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Most of us here had Depression Era parents..


Wilbur

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..So, how did they economize?   There are hundreds of ways to save and you don't see many of them anymore. 

My parents built their first house with old lumber.  Mom spent her time pulling nails from a pile of wood that was to be used.  The stone fireplace was a variety of stones, some with polished sides.  They were tombstones from a local maker and it was free for the taking. 

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Most days my parents would feed us their favorite depression era meals. The least expensive cuts of meat or sausage, potatoes and canned vegetables, usually all boiled until it was almost tender enough to eat but all flavor was lost. I needed to salt and pepper everything to choke it down. One of my dad's favorite "old world" stomach fillers (along with green bean soup) was flour, shortening, salt and water mixed and rolled then cooked in a pan. He called them Cement Blocks. He gave my wife a dirty look when she called them salty flour tortillas.  :rolleyes:

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1 hour ago, Wilbur said:

Mom used to cut buttons off clothing before discarding it.  I went to that button jar even in my teens looking for the right one for a shirt. 

My parents are more accurately just post-WWII folks from China...1950's into CAnada.  I thought my mother was the only person in the world who did this re buttons.  Then I found myself doing this...but only for buttons worthwhile keeping. We did used to comb through the button jar for decent buttons for a coat, jacket or just for pair of pants we had just sewed.  I used to sew 80% of my wardrobe for a decade after university. I enjoyed sewing at the time. 

Mother sewed all drapes for house, couch set slipcovers (I mean technically fitted tight around all the corners,etc.) and bedcovers.  Some of the bedcovers sometimes had 2 different types of patterns. She sewed my fathers' shirts made of Viyella fine wool. She sewed our coats, etc.

Yup, all daughters learned from penny pinching mother. 2 of my sisters sewed their wedding dress...which is getting rare these days.  All of my sisters are accomplished seasmstresses...and may I add they all have university degrees and work in professional/decent jobs.  I'm saying this, because there is a stereotype that only certain women/men have this skill.

I would say also cooking from scratch...the Chinese way (except my mother never made her own dumpling skins).   I never grew up eating Chinese/other Asian fast food...ie. instant noodles and all the processed Asian food crap in the big supermarkets. 

***I'm not keen on pulled pork...it reminds me of teenagehood when mother pulled skin off ..chicken necks to make a dish for us. Or off pork bones.  She used to buy bag of stuff bones because it was cheap.

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I grew up with my grandfather..he planted a huge garden and mom canned after working her 8+ hours a day..jams & jelly, pickles, beans, beets....

Mom made lots of our clothes and we wore hand me downs...and we too had the giant button box where buttons were put when they were cut off old shirts, coats etc. I still have the button box :whistle:

Things were repaired not thrown away...or patched...reused  things we talk about now as ecology.   Money was always tight ..mom was a single parent and my loser day never paid a dime of child support....we got by...

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I lived in a tent when I was born........and again once later while my father built our 1st and 3rd houses.  Mom was a school teacher and dad built a house every year or so.  We'd move into the new one and sell the last one till we got to the apartment section of house we finally stayed in.  Later the main portion of the house was built and another 3 before dad passed.

We ate the standard "inexpensive" food including butter and sugar sandwiches, bread and honey etc.  We lived close to grandma's farm so a great deal of food was hand picked such as potato, strawberry, rhubarb, corn.

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One of my childhood memories is the vent for the pressure cooker whistling and dancing on the stove. I wish they still made those. We used to can garden veggies, although they always went into Bell jars, so why did they call it canning?

I grew up with Gramps. He'd wear clothes with holes when there was new in the closet. He was also rich. He did most of the work on his car. He made his own bullets. He thought the Russkies would invade across Canada, and he was ready. We could have outfitted the neighborhood with WW1 guns and ammo. We used to use cheesecloth. A lot of the stuff we do nowadays with plastic, they used to do with cheesecloth. I remember being impressed by all the different ways you could use it.

My favorite line of his was "As crazy as a man on the Moon." He stopped saying that after we landed on the Moon.

 

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28 minutes ago, late said:

I grew up with Gramps. He'd wear clothes with holes when there was new in the closet. He was also rich. He did most of the work on his car. He made his own bullets. He thought the Russkies would invade across Canada, and he was ready. We could have outfitted the neighborhood with WW1 guns and ammo. We used to use cheesecloth. A lot of the stuff we do nowadays with plastic, they used to do with cheesecloth. I remember being impressed by all the different ways you could use it.

My favorite line of his was "As crazy as a man on the Moon." He stopped saying that after we landed on the Moon.

 

What a family character.

Weird as it may seem, but my mother's care of sewing tailored shirts for my father...was a clear sign to us, kids of her love for her husband. You need to realize we never saw our parents hug nor kiss....and they had 6 children.  They were old school Chinese in terms of very rare public affection.

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7 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

What a family character.

Weird as it may seem, but my mother's care of sewing tailored shirts for my father...was a clear sign to us, kids of her love for her husband. You need to realize we never saw our parents hug nor kiss....and they had 6 children.  They were old school Chinese in terms of very rare public affection.

My family wasn't big on displaying emotions, either.

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...we had a secret code for avoiding long distance charges by the phone company.  When we got back to D.C. from a trip to Coney Island to visit my Bubbie, my mom would make a person to person, collect long distance call up there and ask for herself. The operator would then connect to my Bubbie, ask her if she would accept the charges.  To which she would always reply, "No, that person is not here right now."

 

Screw you AT+T.:P

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16 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...we had a secret code for avoiding long distance charges by the phone company.  When we got back to D.C. from a trip to Coney Island to visit my Bubbie, my mom would make a person to person, collect long distance call up there and ask for herself. The operator would then connect to my Bubbie, ask her if she would accept the charges.  To which she would always reply, "No, that person is not here right now."

 

Screw you AT+T.:P

Its snot nice to mess with the Death Star. 

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My parents where children during the depression but what formed them was the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, their internment and the starvation, depravation and senseless murder they endured. My dad was already in the military and was a POW in Changhi Prison where he nearly died of starvation.

Not wasting food was big in our house. My mom would use damn near every part of a vegetable, cut of meat, bone etc.  Very little went to waste.  Leftovers were always eaten and not tossed.  They also lived within their means and had no consumer dept.  other than a mortgage or car payment their philosophy was if you can't afford it, save for it. If that doesn't work don't buy it.  

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Yep, gardening, bacon fat on toast, fried left-over oatmeal, butter and sugar sandwiches on home made bread, patched knees and elbows, darned socks and hand made Christmas gifts.  

We lived for two years on pension funds my father had from a Shell refinery while he attended university full time.  Life was still good!

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8 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Yep, gardening, bacon fat on toast, fried left-over oatmeal, butter and sugar sandwiches on home made bread, patched knees and elbows, darned socks and hand made Christmas gifts.  

We lived for two years on pension funds my father had from a Shell refinery while he attended university full time.  Life was still good!

I was the youngest and my parents were better off financially during my childhood but my older siblings lived this way.  

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35 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Yep, gardening, bacon fat on toast, fried left-over oatmeal, butter and sugar sandwiches on home made bread, patched knees and elbows, darned socks and hand made Christmas gifts.  

We lived for two years on pension funds my father had from a Shell refinery while he attended university full time.  Life was still good!

My mother sewed some of our underpants.  I remember being mortified....I didn't want anyone to see my underpants when changing for gym class.

I realize some of us are thrifty in some of our ways.  But for sure, I don't  have the financial pressure and stress of 6 children on 1 restaurant cook's salary. No matter what I bitch about self or what I may claim about thriftiness.

People wonder what makes 2nd generation children of immigrant children so hard driving at school academically / job-wise..... well.. for any generation...to witness and live daily with enormous discipline how to truly save money.

My partner GAVE his money earned to this mother as a teenager.  She didn't ask for it..but he saw hard it was.

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3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Yep, gardening, bacon fat on toast, fried left-over oatmeal, butter and sugar sandwiches on home made bread, patched knees and elbows, darned socks and hand made Christmas gifts.  

We lived for two years on pension funds my father had from a Shell refinery while he attended university full time.  Life was still good!

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5 hours ago, Airehead said:

My grandmother was amazing.  She kept the bacon grease for making potatoes and things like that.  She also kept the bread bags.  She had a rubber band ball.  Everything was cleaned and stored for another use some day.

We always had a can of bacon grease, and bread bags were used as waterproof socks after I poked a hole in my boots. And ball of string, made up of pieces from the butcher shop, they wrapped the hunk of meat in paper then tied it with string.

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My parents mainly emphasized focusing on things you need and not just what you want.   Repair things that are broken, use things till they can't be used any more and appreciate what you have rather than focus on what you don't.

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My moms family actually opened a store across the road fm their house so they could get their flour at retailer prices.  They had many chickens and sold the eggs in the store as well as their breads and veggies from the garden for the families that did not have good soil for growing.  There were, being good Acadian Catholics, 16 children so my mom was in high school before getting an actual head to toe new set of clothes.  They also slept three to a bed.  They lived in coal country and would gather coal from the sides of the train tracks that fell off the rail cars behind thier house for winter heat.

Dad hunted and fished for food, they sold the farmland and Grampy went to work away from the family homestead.  Dad left school in grade 9 to go to work for a plumbing and heating company to help out with the family.  He works for that company for 45 years and when he retired, his replacement was a mechanical engineer.  

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Both my parents were born in the late 1930s so they were very small during the Depression and grew up during WWII and really post WWII America.  They were from working class families.

On my dad's side, his mom was a nurse and his father worked in the refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas.  They did not have alot.  Dad helped build the house they lived in.  Worked his way through high school and college.

Mom was the daughter of a firemand and a school library assistant who were both from sharecropper families.  In fact, they were sharecroppers when Mom was born.  She too worked here way through school.

They did well for themselves and wanted my brother and I to have a better life.  We wanted for nothing.  They had seen both sides of the tracks and did not want us to see the side they grew up in.  Mom still did a bit of canning, sewing, saving buttons, S&H green stamps, etc. but overall, we lived the American dream growing up.

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@Wilbur you hit a homerun with this thread. Everyone was subject to the frugal treatment as a kid, except of course @Mr. Silly .

My mom made us make our own popsicles with Kool aid and this plastic frame she had.

My Dad considered anything 5 miles or less walking distance. Especially if it was fun, like the movies. No way was he loading up the station wagon for something you could walk in less than 2 hours.

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51 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

Same here.  You people are old.

My parents had me late in life, my mom was 36 and Dad was 45 when I was born.  They were of the great generation but all of my friends had much younger parents.

My Wife's parents are about the same age as my oldest siblings.

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My mother was born in 1940 but due to unfortunate circumstances was raised by her grandparents. My great aunts and uncles call her "Sissy".

My great grandmother made gooseberry pie with fruit gleaned by walking the railroad tracks. My mother made vinegar pie. My parents sold green beans from the garden for a little extra cash. I could go on.

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My grandparents were the depressioners.  But with 6 kids and one income, some of their lessons were passed down.  The vegetable garden.  And even though I can afford to buy veggies, they just aren't as good.  Especially during the winter  when we're still eating canned and frozen fresh veggies.  That and DIY.  Why pay someone to do something you can do yourself?  Not just frugal, we saved about $80K by building that addition ourselves.  It still burns me when I do pay someone to do something I can do but don't have time, and they screw it up.

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Advantage of being a farmer in the midwest during that time.  I asked my Grandpa about it when he was alive, he said it was the most profitable time for him.  They produced most of their own food, so nothing there affected them and then due to job works program, he took a job doing road construction because the government was funding programs to get people to work and around where he lived, no one was looking for work, so he took a job during the summer after the crops were in.

So the Great Depression was a great time for him.

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Great topic.

Dad was born in 1925. His family were old order Mennonites who lived on a farm, and being mostly self sufficient, they were affected less than most by the depression.

Mom was born in 1932 in Saskatchewan. Her father had moved there from Ontario on the promise of cheap land. The 30s were a perfect storm of economic collapse and the great dust bowl which basically blew their farm away.

 In 1937, with 5 kids in tow, and just enough gas money to make it back to Ontario in their model A Ford, they struck out for home.

Grandpa took various jobs as a farm implement salesman and other ag related positions, none of which provided steady work or paid very much.

 Other family members chipped in to keep them from starving, but life was tough.

Mom came out of that with a strict discipline in financial matters, and even though Dad's income as a builder and carpenter was modest, she was able to stretch what dollars there were to maximum effect.

She did not work outside the home, but she ran the household like a lean, efficient business.

First off, they bought land for a house (2 years before I was born) and built the house piece by piece as they could afford it.

Of course, Dad being a builder did the construction, with Mom helping wherever she could.

I can well remember bare rock lath on the interior walls, and I was in high school by the time we had hot running water.

But, they did it all without debt, and what they had was theirs.

A half acre garden provided food, and the sales of excess produce brought money into the family coffers.

Mom is a talented cake decorator, and had a side business selling cakes for special occasions. We always got elaborately decorated cakes on our birthdays too.

 Dad is gone now, but Mom still has a firm grip on her finances, and so far, my brothers and I have not had to step in. She owns the house, free and clear, and has enough pension and old age security money coming in to keep her comfortably.

 They made lots of sacrifices to be sure, but they were the happiest people I've ever known, and they left an indelible impression on me.

 My dad was a great philosopher. He used to say, it's not about the high cost of living so much as the cost of high living.

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My dad was born in '22 to a family that scraped a living out of the hills northeast of Pittsburgh - not far from Longjohn's.  His dad was a jack of all trades and was always helping out someone with the promise of eggs of a pound of bacon.  My father graduated from HS 2 years early and left to work on his own at 16.  He became very self-sufficient.  There was little he would not try to accomplish on his own.

My mom was born in '24 to a father that worked for Henry Ford and was fortunate to keep his job during the hardest of times.  When she was a young teen she lost both her parents so her and a sister went to live with aunts in Bradford PA.  That side of the family had some money so she never faced economic hardship.  In her early Detroit days her family had food when her classmates were going hungry.  She used to trade her meat sandwiches for butter sandwiches with her friends at school because she knew that was the only meat they would see.  When she went to live with the aunts they sent her to boarding school - again, lacking for nothing.  She always knew how fortunate she was and was always generous to her last days.    

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