But I feel the aspirations may often be based on false values. When TV interviewees talk of deprivation, they often refer to not having holidays or not being able to take the children on trips or buy them things.

I agree that things were very different then, and attitudes were different. I don't remember anyone patronising or being condescending to me when DH was made redundant and things were financially very tricky, and I don't think anyone here is doing this either, just pointing out that hard times are not something new, and that each generation has its own way of coping and that it is amazing what you can do even surprising yourself in the process! There were certain bills that had to be paid, as I think a lot of us war/post war children were brought up to view debt as something to be very wary of and kept strictly under control. That which you couldn't comfortably afford you simply went without in the hopes that things would improve when that job, applied for umpteen times finally appeared, and the fill in job could go!!
I frankly didn't care what I did to help make ends meet, the pay was always iffy, but you made new friends, and helped yourself as best you could with the minimum of fuss.

Why need electricity when people can use candles like the good old days , but of a problem cooking on a coal fire with no fireplace though

I agree with Gracesgran. I also find the self-congratulatory tone rather wearisome but, I suppose, predictable. The older generation, on the whole, has always said that the younger generation aren't as responsible/thrifty as they were.

As Gracesgran says, we are living in a very different world now. There is a multi-billion pound marketing sector that uses sophisticated techniques to induce people to buy, there is the easy availability of credit (which continues unabated despite the financial crash) and there is very little opportunity to get electrical or mechanical goods repaired so they have to be replaced. Is it any wonder that young people tend to have a different mindset from older people.

Talk about not living up to expectations. Osborn's budget, now that the pundits have been able to look at it in depth are beginning to be extremely critical. From the IFS to the Church and economists - it is difficult to know where to start with it all. There is many issues that they could almost each be dealt under separate headings. Here are just a few:-
1.Our grandchildren's prospects have declined across the board since this government took office by at least 10%. This includes education, housing, health , income and debt.
2. Our fictious low income family will whilst already being unable to make ends meet be pushed even further down the income scale. 3million of the poorest families will loose £1000 per year.
3. The number of young people people out of work is 3 times higher than that of Germany.The consequences of denying opportunities to our young will be felt over the subsequent years.
4. We as the elderly have continually profited from this government at the expense of the young and the inequality between the generations is growing. Some see this as a major moral issue.
5. There no moral argument that leaves the under 25's out of the minimum wage rise.
6. The bottom 30% have totally lost out from this and previous budgets. Whilst the top 20% have been hardly touched, in fact have gained.
7. Osborne's rhetoric in 2010 promising that the deficit would be reduced to 35bn by now was not deliverable, something which he failed to understand. Now we shall see how the surplus shapes up in 2020.

So everything is up to the state to provide? Sorry. Silly me! Where is personal responsibility here? I get the point of the huge marketing industry but do people really need to swallow all that nonsense about what people simply must have? Is there no independent thought? Semi seriously there's a job for old fashioned Grans here. I suppose that fractured families means that there are fewer such conduits to a different style of thinking.

Leaving the thread for the moment to those who find that those of us who have been through hard times are 'wearisome' and 'self-congratulatory' or dripping 'with condescension'

But of course our experiences are nothing compared to today.

I am reminded of the saying that a nation which forgets its past is condemned to repeat it. Those with experience of surviving bad times are not condescending and self-congratulatory, their stories are about using your own noddle to find ways to get round it. The state can do a lot, but what is the state? Just other people, that is all.

DGS have a very privileged life compared to DS but they still have hand-me down clothes and toys and eat left-overs. Eloethan does rather back up what I was saying; it is an issue of values and our values are hourly under attack from organisations whose purpose is to make us aspire to buy more and more stuff. And not just more, the latest, newest etc.

Do you really think that those who are objecting to the comparisons did not also "go through hard times" Anya or was it just the "poor me" section of this forum; those who condemn the young. Of course we did too. I owned the "101 ways with mince", had my heart sinking moment when my curious small daughter broke half a dozen eggs and wondered how we would feed visitor when they came - by going with out prior to the visit like so many others of course.

But we did get to a point where things were a little easier whereas my daughter, now in her 40s and with both of them working in what once were "good" jobs, both of them running a business too but with no sense of a better future or any sort of retirement on a par with many of those who - from reading some of the posts on here - do not realise how lucky they have been. These posters have not worked harder or paid more but they are better off than future generations will be.

visitors

Frankly, I don't think there are many people who have completely worry free lives. I for one am very grateful that the state educated my children, ditto grandchildren, has provided free health for all but five years of my life, and provides me with a pension all be it not a full one. Does anyone remember the married woman's stamp?! I paid into that for years only to find, when I finally worked full time, that what I had been squirrelling away wasn't sufficient for pension purposes. I suppose I should feel furious and aggrieved? Actually I feel that I should have checked it out properly at the time!!!
Talking of open fires, does anyone remember going wooding? My childhood memories are of wooding walks, which were continued well into adulthood. When I was first married I can remember cooking on a paraffin stove as it was much cheaper than electric. Not sure it was very safe though and perhaps not to be recommended!!! Cooking on an open fire? If I'd had to I would. Parents of Dutch friends certainly had to, but then they were starving in the real sense of the word! How fortunate we were in more ways than one!