We were so poor growing up we....

[WRHB]

It's funny joking about being poor, but it's nearly impossible to be as poor now as it was in the 1940s an 50s. I have actually gone days without food as a child.

My wife's mother found some shoes for her one time in a secondhand store really cheap. My wife wore them to school and all the kids made fun of her because they were shoes made for tap dancing, I guess that's why they were cheap. Now she has shoes in every closet in our house, they are under the beds, and I'm no longer surprised when I find a pair of them in the oddest places. I don't blame her.

Speaking of second hand stores, my mother in law was really sick. The doctor told us to prepare for the worst, so I had to go to the second hand store to buy all her stuff back.

 

[Chiogtr4x]

For breakfast we had to have Ordinary K

This is the best one yet!

 

[Chiogtr4x]

...Pizza night was a bisquick crust, canned tomato sauce and bologna -topped with whatever cheese we had on hand.

Seriously ( we weren't poor),
but in the 1960's my older sisters and I would broil 'pizzas',
made from English muffins, topped with Velveeta ( cheese) and Ketchup!
Yikes!

( it must have been a groovy 60's pop recipe, from the Velveeta carton, maybe? )

 

[RLangham98]

Yeah I remember the government milk and government cheese. During a rough patch around the time I was twelve, it made up enough of our diet that I've been kind of averse to mild orange cheddar ever since.

The joke about ordering something from sears because you need paper for the outhouse reminds me of the old joke about paper bag laws. Why does liquor and beer have to be in brown paper bags? So winos have something to wipe with!

Offensive? Sure, until you've been there yourself!

 

[Toto'sDad]

I hated going to my Uncle Will's place. We always ended up eating there, pretty plain fair, but it was usually pretty good stuff. Only problem was, in those days in the south (Alabama), the grownups ate first, then the kids ate OUT OF THE SAME DISHES without them being washed. Man, I hated getting stuck using Will's plate 'cause he always put out his roll your own cigarette in the plate.

 

[FenderGyrl]

My Mom bought powdered milk.

I hated that stuff !!!

 

[Toto'sDad]

The other thing about eating after the grownups ate, was the only piece of chicken I ever got was the part that went over the fence last.

 

[24 track]

Liver was a mainstay horrible stuff tasted boiled shoe liners but how else do you feed 5 kids on a shoestring budget
to this day I will not even consider it a food source

 

[Toto'sDad]

Liver was a mainstay horrible stuff tasted boiled shoe liners but ho else do you feed 5 kids on a shoestring budget
to this day I will not even consider it a food source

One time I went to one of those all you can eat places, and I accidently got some liver in gravy with onions. I thought it was Salisbury steak, but as soon as I bit into it, I knew what had happened. I was staring at a sign that said, take all you want, but eat all you take.

I thought well, I'll try to make the best of it. I started chewing, and that liver started growing. The more I chewed the bigger it got. It got to be about the size of a baseball, and I thought I'll never be able to swallow this stuff. I chewed some more, and it got to be like I had a softball with all the stitching in my mouth. I finally stood up, and made for the door, I was willing to fight my way out of there at this point.

Mercifully I made it out the door, and I coughed up the chunk of liver, it hit a homeless guy and knocked him and his shopping cart over on the sidewalk. Then, it rolled out in the street and hit a Yugo. The driver managed to regain control of his vehicle, and I hid behind my car until the homeless guy and the Yogo were out of site. As soon as I regained control of my retching, I limped on out of there.

 

[Gardo]

My Mom bought powdered milk.

My mother even tried putting powdered milk in an actual milk carton to sneak it in on us. No joke

 

[Knows3Chords]

My mother even tried putting powdered milk in an actual milk carton to sneak it in on us. No joke

Yep, my Mom did that too.

 

[Toto'sDad]

Powdered milk, powdered eggs, and canned hog brains. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

 

[Buckaroo65]

We weren’t poor, but we ate a lot of beans, and when I was lucky I got to help make milk. We also made syrup with sugar water and maple extract. My dad put cardboard in his shoes when they wore through. I remember asking if I could have cardboard in my shoes too.

 

[trev333]

We were so poor... we couldn't afford a credit card, so we could use other people's money when we had none of our own....

 

[WRHB]

We were so poor I wasn’t allowed to get rid of the roaches…. they were paying half the rent.

 

[omahaaudio]

It's funny joking about being poor, but it's nearly impossible to be as poor now as it was in the 1940s an 50s. I have actually gone days without food as a child.

It's very possible to be that poor, and it's getting easier every day.

 

[omahaaudio]

My mother even tried putting powdered milk in an actual milk carton to sneak it in on us. No joke

She might have been trying to be kind.

 

[WRHB]

We were so poor a burglar broke into our house… all he got was practice.

 

[PigBoy]

Catsup soup…

 

[Knows3Chords]

She might have been trying to be kind.

Yep, my Mom did the best she could with us four kids. So did my Dad. During the 70's inflation was taking it's toll on young families and my Mom tried everything to keep the grocery bill down. The four of us kids whined and moaned about the powdered milk and the other things she did to save money. We still had it good compared to other kids situations.