In short, small luxuries. My family’s income ranged from lower middle class to poor, so while we always had what we needed, there were lots of groceries from Aldi’s or Big Lots. Sneakers and underwear from the dollar store, that kind of thing. (I realize now we were really surprisingly comfortable knowing now what I do about my parents’ income at the time.)
I think I’m fairly frugal because of how I grew up, but still, I now purchase:
(when not fresh) frozen vegetables instead of canned.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream
fresh spices (I still have a stock of dried, but if I’m planning something specific, I get fresh)
cheese and meat for sandwiches from the deli
name brand products, if I want them
bread from a real bakery
bouquets of flowers for no reason (This never would have occured to me if a co-worker hadn’t casually mentioned doing it for her apartment. In my mind: “Flowers are expensive.” $10 for a bouquet I can split into a few vases and sit around my house for a week? Worth it, especially in the winter, to brighten the place up.)
shoes that cost over $20 a pair
pretty boxes and baskets to organize my home
I also donate or throw things away when I no longer need them, secure in the knowledge that I can get another if necessary. I love this.
Non-bland food. My parents do not like spicy food, so we never had it when I was a kid. I learned that garlic comes in forms other than garlic powder or garlic salt when I was in college.
Posting now, will read later. Paper towels! My parents didn’t believe in paper towels, and so never bought them. I discovered them at a friend’s house.
Dammit, I never had jewelry as a kid. Seriously, for whatever reason I was obssessed with jewelry from as far back as I can remember. No jewelry on kids at all was the rule. Even the fake stuff you get out of the gum machine. Gum wasn’t allowed either, of course.
Anyhow, I’m sure that’s part of why I can’t get enough jewelry today. As for gum, I still don’t like it.
Ha! When my son visited in December, he and my daughter talked about a time when there weren’t enough pillows to go around. Four kids, three pillows --they’d wait until one of their siblings was asleep and steal their pillow.
I’m with gigglebunny on this one- Spicy food! My parents don’t like it at all, and my mother is highly sensitive to tastes, so even the tiniest bit of spice is awful to her. Thus, I grew up without spices. Then I met some friends, brothers whose father believe that a meal just really wasn’t complete without jalapenos, and who had a competitive streak when it came to who could eat the spiciest food. Good lord, I was knocked off my feet. Ever since I’ve begun to live on my own, spicy foods are my guilty pleasure. Luckilly, my parents understand and rib me about it occasionally (Like, if I turn beet-red from overspicing, “Oh, that can’t be spicy enough for you…” )
I savor having my very own sewing scissors. When I was little and learned to embroider, I had to use my grandmother’s or my mom’s. But when I got older and started doing projects on my own (and of my own volition), I graduated and got my very own pair. They were the kind that are in the shape of a crane - you can find them in any sewing notions shop - but I was so excited when I got them. They’re still the only pair of sewing scissors I own.
For the record, I’m only 32 and was required by my grandmother on my dad’s side to start embroidery when I was 4. I still remember my very first pattern - a burro carrying baskets of fruit that my grandmother ironed on to a scrap of cloth.
My mother would not dress me like the other kids (which was its own peculiar can of worms), and I did not own a pair of denim pants until I was 15. I wore them until they were threadbare, and I got patches sewn over the holes. Fortunately, that was in fashion then, so I wasn’t (still) viewed as a freak. I never owned a pair of jeans made by Levi Strauss until I bought them myself, some years later.
We were always pretty broke, so portion sizes were strictly limited, even if it wasn’t enough. Now I control my own portions and I eat however much I need to fill me up. Thank god I haven’t overcompensated, though–it’s not like I’m porking out all the time. I just eat until I’m full, which I think all people should be able to do.
And having fun with food is the other thing we never did. Literally the only flavorings in the house were Morton’s salt and generic pre-ground black pepper. No herbs. No spices. No cheeses (except Velveeta) to liven things up. No garlic. No nuthin. We had ketchup, but really nothing else. I have a vivid memory of asking my mom to buy an Asian pear so we could try it; you’d think I’d asked to take a dump in the middle of the store. Why on earth would you waste money on something you’ve never had?
So now I relish (hah) the ability to try any weirdo food that strikes my fancy. And I do–I will try just about anything once, and I’ve developed a fairly sophisticated understanding of food because of it. I like that about myself.
Also, reading back through here reminded me of climate control in the house. I’m not always good at it, but my dad had a programmable thermostat when I was growing up. Overnight (when he worked), he’d cycle it off because we should all be in bed where it’s warm anyway. And he’d set it to kick on right before he got home from work (after we had gotten up and left for school, freezing).
Now, if I’m cold, I’ll turn the heat up sometimes just to rub it in his face. Most of the time I ignore it, though and grab a sweater (which I never wore as a kid), or throw a blanket on.
Walls painted in something other than white. My mother refused to let us paint our rooms any colour, since it would “limit the light in the room”.
The end result is that my sister and I are both obsessive about paint colours. She painted every room in her house a different colour, with nary a white wall in sight, while I painted the walls a soft blue-green in the bedroom and a pear green in the study (I’d have done more, but I live with a minimalist and had to compromise). Mother approves… but how could she not, since she was visiting on a gray day and the rooms didn’t magically morph into dark caverns of hopeless gloom as she’d always claimed would be the case?
And then there’s the cats. My mother and father both claimed to be allergic to animals, thus preventing us from owning anything furrier than a fish. Turns out mom just hates them… and dad just does whatever his light o’ love says he should, as his current one has saddled him with two furry critters he claims to love like his own kids (not that that’s saying much, trust me). :rolleyes:
For the most part, my parents were fairly lenient and my dad at least is far more adventurous with food than I will ever be*.
The one guilty pleasure I have is that growing up, my parents had a very formal living room and dining room that was only to be used when we had company or it was Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving. This is the room with the paintings and the art pieces. To this day, they have a formal living room and a formal dining room that get next to no use. To give you an idea of how little use they get. My parents have a white couch in the living room that is twenty four years old and has never had a slip cover. It still looks brand new, probably because it only gets about five days of use per year.
Another guilty pleasure I get is not changing the blankets until I feel like it. My parents change the sheets, blankets and towels every two to three days. My mother is pretty compulsive about cleanliness and my both she and dad will wash a pair of jeans if they have worn it even if they only wore it for an hour.
Somehow it amuses me to no end to know that while dad will eat tripe, chitlins, any vegetable no matter how bizarre, durian fruit, and will generally try any food once, somehow he dislikes sushi. He’ll eat salmon sashimi, but the combo of raw fish and rice just squicks him out.
In general it is nice to have disposable income. Money was always tight which made me good at budgeting and saving early. I am fairly frugal, but I love being able to make frivolous purchases if I want to.
Specifically for food, I grew up on only margarine and no name cookies and ice cream and in fact most food items. If we had steak and it was rare that we did, it was chuck steak.
My parents were also depression era kids and my Mom was great at stretching every last penny. This did not mean it was fun as a kid pleading for a cheap pair of Levis or Wranglers instead of Kmart brand.
I do find myself spoiling my kids in so many ways that I was not.
Batteries. My parents would buy batteries when we got new things that needed them, but after that, battery purchases were sporadic. You might be able to find some ancient ones in the junk drawer, or steal them out of another electronic device that hadn’t been used for awhile. There were never fresh unused extras.
Now, I always have plenty of back-up batteries.
Good, name brand facial tissue. My mother insisted that store brand tissues were just as good. Not true.
New aluminum foil instead of the crumpled, been used several times, variety. It’s not used that often anyway, so why save it?
As a kid we had every kind of candy, soda, cake or whatever available 24-7, we’d get yelled at if we ate it too close to a meal of course but otherwise it was available just for the asking or the taking. Hell if you said you LIKED something mom would buy it until you couldn’t stand it anymore … and sometimes even after that.
My wife (who came from a much poorer/larger family) thought a bottle of soda as a kid was a VERY special treat … they rarely had it. Candy and cake, MAYBE for xmas or a birthday but NEVER on an average Wednesday.
Today I can have all the sweets in the house of the world and NEVER touch them … my frau can’t have a cookie within 24 miles …
for the record we’re both healthy and thin … just makes me laugh at our adult reactions to our childhood experiences seem to be.
