I grew up in the Great Depression. The fact that the actual event happened twenty years before my birth had little to do with the way I was raised. My parents never left the Depression mentality behind. We were raised to “waste not” whether we wanted to or not. In our house, frugality was next to goodliness and excess was not even on the map.

As the youngest of three, I got lots of hand-me-downs. The fact that my sisters were close in age, and my mother dressed them as twins meant that I got sequential hand-me-downs. This was complicated by the fact that I was the shortest of the sisters. All my dresses had deep hems, deep enough to make another outfit. Seemingly, I wore the same dress or skirt for a minimum of five years as I switched from one size of identical dress to another. I remember, in particular, a purple plaid and a wool pleated skirt that never went away. As I got older, my mother sewed stylish "shift" dresses for me. Through careful pattern placement, she was able to get an entire dress out of half a yard of material. I swear this is true. Normally, the dresses pulled across the bust where she ran out of fabric, When she found a pattern that she could easily sew, she made five dreses, all the same style. What my wardrobe lacke in variety, it made up for in monotony.

We never bought shoes without an immediate trip to the shoemaker to put on taps so that we didn't wear down the front of the shoes as we scuffed along the street. The heels were replaced when they wore down, not discarded. If the tops of the shoes were good, the shoes were resoled. To my mother, it was a crime against God to discard clothing just because it was unfashionable.

Food was stretched, but not as a casserole or in salad. My mother was a terrible cook whose version of “gourmet” meant using ketchup as a cooking sauce for pot roast. Leftovers were served again and again until they were gone. This included oatmeal. There is nothing more obnoxious than warmed up oatmeal. Trust me on this. Fruit on the verge of rotting became compote. Vegetables had the bad parts cut away. There were many unidentifiable jars of saved -- something -- in the refrigerator that simply could not be discarded because there might be a future use for it. When I was born, my mother saved chicken fat. The woman who came to take care of my sisters thought it was a delicacy and spread it on bread. My mother never got over the consumption of that jar of fat. It was a personal affront to her thriftiness that it was eaten while she was in the hospital.

When we bought food, it came with Green Square stamps or Plaid stamps (depending on the supermarket). Toasters, lamps, and other appliances could be purchased with the stamps. When we moved into an identical twin house (that’s a duplex to those of you in the West), my mother used stamps to buy a particularly ugly statue to put in the front window so that I wouldn’t walk into the wrong house.

Our best dishes came from soap boxes and deposits at the bank. We must have done a lot of washing, because we had service for twelve of the popular 1950’s pattern “Fields of Wheat.” We also had matching stainless flatwear. The glasses to go with the set came to us when we filled up the car at the gas station, and that was when gas was $.28 a gallon AND they checked your oil and washed your windows. Ah, for the good old days.

As for gasoline, we had only one car and only my father drove it. The rest of us took public transportation, everywhere. Fortunately, the bus stopped across the street from our house but, by the time I was taking the bus and elevated train to college, it took me an hour and a half to transit the city. Still, bus tokens were a bargain for students and we used them, daily.

I suppose that the one thing that I hated most about my mother’s thriftiness was reusing tea bags. To this day, I can’t bear to make more than one cup from a tea bag. In fact, I now mostly use leaves, more expensive than plain old Tetley but a luxury worth having.

I suppose, in light of the current economic climate, I could learn valuable lessons from my parents’ lifestyle and perhaps we will all have to go back to the days of saved lunch bags and rubber band balls to make ends meet, but with the determination of Scarlet O’Hara,as God is my witness, I will never reuse a tea bag, again. 

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ReadrWoman My mother had a little do-hickey with wooden "arms" to dry plastic bags on. (Bread bags were SAVED!) We washed foil. She saved wrappers from butter and margarine to grease pans with. And yes, we reused tea bags. I still do. Some habits die hard! I am 58 now, and my mom passed in 2005, but my sisters and I still laugh over these memories from our depression-savvy momma! Thanks for the amusing article, and great memories.

Feb 1, 2011, 9:26 PM EST

rtist104 Loved this article because my 90 year old mom still does some of those things people have written about. She still prefers "lard" over shortening, washes plastic bags and HANGS them outside to dry, washes tin foil, does the same thing with the butter wrappers as @ReadrWoman wrote in her post. My mom still hangs clothes to dry in the basement or hangs out her laundry in the summer. Bless her and her generations' collective hearts. They had so much to deal with. I hope we never have to practice some of those old habits.

1 like this.
Feb 1, 2011, 9:48 PM EST

barrynsharon My brothers, sisters, & I, eight all together 4 & 4 remember coming home from school finding nothing to eat...our mom came home & fixed enough for 20. Family & friends still marvel at that! Man could she cook. My dad firmly believed, you take care of things, & they'll last forever. We did, they did. I'm 57 now & I sould like my parents... I miss our days of innocence!

Feb 1, 2011, 10:39 PM EST

ddavis78 My parents saved everything too; it was quite difficult to navigate through their house. Now I visit my 96 year old neighbor lady who saves and recycles, and still hangs her clothes out on the line to dry, keeps a compost bucket going and is quite frugal. And she is always urging me to do the same (mostly I do). Really, we live in a throw-away society, and we could learn a lot from those who lived through those hard times.

Feb 2, 2011, 5:31 AM EST

NowAGrandma It is funny now days, there are times when my grandkids think they are the first to discover the idea of recycling things and not wasting things. It is hard for them to understand this was a way of life for many of our parents and us.

Feb 7, 2011, 10:13 PM EST

Sassa Many of the ways of saving I learned from my parents and grandparents have served me well. Through the recessions, and unemployment, I may have had less but I never went without.

Aug 13, 2011, 9:32 AM EDT

KateC810 My grandmother moved into an apartment with a dishwasher, but she was philosophically opposed to using it, so that was where she saved her paper bags. She also re-used tea bags - I sometimes do the same thing, although I am more apt to make a pot with one bag and end up getting three cups from it. Somehow, it makes me happy to do this.

Aug 13, 2011, 10:37 AM EDT

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