The other day I was sitting at home and I started to reminisce about the things my family did growing up. My parents immigrated from Portugal in the 70’s having grown up under the shadow of the dictator Salazar. They had 4 boys when they came over and they eventually had me here in Canada making me the 5th boy. My father worked long hours in a steel factory producing sewer tops and my mother worked the standard office cleaning and baby sitting. All of these elements set the scene for a frugal upbringing and you know what? ….I loved it!
How Were My Parents Frugal
To feed a family as large as ours took creativity and though they bought in bulk at the grocery store that just couldn’t cut it. They needed to get more for their dollar and to that they had to go to the source, the Ontario farmer. The fact that my parents lived in the city never stopped them from using their Portuguese farming skills. We had a long list of things with did yearly which helped sustain our family and make sure that we were never wanting for food. Every year we did plenty of things and not limited to the following:
- butcher our own pigs
- butcher our own chickens
- buy a full slab of beef
- bean picking
- strawberry picking
- wine making
- pepper paste
- our own garden
All of this would eventually end up in 2 deep freezers in the basement. We always had good meals at an affordable price for my parents incomes.
How These Things Affected Me
My parents did these things because they were cost effective but there were great side affects to this frugality. They always made it into an event which included all of my brothers, my grand parents, my uncles and even some of my neighbors and their families. Not only did we learn were food actually came from and how to really get it at a good price but it also created a sense of unity. I look back on these things and they are some of the best moments of my childhood.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to seed my own tomato plants. I’ve been spending more time with my father to try and learn some of these skills and I hope I do these sort of things with my kids. I’ll need to remember that frugality doesn’t always need to be about saving money but can be a great opportunity to build family.
What fond frugal memories do you have from your childhood ?
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I know you said ‘fond’ memories, but my mom used to stretch the milk using powdered milk – that stuff is gross and I will never drink it again!
Hello! I’m on your team at the PF Bloggers Weight Loss challenge so I was checking out my teammates.
I remember when I was a kid eating lots of meals that I thought were just typical fun kid foods (english muffin pizzas, for one) that now as an adult buying for myself I realize how cheap they were to make. My mother made a point of not letting us feel poor but it’s only now I realize how close to the edge we probably were at points.