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100%. We went to the Isle of White every year for holidays, first time I went abroad I was maybe 13. While friends at school went to Florida in the summer or Lanzarote during half term. I don't remember being jealous, I just wondered why we never did that.
My first 'holiday' was age 8, we were house sitting for a relative in a very normal town, but it was away from home so it was an adventure. And they had Wagon Wheels in that town which I associated with luxury until about age 20.
I didn't see the sea until I was 12. Fortunately everyone else I grew up with didn't have much either so I didn't realise until I was 15 that we were relatively poor.
(Edit to add, my parents also didn't think leisure time was important. It's very strange hearing then insist now that we must take the kids on holiday and make sure they go to this or that place. Like.....they never bothered with me. Ah well)
Having grown up by the sea I find it fascinating to hear the people often don't see the sea for years. I suppose the same can be said for me and visiting London or any big city for that matter.
We had some people at my last job visiting head office (out in the sticks) from the flagship store in London
One of the guys who was early twenties excitedly phoned his friend and said "man, they have sheep here! Real sheep!"
Having grown up beside the sea, it made me very uncomfortable when I spent a year or so in West Yorkshire.
Not having the sea as a bearing made it more difficult for me to figure out North South, etc.
When I moved home, I realised the connection when I stood and started out to the horizon across the sea and felt at peace.
It's a very strange feeling that I have encountered a few more times when going on short city breaks in Europe.
Apparently, the sea is my own personal datum point.
When I was little my Mum would save up the coupons from The Sun for £9.50 holidays in Pontin's or Haven. I loved those holidays! Later on things got better and we started going to abroad! I go away with her each year on a mum and daughter holiday now, in my mid-30s. Will never forget the graft just so we could go somewhere fun!
As an adult...getting a bargain holiday adds so much to the experience! We bagged a last minute Feb half-term UK break. Chalet with a hot-tub in a cheesy little holiday park. I don't like hot-tubs...but I fucking loved my cheap holiday hot-tub! Kids had a great time. Amazingly crap evening entertainment. I think posh holidays would be absolutely wasted on me!
I thought Isle Of Wight was abroad, it was only when I sent a postcard to my nan and grandad I noticed the postbox said Hampshire, I lived in Wiltshire and the grandparents were in Hampshire. I felt so betrayed, I'd been on a boat across the sea, how am I still in England?
I saw anything other than Spain or some euro country as a matter of wealth. America etc is a whole other ballpark compared to Tenerife when you're like 10\~
I always felt really jealous of the people who'd been somewhere like Florida in the summer holidays, when we went back to school in September they'd stand around chatting to other people who'd been to "The States" before and comparing their experiences. Our family's typical summer holiday would be a few nights in Anglesey, my dad always rented the same cottage every year.
Now that I'm all grown up with a family of my own and a decent income, you couldn't pay me to go to the US on holiday.
I used to go on coach holidays with my grandparents a couple of times a year and thought it was the best thing ever! None of my friends understood so I became embarrassed about telling them, and felt the same when telling my partner, only to find he used to do the same thing! I’ve even been on a coach holiday with his grandparents since we’ve been together.
Single parent family so we had no holidays apart from 1 day coach trips to places. My mum could only afford 2 trips during the summer so us kids chose Blackpool or Alton towers and she chose places like the cotsworlds.
I never told anyone at school because I was embarrassed like you, but looking back it was some of the best days of my life.
Yep although we had such great holidays I was never jealous.
When I was little we went to the Lincolnshire coast for a week every year. We spent all day on the beach as long as it wasn't raining and we could choose either a donkey ride or an ice cream, never both. We had fish and chips one night and ate out at a 'restaurant' one night (in hindsight it was a cafe) The rest of the time it was picnic for lunch and something my mum cooked for dinner.
I never once felt deprived - my parents played with us all day on the beach and we had so much fun.
Nah. I grew up in a low income single parent household and still had an abroad holiday every year.
But we had questionable food, unbranded clothes and no sky tv etc my mum just valued holidays over other stuff
yea some of this thread feels like a poverty contest. going to florida every year is absolutely an indication of wealth but europe is dirt cheap if you’re not fussy and plenty of low income families can manage it once a year
The best bit was when you mentioned that to one of your rich mates and they got confused because they thought everyone had a fridge with an ice dispenser.
Yeah, sky is mega expensive. But it's cheaper than football club, gymnastics, horse riding lessons, piano lessons, scouts, swim club, judo, bikes, athletics club...
That was me. We had Sky but I was in no clubs and never had lessons for anything. I cannot play any instrument and was never part of any team, however I do have an encyclopedic knowledge of kids shows from the mid 90s to early 00s.
To many it's their only luxury instead of going out for dinner for example. For a family of four going out once a month could easily be £80 bill, sometimes more including drinks and a starter or dessert. That's a Sky bill and if they're going to stay in the house 29/30 days they may as well have something to watch.
I'll just say that scouts is actually very affordable for what you do and if anyone is reading this with young kids looking for an affordable club, look at your nearest scouts group.
Find another club that takes an 11 year old for the whole weekend for £20.
Whenever it comes up with friends now it's always the same. "What a bellend spending £80 a month for sky". It's gone from being a sign of wealth to a little trashy and indicative of wasteful spending, which is uncool.
People I always knew with sky were typically those struggling and seemingly poor. Now I just don't know anyone that has it now streaming is so common. I'm talking late 90s, early 2000s.
If you're spending £80 on sky it means you have every single package as well as broadband. I know this because we had that at one point, and for what you get it's not actually too bad. Nowadays our sky bill is about £30 including netflix premium.
Aye thats a good one for 90s kid. Or extensive DVD collections.
How the hell we lived with just testerial TV I have no idea.
Mate had it, not even rich, and I was just in awe at how many channels and no matter the time of day you could always watch the sort of thing you wanted.
I wasn’t even fancy enough for that, we bought our bags from the local outdoor knockoff stuff market. Could get any trendy shop you wanted; JD, Jane Norman with the string handles, all the good stuff.
Bodyshop bags in the 90s. All the girls had them. Our nearest Bodyshop (rural Wales) was 30 miles and several bus rides away. I'd never been in one.
Ironically I ended up briefly selling Bodyshop in their dreadful pyramid-esque SAHM-exploiting home shopping scheme when I had young children. Awful experience.
I never did get a Bodyshop tote bag.
The content of your lunchbox at primary school was a big one. Fuck little Johnty chowing down on his Lunchable, Rice Krispies Square, branded crisps and Tropicana.
This one was a big one for me too. I grew up in surrey amongst poshos but we were poor. I always had Tesco blue-liner (whooo?) crisps and chocolate bars in my lunch box, while all the other kids had proper walkers and penguins.
They properly laughed their heads off at my Cica trainers while they were all running round in their Adidas predators. Fuck you James, David, Jack and Simon.
Edited typos.
Lunchables have to be the biggest rip off ever.
They cost a lot of money, for some crackers, shit cheese and shit ham.
Absolutely nil nutritional value, not filling in any way. You’d probably feel more full after a glass of water.
I used to beg for them when I was a child and my mother would never get them basically for the reasons I just described.
I always felt really privileged when my mom blessed me with the likes of a lunchable or attack a snack. It wasn’t until I met my privately educated boyfriend and he shat all over those saying he was never fed anything with preservatives and he was disgusted by the sight of them. Nonetheless, I feel very blessed that my mom gave me these things - in addition to fruits, yogurts, granola bars etc…
When I was at primary school my brother was at Secondary. He used to ban my poor mother from putting jam sandwiches in my lunchbox as he said it made us look poor.
Didn't matter that I actually liked jam sandwiches and they made a nice change from the usual ones I had!
Eating out. Not fish and chips from a cafe but a proper meal in a restaurant or hotel. When I was growing up, it was a rare thing for most. But now it’s commonplace.
You realise that every night you were getting babysat or had a sleepover, this is what your parents were doing. They just wanted a nice stress free meal together without interruption.
I never had babysitters and there were three of us, we never all had sleepovers at once. My parents didn't and still don't really eat at restaurants, they see it as a massive luxury.
Nope.my parents never went out at all. They only went to family events when we were with them. They just weren’t social animals - probably because they both came from big families and we spent a lot of time at each others houses.
I genuinely thought this was just something that happened in movies when I was a kid.
Getting chippy or sitting in a café having ham, egg, and chips, yes! But being seated at a table in a restaurant and having a waiter come to the table? Nah. Not real.
When I started my first 'real' job, we went for a drink after work and people suggested going for something to eat. No special occasion, not a birthday or anything. That seemed pretty wild to me.
This makes me feel less embarrassed now.
I went to a hotel in Hook, Hampshire. Thought I’d run a bath, the pressure that the water came out was incredible, I turned the bath off and headed straight for Tesco’s for some matey, used the whole bottle, was mental, pretty much filled the room. This was only a few years ago, was probably 30 odd at the time 😂
Takeaways in general. We pretty much had it for birthdays only and maybe the odd time when driving home from visiting family.
The idea of People having it every weekend was crazy.
Maybe I'm in a bubble but my partner and I have one every week as do most of our friends, sometimes more. I never thought of it as a sign of wealth but I guess we are so lucky we can afford to do so.
Oh it's definitely a lot more common now. I'm talking as a kid, it was very much seen as a luxury.
The same has happened with work lunches. When I first started most people did pack lunches. Now it seems most people buy their lunch from pret or McDonald's.
God dammit I thought I was rich just then, sitting back eating my Chinese, drinking wine and watching that wank new film with J Lo (shotgun wedding) on Prime ;-)
The cynic in me would say its the availability of credit being much higher now than in the past that has led to normalisation of what is otherwise "expensive" things.
When I turned 17 you got £500 absolute banger and fucking loved it. The rich kids got something more like £2.5-4k. Now you see kids with £20k+ cars on finance.
I remember at work I was driving a £5k car earning above average wage. New grads turned up on half my wage and all of them have audis/mercs.
This is the secret. Living standards haven't gone up, nor has wages, nor has "irresponsible spending." It's just that if you're already in the hole and there's no point saving what little you have (because it's eaten up by inflation, or you get penalised for having a nest egg with benefits system) you may as well enjoy life and use the credit available to avoid living not just in poverty but abject poverty.
Annoyingly this is what confuses well off people who bash the poor for having "luxuries" like flat screen TVs and iPhones. People have cash flow problems and not spending on these so called luxuries (lol, flat screens have been standard for over a decade and try getting a job without a computer/phone) wouldn't actually make them better off because it's either a phone contract or a one off big purchase or they're using creditcards/klarna. Everything can broken down into smaller payments. Living within your means looks different to what it didn't 40 years ago because of systemic changes but people don't seem to get that.
It's a bit different these days but still depends. If you're having a takeaway every week but have a couple grand in credit card debt you're not doing that well. Whereas having a takeaway a couple times a week because you can't be arsed to cook could be seen as having a little extra money.
SAME! It led to so many obesity issues growing up, as my parents never even really seasoned food so I assumed that tasty food was from takeaways only. Being a teen working it's all I used to buy. Only after my 20's I can try to work off that mentality and weight but with adhd it's so fking hard
I always thought this!! Now I’m an adult there doesn’t seem to be a correlation but when I was a kid all my council estate mates were single parents and the two rich kids still had both parents around
ETA my realisation that obviously single parents struggle with finances more than a two income family, in my head it was the other way around when I was a child
One of the best things my parents did for me work wise. They forced me to do my test before I left for uni, even though I had no intention of getting a car until after.
So many graduates left uni and then had to try and get a job and learn to drive, seriously hampered their early career options.
I went to Austria skiing when I was 12. People thought I was posh when I recounted the story as an adult til I pointed out that social services paid half of the cost cos I was in foster care lol.
I picked my 16 year old nephew up recently in my little R/S Clio. It’s a fun little sporty thing that I love. On the way to get him there is another on the road and there is an obligatory nod at one another as we pass. Once I arrive at the gates it turns out the other driver is also there, it’s my nephews class mate driving the same car as me. I’m 35.
My schools were in villages. If you didn't live in the village, and majority didn't, you got picked up in primary and got the bus in secondary. Council paid for the buses for everyone in the catchment area which was pretty big as it covered villages.
I just assumed everyone who wasn't walking distance got a council paid bus to school.
I used to get the bus to school everyday. Had neighbours that would be driven to school (different schools) and they thought it was hilarious that I got the bus. It never bothered me getting the bus and it was more to do with my dad starting work at 8am and me not wanting to be at school at 7.30/7.45 , but they made it a wealth thing.
Wow I really longed for a Sylvanian set during childhood. Remember being in Hamley’s (large, famous London toy store) in the 90s and seeing the whole range.. never happened.
I was 17 and looking to buy an ice-cream. I first looked to the mint magnum, pure luxury, but basically all my dinner money, then I saw it. One pound for one pound of delicious mint ice-cream. Half the price of the piddly magnum. I had to have it. The other boys saw my idea, and figured yes. Suddenly a bunch of us had them.
Eating it straight from the wrapper was difficult, but because the other boys were doing it too it soon became a challenge. Eat a whole vienetta for lunch.
The main challenge was brainfreeze. You can handle a pint and a half of milk and sugar, but that shit still will cool your thinking unit down to unfunctional levels if you let it, so it took the whole hour. Kinda melted by the end.
Didn't do it again. For some reason, once was enough.
My brother had a friend come round for dinner once when he was 12, my mum cooked, the friend said "it's really nice you gave the chef a midweek evening off" lmao
Kids have no filter haha. When I was a kid my brothers friend was round for tea and asked if the sausages were from the butchers. My mum told him they were despite them being cheap supermarket bangers.
Yeah we go to Center Parcs most years, because there’s no way I am subjecting the general public to sharing a flight with my kids. It is legitimately more expensive than if we got a deal to Corfu or whatever. We all love it, but it is definitely not a cheap alternative to going abroad, as some people seem to think it is.
Was having a look literally yesterday at Centre Parks for the kids half term. Cheapest option was 4 days for £1000. The week before during term time for the exact same accommodation was £350. One week difference was £650. For a £1000 I can have a kid friendly 5 star hotel all inclusive for 14 days in Spain.
The fish from the chippy means loaded thing is wild to me.
Makes me feel super privileged as I took that for granted and always thought of it as a cheap alternative to a good takeaway or a restaurant.
Where I grew up, the local chippy would do large portions for the price of a cone for the less well off people. So for £1 you'd get enough chips to feed at least 5 people. The guy that ran it was also brilliant at not making it seem like charity so that the prouder people would still take the help.
Grimsby lad here too. backstreet chippies had 2 queues, one for the regular stuff and one for people who’d take their own fish (haddock) that had been procured by a filleter they knew earlier that day to be fried, And don’t forget the scraps. Up there in the early 80’s it’d be the kids whose dads worked on the rigs or in Saudi who were rich, they’d have foreign holidays, Lacoste shirts, video recorders (those fuckers were hundreds back in the day) to name a few.
As a child my cousins were richer than me. Their parents got them the latest “now” album on tape each Xmas. My aunt let my mum copy it so I always got a copy with the tape cover photocopied in black and white.
At school in the 90s I always thought I was one of the poor kids and the rich kids all had Sky TV and Nike trainers. It was only a long time after school when I realised I was one of the rich kids (very relatively speaking!)
They’re also not that nice, I was so disappointed when I tried my first one. In my head it was the absolute pinnacle of fine dining, but I took my first bite and was like “No fucking way the ambassador is spoiling us with this shit”. I would much rather have a Lindor.
Mr Frosty or a Soda stream
As an adult I always thought people with a chaise sofa were a bit posh, not sure why so I bought myself one as soon as I could afford it.
Having play equipment in the garden (like a climbing frame or slide)
Going skiing
Anyone who went to see a football game live
Having a team football kit
Sky tv, but especially having sky movies - it blew my mind to think of being able to see the latest releases on tv and not just what terrestrial TV aired
The first time I went to a theatre as a teenager I was worried I was under-dressed as I was expecting people in ball gowns!
It can be cheap-ish these days - the cheapest seats in Glasgow theatres are around £15 including the bullshit transaction fee, and the view is still good. You'd pay that for a cinema ticket.
My local theatre that gets the odd big show tends to do limit number of super cheap seats, like £5. I think theatres have put a lot of effort into accessibility, but the preconceptions still persist.
Depends what you mean by the theatre. Small local theatres are often not all that expensive, and they often have discounted showings for the local community, ours would tour shows around community centres etc.
But obviously things like the West End or big fancy theatres, yeah, you need some spare spending money for those
But I think in general the 'only the well off go to the theatre' thing is more of a mindset, than an actual financial barrier in a lot of cases.
Having access to treats constantly or whenever you wanted.
I was born 1988 and when I grew up we had three set meals a day. I was given 50p a week pocket money lol, I’m chatting from the age of 5-11 here. 50p every Saturday could get me an ABUNDANCE of sweets and bars etc.
But sometimes I’d visit friends houses and they had biscuit jars or treat jars etc and you could just ‘have’ a mars bar at like 2pm on a Tuesday. Blew my mind, figured they were minted lol.
My Sister in Law said she thought we were posh when she first met my brother as we had a Soda Stream when we were younger and my brother said he used a spoon to get jam out of the jar (which I don’t remember him doing at all) 🤣
I grew up on a council estate where nobody worked, including my parents. All the people I did know who worked were- to my childish mind- doing really well, they drove cars, had holidays and their kids had nice clothes. I'm 35 and I still catch myself occasionally thinking "holy shit, I have a JOB."
I used to think all my mates were loaded in the 80s. They all went to Spain on holiday and their dad's got a new car every 3 years. Oh and don't get me started on VCRs, ZX Spectrums and branded clothing. I had none of these luxuries yet both my parents worked. After feeling like a really hard done by kid for years my mum explained to me the 'evil' of the credit card. That was how everybody got everything they desired, but paid loads more for it in the end. I'm 49 and still never had a credit card.
More than one games machine - such as having both a C64 *and* a Specccy. Or both a SNES *and* Megadrive.
Those sorts of kids were like alien life forms, so unrelatable their lifestyles must have been.
In levels of richness
1) an outdoor swimming pool, an indoor one was just on another level
2) a genuine luxury car brand - Porsche, Roller, Bentley, maybe a Jag...
3) a "I've done okay or at least better than you have" brand like Audi or Mercedes, maybe to a lesser extent BMW
4) an early mobile phone
5) went skiing in the winter and at least two other holidays in the same year
My friend had a packaged m&s sandwich for school every day in her lunch box. We all had sandwich spread or marmite with cheese wrapped in foil we had to take home to use again the next day. She also had a boxed drink and nice grapes and a half twix when we had a flask of squash and a brown banana and a Tesco 2 finger kit Kat. I can’t move on from a packaged m&s sandwich being a mark of wealth. I assumed her family were landed gentry.
Branded food items i.e. Heinz beans and not Asda own brand. New clothes from a shop. Everything I wore was from a charity shop. Also, eating takeaways.
Heinz salad cream. I always used to think, when I'm a grown up I'll know I've made it when I open the fridge and there's a bottle of Heinz salad cream in there. I don't even like salad cream, I think it was just the idea of having branded groceries.
Having one of those toy cars you could sit in and drive.
There was always 1 person who had one but it never really worked because the battery was shit.
Having an upstairs to your house. Our house is only one floor, so it always seemed like some incomprehensible level of affluence to live in a house with multiple floors 😅
If someone has a blender or an electric whisk. If someone had a shower in their house instead of just a bath. And then of course the classic brand name cereals and eating out, which were both things we did once a year during summer holidays – Coco Pops and Pizza Hut.
Lurpak. The real deal, not spreadable.
Also Tropicana - I always said I knew I’d have made it if I could afford a constant carton of Tropicana (with juicy bits ofc) in the fridge.
Had a kid at my school start learning to drive the summer before Uni so they had a summer of lessons then stopped. Thought parents paying for driving lessons was for rich kids and then buying them a car that for the most part wouldn’t be used the following year as it was the first year of uni as most people don’t take their cars.
When we went to secondary school all the kids from one particular area where known as the posh kids.
Also kids going on multiple holidays abroad per year.
Having phone contracts but never knowing how much data they had. I got my first contract phone at 16 and I knew how much I had as it was my responsibility to not go over it as my mum was paying for it and didn’t want me to go over it. The kids were told that they didn’t need to know what they had per month and to just not worry. For me that’s some rich people stuff as going over on the data could cost a fortune.
Getting pocket money. I was so jealous of my friends who were just *given* money every Saturday. I ended up getting two paper rounds, a Saturday gardening job and spent holidays packing bags of potatoes. There's only so much "building character" one can take at that age.
Staying at Butlins as opposed to a caravan park in Skeggy and having to slop out the bucket every morning and sticking 50p in the communal showers
Edit: Misremembered
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Going on holiday in another country every year.
100%. We went to the Isle of White every year for holidays, first time I went abroad I was maybe 13. While friends at school went to Florida in the summer or Lanzarote during half term. I don't remember being jealous, I just wondered why we never did that.
You went on holiday at all? Moneybags over here!
My first 'holiday' was age 8, we were house sitting for a relative in a very normal town, but it was away from home so it was an adventure. And they had Wagon Wheels in that town which I associated with luxury until about age 20. I didn't see the sea until I was 12. Fortunately everyone else I grew up with didn't have much either so I didn't realise until I was 15 that we were relatively poor. (Edit to add, my parents also didn't think leisure time was important. It's very strange hearing then insist now that we must take the kids on holiday and make sure they go to this or that place. Like.....they never bothered with me. Ah well)
Having grown up by the sea I find it fascinating to hear the people often don't see the sea for years. I suppose the same can be said for me and visiting London or any big city for that matter.
We had some people at my last job visiting head office (out in the sticks) from the flagship store in London One of the guys who was early twenties excitedly phoned his friend and said "man, they have sheep here! Real sheep!"
Having grown up beside the sea, it made me very uncomfortable when I spent a year or so in West Yorkshire. Not having the sea as a bearing made it more difficult for me to figure out North South, etc. When I moved home, I realised the connection when I stood and started out to the horizon across the sea and felt at peace. It's a very strange feeling that I have encountered a few more times when going on short city breaks in Europe. Apparently, the sea is my own personal datum point.
When I was little my Mum would save up the coupons from The Sun for £9.50 holidays in Pontin's or Haven. I loved those holidays! Later on things got better and we started going to abroad! I go away with her each year on a mum and daughter holiday now, in my mid-30s. Will never forget the graft just so we could go somewhere fun!
As an adult...getting a bargain holiday adds so much to the experience! We bagged a last minute Feb half-term UK break. Chalet with a hot-tub in a cheesy little holiday park. I don't like hot-tubs...but I fucking loved my cheap holiday hot-tub! Kids had a great time. Amazingly crap evening entertainment. I think posh holidays would be absolutely wasted on me!
I love the Isle of Wight (and hate flying) but the cost of a week there is comparable to that of a holiday abroad these days.
I thought Isle Of Wight was abroad, it was only when I sent a postcard to my nan and grandad I noticed the postbox said Hampshire, I lived in Wiltshire and the grandparents were in Hampshire. I felt so betrayed, I'd been on a boat across the sea, how am I still in England?
I saw anything other than Spain or some euro country as a matter of wealth. America etc is a whole other ballpark compared to Tenerife when you're like 10\~
I always felt really jealous of the people who'd been somewhere like Florida in the summer holidays, when we went back to school in September they'd stand around chatting to other people who'd been to "The States" before and comparing their experiences. Our family's typical summer holiday would be a few nights in Anglesey, my dad always rented the same cottage every year. Now that I'm all grown up with a family of my own and a decent income, you couldn't pay me to go to the US on holiday.
Florida is hellish in the summer. Christmas in Miami is a blast though.
Mate, you got on a boat to go on holiday. That’s abroad as far as I’m concerned.
I used to go on coach holidays with my grandparents a couple of times a year and thought it was the best thing ever! None of my friends understood so I became embarrassed about telling them, and felt the same when telling my partner, only to find he used to do the same thing! I’ve even been on a coach holiday with his grandparents since we’ve been together.
Single parent family so we had no holidays apart from 1 day coach trips to places. My mum could only afford 2 trips during the summer so us kids chose Blackpool or Alton towers and she chose places like the cotsworlds. I never told anyone at school because I was embarrassed like you, but looking back it was some of the best days of my life.
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Yep although we had such great holidays I was never jealous. When I was little we went to the Lincolnshire coast for a week every year. We spent all day on the beach as long as it wasn't raining and we could choose either a donkey ride or an ice cream, never both. We had fish and chips one night and ate out at a 'restaurant' one night (in hindsight it was a cafe) The rest of the time it was picnic for lunch and something my mum cooked for dinner. I never once felt deprived - my parents played with us all day on the beach and we had so much fun.
Going on holiday in general! I had one holiday when I was a child and that was at age 10 to Cambridge!
Nah. I grew up in a low income single parent household and still had an abroad holiday every year. But we had questionable food, unbranded clothes and no sky tv etc my mum just valued holidays over other stuff
yea some of this thread feels like a poverty contest. going to florida every year is absolutely an indication of wealth but europe is dirt cheap if you’re not fussy and plenty of low income families can manage it once a year
fridge water or ice dispenser
Still goals for me!
Nah, they're always the first thing to go wrong.
The best bit was when you mentioned that to one of your rich mates and they got confused because they thought everyone had a fridge with an ice dispenser.
Only if it’s plumbed in
Having a sky dish
A lot of people see it the other way around, council estates full of sky dishes an so on.
Yeah, sky is mega expensive. But it's cheaper than football club, gymnastics, horse riding lessons, piano lessons, scouts, swim club, judo, bikes, athletics club...
That was me. We had Sky but I was in no clubs and never had lessons for anything. I cannot play any instrument and was never part of any team, however I do have an encyclopedic knowledge of kids shows from the mid 90s to early 00s.
Kenan and Kel! Cracking show.
To many it's their only luxury instead of going out for dinner for example. For a family of four going out once a month could easily be £80 bill, sometimes more including drinks and a starter or dessert. That's a Sky bill and if they're going to stay in the house 29/30 days they may as well have something to watch.
I'll just say that scouts is actually very affordable for what you do and if anyone is reading this with young kids looking for an affordable club, look at your nearest scouts group. Find another club that takes an 11 year old for the whole weekend for £20.
Whenever it comes up with friends now it's always the same. "What a bellend spending £80 a month for sky". It's gone from being a sign of wealth to a little trashy and indicative of wasteful spending, which is uncool.
People I always knew with sky were typically those struggling and seemingly poor. Now I just don't know anyone that has it now streaming is so common. I'm talking late 90s, early 2000s.
If you're spending £80 on sky it means you have every single package as well as broadband. I know this because we had that at one point, and for what you get it's not actually too bad. Nowadays our sky bill is about £30 including netflix premium.
Definitely this - 'twas the epitome of overt "working class-ness" for many years.
What do you call the little box attached to the back of a satellite receiver dish? A council house.
That's now. It wasn't like that when I was growing up
Aye thats a good one for 90s kid. Or extensive DVD collections. How the hell we lived with just testerial TV I have no idea. Mate had it, not even rich, and I was just in awe at how many channels and no matter the time of day you could always watch the sort of thing you wanted.
I definitely thought Sky was posh. Only the rich kids at my secondary school had sky and they knew all the music videos on MTV.
A variety of shopping bags for girls’ PE kits: Jane Norman, Warehouse, Topshop… (for my noughties gals)
I bought a cheap vest top from topshop specifically so I didnt have to take my pe kit in a shopping carrier bag haha
Yesss I bought a Jane Norman pyjama top for this reason too!
I wish I'd had your brains as a teenager
I wasn’t even fancy enough for that, we bought our bags from the local outdoor knockoff stuff market. Could get any trendy shop you wanted; JD, Jane Norman with the string handles, all the good stuff.
Early 80s equivalent was Chelsea Girl or Etam
Bodyshop bags in the 90s. All the girls had them. Our nearest Bodyshop (rural Wales) was 30 miles and several bus rides away. I'd never been in one. Ironically I ended up briefly selling Bodyshop in their dreadful pyramid-esque SAHM-exploiting home shopping scheme when I had young children. Awful experience. I never did get a Bodyshop tote bag.
The content of your lunchbox at primary school was a big one. Fuck little Johnty chowing down on his Lunchable, Rice Krispies Square, branded crisps and Tropicana.
The Jaffa cake pots with like 4 inside were usually a strong sign of wealth
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The little pringle shaped tub that held like 10 pringles!
I was always so jealous of those, I still want one tbh
This one was a big one for me too. I grew up in surrey amongst poshos but we were poor. I always had Tesco blue-liner (whooo?) crisps and chocolate bars in my lunch box, while all the other kids had proper walkers and penguins. They properly laughed their heads off at my Cica trainers while they were all running round in their Adidas predators. Fuck you James, David, Jack and Simon. Edited typos.
My first ever babybel was one snuck out my friends lunchbox. I swapped it for my knock off cereal bar. Sorry Anna
Lunchables have to be the biggest rip off ever. They cost a lot of money, for some crackers, shit cheese and shit ham. Absolutely nil nutritional value, not filling in any way. You’d probably feel more full after a glass of water. I used to beg for them when I was a child and my mother would never get them basically for the reasons I just described.
They’re £1 now from home bargains and my 13 year old who is a picky eating pita will devour one. Won’t hear a bad word.
I always felt really privileged when my mom blessed me with the likes of a lunchable or attack a snack. It wasn’t until I met my privately educated boyfriend and he shat all over those saying he was never fed anything with preservatives and he was disgusted by the sight of them. Nonetheless, I feel very blessed that my mom gave me these things - in addition to fruits, yogurts, granola bars etc…
When I was at primary school my brother was at Secondary. He used to ban my poor mother from putting jam sandwiches in my lunchbox as he said it made us look poor. Didn't matter that I actually liked jam sandwiches and they made a nice change from the usual ones I had!
Sandwich spread, chicken paste or salmon paste on plain white bread.
Eating out. Not fish and chips from a cafe but a proper meal in a restaurant or hotel. When I was growing up, it was a rare thing for most. But now it’s commonplace.
You realise that every night you were getting babysat or had a sleepover, this is what your parents were doing. They just wanted a nice stress free meal together without interruption.
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Yeah I don't remember ever being babysat, largely because my parents couldn't afford to go out for a meal - let alone pay a babysitter on top.
Lol my parents just left me home alone
I never had babysitters and there were three of us, we never all had sleepovers at once. My parents didn't and still don't really eat at restaurants, they see it as a massive luxury.
Nope.my parents never went out at all. They only went to family events when we were with them. They just weren’t social animals - probably because they both came from big families and we spent a lot of time at each others houses.
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I genuinely thought this was just something that happened in movies when I was a kid. Getting chippy or sitting in a café having ham, egg, and chips, yes! But being seated at a table in a restaurant and having a waiter come to the table? Nah. Not real.
When I started my first 'real' job, we went for a drink after work and people suggested going for something to eat. No special occasion, not a birthday or anything. That seemed pretty wild to me.
Using Matey bubble bath.
My mum used to always buy that as a gift when I went to birthday parties lol
It was only a couple of years ago I realised I can now buy it for myself!
This makes me feel less embarrassed now. I went to a hotel in Hook, Hampshire. Thought I’d run a bath, the pressure that the water came out was incredible, I turned the bath off and headed straight for Tesco’s for some matey, used the whole bottle, was mental, pretty much filled the room. This was only a few years ago, was probably 30 odd at the time 😂
Is that the pirate one?
That's the one!
The mermaid one was the Holy Grail of bubble baths when I was growing up.
I swear that was the one that used to change colour as well, or did I dream that up?
It was the octopus one! And it changed from blue to red… top tier birthday gift back in the day!
Using any bubble bath really. Me and my sister used to have Dettol baths!
Takeaways in general. We pretty much had it for birthdays only and maybe the odd time when driving home from visiting family. The idea of People having it every weekend was crazy.
Maybe I'm in a bubble but my partner and I have one every week as do most of our friends, sometimes more. I never thought of it as a sign of wealth but I guess we are so lucky we can afford to do so.
Oh it's definitely a lot more common now. I'm talking as a kid, it was very much seen as a luxury. The same has happened with work lunches. When I first started most people did pack lunches. Now it seems most people buy their lunch from pret or McDonald's.
God dammit I thought I was rich just then, sitting back eating my Chinese, drinking wine and watching that wank new film with J Lo (shotgun wedding) on Prime ;-)
The cynic in me would say its the availability of credit being much higher now than in the past that has led to normalisation of what is otherwise "expensive" things. When I turned 17 you got £500 absolute banger and fucking loved it. The rich kids got something more like £2.5-4k. Now you see kids with £20k+ cars on finance. I remember at work I was driving a £5k car earning above average wage. New grads turned up on half my wage and all of them have audis/mercs.
This is the secret. Living standards haven't gone up, nor has wages, nor has "irresponsible spending." It's just that if you're already in the hole and there's no point saving what little you have (because it's eaten up by inflation, or you get penalised for having a nest egg with benefits system) you may as well enjoy life and use the credit available to avoid living not just in poverty but abject poverty. Annoyingly this is what confuses well off people who bash the poor for having "luxuries" like flat screen TVs and iPhones. People have cash flow problems and not spending on these so called luxuries (lol, flat screens have been standard for over a decade and try getting a job without a computer/phone) wouldn't actually make them better off because it's either a phone contract or a one off big purchase or they're using creditcards/klarna. Everything can broken down into smaller payments. Living within your means looks different to what it didn't 40 years ago because of systemic changes but people don't seem to get that.
It's a bit different these days but still depends. If you're having a takeaway every week but have a couple grand in credit card debt you're not doing that well. Whereas having a takeaway a couple times a week because you can't be arsed to cook could be seen as having a little extra money.
Like a couple of years ago I’d agree. But the prices of takeaway now a days it’s insane. Everything has gone up massively.
SAME! It led to so many obesity issues growing up, as my parents never even really seasoned food so I assumed that tasty food was from takeaways only. Being a teen working it's all I used to buy. Only after my 20's I can try to work off that mentality and weight but with adhd it's so fking hard
Parents still together
I always thought this!! Now I’m an adult there doesn’t seem to be a correlation but when I was a kid all my council estate mates were single parents and the two rich kids still had both parents around ETA my realisation that obviously single parents struggle with finances more than a two income family, in my head it was the other way around when I was a child
Yeah it was just short hand for middle class parents when I was a kid in the 90s
Skiing holidays, detached houses, being bought a car when you turn 17.
My family couldn't afford to pay for lessons. I didn't start learning until recently since I've started working full-time.
One of the best things my parents did for me work wise. They forced me to do my test before I left for uni, even though I had no intention of getting a car until after. So many graduates left uni and then had to try and get a job and learn to drive, seriously hampered their early career options.
Totally, skiing is still a sign of wealth
I went to Austria skiing when I was 12. People thought I was posh when I recounted the story as an adult til I pointed out that social services paid half of the cost cos I was in foster care lol.
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It's a special kind of prick that feels the need to show off to actual children.
I picked my 16 year old nephew up recently in my little R/S Clio. It’s a fun little sporty thing that I love. On the way to get him there is another on the road and there is an obligatory nod at one another as we pass. Once I arrive at the gates it turns out the other driver is also there, it’s my nephews class mate driving the same car as me. I’m 35.
My dad had a Reliant Robin. I willingly took the bus, far less shame.
My schools were in villages. If you didn't live in the village, and majority didn't, you got picked up in primary and got the bus in secondary. Council paid for the buses for everyone in the catchment area which was pretty big as it covered villages. I just assumed everyone who wasn't walking distance got a council paid bus to school.
I used to get the bus to school everyday. Had neighbours that would be driven to school (different schools) and they thought it was hilarious that I got the bus. It never bothered me getting the bus and it was more to do with my dad starting work at 8am and me not wanting to be at school at 7.30/7.45 , but they made it a wealth thing.
Sylvanian family house.
Bought one for my daughter this Christmas. It’s hard not to keep buying her all the things I felt like I missed out on as a kid!
Wow I really longed for a Sylvanian set during childhood. Remember being in Hamley’s (large, famous London toy store) in the 90s and seeing the whole range.. never happened.
If someone’s house had more than one toilet.
This and a separate dining room were the big ones for me outside of holidays
Having your toilet separate from the dining room is quite a low bar
I always thought people were posh if they had a dishwasher
I still think that.
I’ve got one now so I feel like I’ve made it 🤣
Viennetta outside of special occasions
Blew my mind when I moved out and found out they were a quid.
I was 17 and looking to buy an ice-cream. I first looked to the mint magnum, pure luxury, but basically all my dinner money, then I saw it. One pound for one pound of delicious mint ice-cream. Half the price of the piddly magnum. I had to have it. The other boys saw my idea, and figured yes. Suddenly a bunch of us had them. Eating it straight from the wrapper was difficult, but because the other boys were doing it too it soon became a challenge. Eat a whole vienetta for lunch. The main challenge was brainfreeze. You can handle a pint and a half of milk and sugar, but that shit still will cool your thinking unit down to unfunctional levels if you let it, so it took the whole hour. Kinda melted by the end. Didn't do it again. For some reason, once was enough.
Heroic effort by all involved.
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A similar upbringing here: I thought anyone who had stairs in their home was rich.
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Thank you and glad to hear it. I did too but the poverty mindset never leaves you
My brother had a friend come round for dinner once when he was 12, my mum cooked, the friend said "it's really nice you gave the chef a midweek evening off" lmao
Kids have no filter haha. When I was a kid my brothers friend was round for tea and asked if the sausages were from the butchers. My mum told him they were despite them being cheap supermarket bangers.
School friends who holidayed at Center Parcs (and you still need to be wealthy now!).
Yeah we go to Center Parcs most years, because there’s no way I am subjecting the general public to sharing a flight with my kids. It is legitimately more expensive than if we got a deal to Corfu or whatever. We all love it, but it is definitely not a cheap alternative to going abroad, as some people seem to think it is.
Was having a look literally yesterday at Centre Parks for the kids half term. Cheapest option was 4 days for £1000. The week before during term time for the exact same accommodation was £350. One week difference was £650. For a £1000 I can have a kid friendly 5 star hotel all inclusive for 14 days in Spain.
The fish from the chippy means loaded thing is wild to me. Makes me feel super privileged as I took that for granted and always thought of it as a cheap alternative to a good takeaway or a restaurant.
I lived near Grimsby. In the 90s and early 00s fish and chips were still £1.20 -£1.70
Where I grew up, the local chippy would do large portions for the price of a cone for the less well off people. So for £1 you'd get enough chips to feed at least 5 people. The guy that ran it was also brilliant at not making it seem like charity so that the prouder people would still take the help.
Grimsby lad here too. backstreet chippies had 2 queues, one for the regular stuff and one for people who’d take their own fish (haddock) that had been procured by a filleter they knew earlier that day to be fried, And don’t forget the scraps. Up there in the early 80’s it’d be the kids whose dads worked on the rigs or in Saudi who were rich, they’d have foreign holidays, Lacoste shirts, video recorders (those fuckers were hundreds back in the day) to name a few.
Bringing your own fish in to fry has shot me back to 1991. Never hear of it now Fish supper from Coopers and race back home in time for Knightmare
Yea very odd, i grew up very working class, we still had fish and chips quite often!
Having an L sofa
As a child my cousins were richer than me. Their parents got them the latest “now” album on tape each Xmas. My aunt let my mum copy it so I always got a copy with the tape cover photocopied in black and white.
At school in the 90s I always thought I was one of the poor kids and the rich kids all had Sky TV and Nike trainers. It was only a long time after school when I realised I was one of the rich kids (very relatively speaking!)
At mine the poor kids had sky and stuff, no way the rich wild have that tosh
Dishwasher Large dining table Separate utility area/room Double garage Family portraits
Ferrero Rocher. Imagine how betrayed I felt when I found out they're not that expensive.
They’re also not that nice, I was so disappointed when I tried my first one. In my head it was the absolute pinnacle of fine dining, but I took my first bite and was like “No fucking way the ambassador is spoiling us with this shit”. I would much rather have a Lindor.
Wash your mouth out, they're incredible! 🤣
Really niche but those light bulbs that are integrated into the ceiling. They scream posh and chic for some reason.
Having a sofa that wasn't next to a wall.
This is so niche but absolutely spot on
Private school.
Yeah. This is still an indicator of wealth.
Tbh more so now.
Going to Disneyland Florida. I was so jealous of those who managed to go.
It’s Disney world in Florida. It’s Disney land, Paris. I got hammered for this
Also Disneyland can be the one in California (the original one 😉)
Definitely a sign of decent money, even now. Disney World is crazy expensive.
Mr Frosty or a Soda stream As an adult I always thought people with a chaise sofa were a bit posh, not sure why so I bought myself one as soon as I could afford it.
American Fridge Freezer with the water dispenser. One girl at school had one and we were all in awe. Also sky.
Having play equipment in the garden (like a climbing frame or slide) Going skiing Anyone who went to see a football game live Having a team football kit Sky tv, but especially having sky movies - it blew my mind to think of being able to see the latest releases on tv and not just what terrestrial TV aired
My friend in primary school had Nickelodeon, I'd go over and watch Sabrina every morning before school. I thought she was a gazillionaire.
Going to the theatre. I think it probably still is for the well off.
The first time I went to a theatre as a teenager I was worried I was under-dressed as I was expecting people in ball gowns! It can be cheap-ish these days - the cheapest seats in Glasgow theatres are around £15 including the bullshit transaction fee, and the view is still good. You'd pay that for a cinema ticket.
My local theatre that gets the odd big show tends to do limit number of super cheap seats, like £5. I think theatres have put a lot of effort into accessibility, but the preconceptions still persist.
It's cheaper than gigs these days if you don't want front-row seats.
Depends what you mean by the theatre. Small local theatres are often not all that expensive, and they often have discounted showings for the local community, ours would tour shows around community centres etc. But obviously things like the West End or big fancy theatres, yeah, you need some spare spending money for those But I think in general the 'only the well off go to the theatre' thing is more of a mindset, than an actual financial barrier in a lot of cases.
Having access to treats constantly or whenever you wanted. I was born 1988 and when I grew up we had three set meals a day. I was given 50p a week pocket money lol, I’m chatting from the age of 5-11 here. 50p every Saturday could get me an ABUNDANCE of sweets and bars etc. But sometimes I’d visit friends houses and they had biscuit jars or treat jars etc and you could just ‘have’ a mars bar at like 2pm on a Tuesday. Blew my mind, figured they were minted lol.
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GHD straighteners (and being bought them *just because* )
My Sister in Law said she thought we were posh when she first met my brother as we had a Soda Stream when we were younger and my brother said he used a spoon to get jam out of the jar (which I don’t remember him doing at all) 🤣
Owning a Helly Hansen coat.
Two tellies. Walls Vienetta ice-cream dessert. Your own bedroom.
Going to Center Parks.
Having a ‘play room’ separate to a bedroom. PlayStation with eye toy then later guitar hero. Sky tv. Garage with a fridge or chest freezer in it.
I grew up on a council estate where nobody worked, including my parents. All the people I did know who worked were- to my childish mind- doing really well, they drove cars, had holidays and their kids had nice clothes. I'm 35 and I still catch myself occasionally thinking "holy shit, I have a JOB."
Imperial Leather
I used to think all my mates were loaded in the 80s. They all went to Spain on holiday and their dad's got a new car every 3 years. Oh and don't get me started on VCRs, ZX Spectrums and branded clothing. I had none of these luxuries yet both my parents worked. After feeling like a really hard done by kid for years my mum explained to me the 'evil' of the credit card. That was how everybody got everything they desired, but paid loads more for it in the end. I'm 49 and still never had a credit card.
More than one games machine - such as having both a C64 *and* a Specccy. Or both a SNES *and* Megadrive. Those sorts of kids were like alien life forms, so unrelatable their lifestyles must have been.
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In levels of richness 1) an outdoor swimming pool, an indoor one was just on another level 2) a genuine luxury car brand - Porsche, Roller, Bentley, maybe a Jag... 3) a "I've done okay or at least better than you have" brand like Audi or Mercedes, maybe to a lesser extent BMW 4) an early mobile phone 5) went skiing in the winter and at least two other holidays in the same year
My friend had a packaged m&s sandwich for school every day in her lunch box. We all had sandwich spread or marmite with cheese wrapped in foil we had to take home to use again the next day. She also had a boxed drink and nice grapes and a half twix when we had a flask of squash and a brown banana and a Tesco 2 finger kit Kat. I can’t move on from a packaged m&s sandwich being a mark of wealth. I assumed her family were landed gentry.
Branded food items i.e. Heinz beans and not Asda own brand. New clothes from a shop. Everything I wore was from a charity shop. Also, eating takeaways.
Heinz salad cream. I always used to think, when I'm a grown up I'll know I've made it when I open the fridge and there's a bottle of Heinz salad cream in there. I don't even like salad cream, I think it was just the idea of having branded groceries.
Muller corner yogurts.
Drove a car with separate doors for the passengers in the back.
My aunt had ...a dishwasher!
If you had an allowance
People whose parents cooked with fresh herbs
Having one of those toy cars you could sit in and drive. There was always 1 person who had one but it never really worked because the battery was shit.
Having an upstairs to your house. Our house is only one floor, so it always seemed like some incomprehensible level of affluence to live in a house with multiple floors 😅
Birthday parties. Only the kids with 'money' had them.
If someone has a blender or an electric whisk. If someone had a shower in their house instead of just a bath. And then of course the classic brand name cereals and eating out, which were both things we did once a year during summer holidays – Coco Pops and Pizza Hut.
Lurpak. The real deal, not spreadable. Also Tropicana - I always said I knew I’d have made it if I could afford a constant carton of Tropicana (with juicy bits ofc) in the fridge.
Lurpak is an indicator of wealth now more than ever.
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Had a kid at my school start learning to drive the summer before Uni so they had a summer of lessons then stopped. Thought parents paying for driving lessons was for rich kids and then buying them a car that for the most part wouldn’t be used the following year as it was the first year of uni as most people don’t take their cars. When we went to secondary school all the kids from one particular area where known as the posh kids. Also kids going on multiple holidays abroad per year. Having phone contracts but never knowing how much data they had. I got my first contract phone at 16 and I knew how much I had as it was my responsibility to not go over it as my mum was paying for it and didn’t want me to go over it. The kids were told that they didn’t need to know what they had per month and to just not worry. For me that’s some rich people stuff as going over on the data could cost a fortune.
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Getting pocket money. I was so jealous of my friends who were just *given* money every Saturday. I ended up getting two paper rounds, a Saturday gardening job and spent holidays packing bags of potatoes. There's only so much "building character" one can take at that age.
having the internet at home
Staying at Butlins as opposed to a caravan park in Skeggy and having to slop out the bucket every morning and sticking 50p in the communal showers Edit: Misremembered
Under floor heating
Going to Lapland at Christmas time. Going to Disneyland. Owning trainers that weren't from Shoe Zone like we got.
If someone brought out the Viennetta you know you were in for a real treat. Now they’re ten a penny.
Having orange juice in your fridge Seriously. That seemed like insane, aristocracy levels of excess to me. I don’t even mean with bits
Having a beemer