What's the one thing you've come to realise your parents/family were right about?

Posted by VarangianWRLD@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 51 comments

I never understood why my freezer as a child was full of meat. I didn't dislike it; I just didn't really get it at the time.

Well fast forward to 2026, and now guess who waits in Morrisons once a month at about 14:00 for the cleared to reduce labels to be put on fish and red meat?

There is even a group of us who have started to recognise eachother now and will wait and chat before the yellow stickers are put on.

If you’d told me ten years ago that this is who I’d become, I wouldn't have believed you.

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EpicEpicnessTheEpic@reddit

My Dad told me over 40 years ago not to trust insurance and investment companies as they are not in business to make you money. Pick your investments wisely and diversely.

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nomotivationgf@reddit

My grandpa used to tell me that the days are long but the years are short. I never fully understood it until music started being more nostalgic than good.

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1Cats1@reddit

You do need a rainy day fund and it won’t be enough

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VarangianWRLD@reddit (OP)

3 - 6 months of living expenses depending on your home set up

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1Cats1@reddit

Hilarious. That just isn’t doable for most people these days! My dad would have a heart attack if he saw my finances

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ChrisRR@reddit

It is doable though. You have to factor in saving for the emergency fund into your finances

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Blondibee@reddit

Where do these magical extra pounds to squirrel away spring up from then? Because lots of us are quite literally either in debt or living with nothing to spare.

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Enough-Moose-5816@reddit

It is difficult but it is not impossible.

Being ahead in your finances gives you so many more options than chasing your debts just locks you into.

There was a reason our parents scrimped and saved and really came across as being cheap. They knew.

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My dad worked on a very low wage growing up, and my mum worked in ad hoc low paid work such as a few hours cleaning etc. My dad took on gardening jobs for neighbours every weekday evening and every saturday through the summer. Then he came home and tended our garden. Grew all our own veg to save money. I only saw him at tea time or on sundays!

We had very little for treats and I always thought my parents were cheap. But they never were in debt, bills always paid, the savings account was always added to, even if it was a few quid.

I can now appreciate the pure graft that went into it. And frankly I don't think many people would expect to leave the house at 5am and still be working at 8pm nowadays.

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cherrycoke3000@reddit

Our parents could get well paid jobs after leaving school at 15 and could easily get a council house. Rather than a degree, with the debt, for a minimum wage less than the living wage and paying private rents for ex council homes bought at a 25% discount by the generation that claim poverty.

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Enough-Moose-5816@reddit

Your parents had their unions crushed by Maggie Thatcher

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1Cats1@reddit

True, not for everyone though. Some are legitimately living penny to penny just for the essentials.

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bopeepsheep@reddit

Corollary: when the water is around your knees is too late to use this fund.

(A surprisingly large number of people baulk at spending money before they have to, but for some household things this leads to significant extra expense. Treat mould early and prevent further growth. Get loose tiles attended to before the roof leaks. Literal rainy day stuff!)

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1Cats1@reddit

Very true, but you have to have the money to do that at the beginning!

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bopeepsheep@reddit

Absolutely. But you have to weigh up "having the money" vs "house actively falling down" and be prepared to make decisions. Or at least, don't whine at your friends/family when you have to spend more money later because you put your fingers in your ears when they tried to warn you.

(You can guess why this one irritates me.)

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1Cats1@reddit

I absolutely get that but say an issue in the early stages costs £100 and left without work costs £1000 a year later, you still needed to have had that £100 at the start and many people just don’t!

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bopeepsheep@reddit

Yup. There's a divide though, between the "I have £80, I'll juggle to find the other £20 because this could get expensive" group and the "but I only have £10K, and I need all of it just in case" group. Have been in the first group, being complained at by someone in the second, and you can't help but wince when they get the £1000 bill they could easily have avoided. Sympathy evaporates rapidly though!

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pingusaysnoot@reddit

My mum is so good with money. She brought 3 of us up on her own, while paying off her mortgage on a council carers wage and I remember she used to go through all of her receipts every day and make a note of what she'd spent on groceries, bills, clothes etc. Never had a credit card, just saved for Christmas and birthday's and bought little things throughout the year to balance the cost.

She is still very careful with her money and always has a small pot of savings 'just incase' despite not having a mortgage to pay for the last 7 or 8 years.

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1Cats1@reddit

My parents are the same. To be fair, it was a different time - I don’t think it’s as attainable to be like that now.

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The_Cozy@reddit

Not the same at all with the col difference, but the approach to budgeting and tracking definitely is

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Pigglet_Pie@reddit

Look after your teeth…

And I tuned out when my father went on about “there’ll be a war one day with all these immigrants” but he was born in 1932 and saw things very differently but these days I think there’s a small truth to his old ways.

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DietRadiant9360@reddit

I grew up in the 70's/80's and didn't understand why my Mum cooked everything from scratch when fast food was becoming a thing. She'd get in from work and make fish and chips or chicken broth or whatever from scratch and I'd be wondering why she didn't just do burgers. Now I'm a granny and do exactly that. It's cheaper, you know what's going into your food and it tastes better. She also grew her own veg and tried to teach me but failed I'm still rubbish at it. I so wish I'd listened!

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Competitive-Fact-820@reddit

My grandad did his best to teach me how to grow veg - potatoes, peas, onions, carrots, runner beans, brussel sprouts, cabbages - all I did was kill anything I came in contact with.

I won't have house plants because I kill those - even managed to kill a cactus which are generally pretty indestructible.

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silver_quinn@reddit

Me too! People think I'm exaggerating but I've genuinely killed cacti, aloe vera, and a spider plant, which apparently isn't easy but I make it look like it is.

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Devify@reddit

It's never too late to learn if you've got the space for it!

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DietRadiant9360@reddit

I only have a communal paved area at the back of my house but I think my neighbours world be ok with it. I'd have room for a raised bed and I've thought about it but it seems SO difficult!

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The_Cozy@reddit

Grow a few things inside! Just easy things you actually spend money on anyways, or can't afford.

You could look into the kractky method. It's amazing for greens and brainlessly easy

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DietRadiant9360@reddit

Looking at it now... It's far too interesting when I'm supposed to be working!

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AdAffectionate2418@reddit

Start with something small and easy and build your confidence from there. Radish, carrots, potatoes etc. are all pretty forgiving

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VarangianWRLD@reddit (OP)

Nothing like a home cooked meal nade with the love of a Grandmother.

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o_sooperstar_o@reddit

I once went on a bus trip with my dad. I accidentally purchased an adult ticket when it should have been a child. My dad was screwing about this and said you'll never get anywhere like this. That dude was so right, I've not made it anywhere.

This isn't your average realisation lol

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AirlineSevere7456@reddit

Keeping the freezer full of meat is just common sense. I loathe going more than once a week to the supermarket.

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freexe@reddit

A chest freezer is the best thing you can imagine. We get monthly meat deliveries direct from the farms

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DigitalStefan@reddit

It makes even more sense if you can buy meat in bulk. We get some amazing quality meat from a local smallholding.

Beef, pork and lamb as well as the best turkey at Christmas.

15Kg of beef for £210 (£14/kg). Fully organic.

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VarangianWRLD@reddit (OP)

Especially when you can get it at a good price

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FreeBogwoppits@reddit

"Keep your money in YOUR pocket"

She was referring to how people will lie, cheat and rob you, and to never trust anyone when it comes to money. I thought she was over cautious and a bit bitter. She was actually spot on.

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LOTDT@reddit

There is even a group of us who have started to recognise eachother now and will wait and chat before the yellow stickers are put on.

Should be illegal.

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TheLittleChikk@reddit

It was the damn phones. 🥲

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ChrisRR@reddit

It's not phones themselves, it's not social media itself. It's the weaponisation of people's short attention spans and outrage

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Bubble2905@reddit

Drug use. My dad used to go on and on about never taking drugs, not being around people taking drugs, practicing saying no to drugs etc etc. I only dabbled a few times at uni and the couple of years immediately afterwards, but I’m very glad I didn’t fall into even recreational use as it’s such a waste of time and money, let alone the more serious consequences that can come of it.

Currently watching Legends on Netflix, and just suddenly realised how much I had managed to bypass drugs in friendships and work situations and also how terrified I am now of keeping my own children safe from it!

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ZeroFrogsHere@reddit

I grew up on a roughish estate. My mum was a lot stricter than most of my friends mums from around there, especially when it came to being home before dark and how far away from home I was allowed to go.

It embarrassed me no end as a kid and we argued nonstop about it, but I look back at it and she really tried to protect me from a lot of things going on. I am a girl and unfortunately had a lot of female friends who were in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time. My mum protected me from a lot of that as a kid.

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LemonsAT@reddit

Life is short. Time goes by quicker as you age but also, you never know when your time is up.
You will need X skill when you are older.

The actual skill is not always what you need to learn but the mental process behind it. E.g. I don't remember how to use Pythagoras and would use an online tool or AI to solve it now, but it taught problem solving behaviour, how to check your answers, how to approach a certain question.

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madjackslam@reddit

In the 70s our freezer was full of meat for a slightly different reason. Basically bulk buying from the butcher. So my mum would buy half a sheep, a quarter of a cow, half a pig... butchered into meal-sized portions. This meant that we lived on mince for weeks, then suddenly there'd be one glorious steak night. There was also an awful lot of offal, though the cat did a lot of the heavy lifting on this.

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The_Cozy@reddit

I never understood why my mom made me dust every week, and why we washed baseboards and walls all of the time.

I also never understood why when she was shopping for household goods, being, "hard to clean" was such a big deal, our house was always spotless.

Now I'm old and the dust is awful when it builds up, baseboards get dirty, hair and grease clings to walls, and I call for the immediate dismissal of every appliance engineer who's clearly never cleaned an appliance in their life

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Squeak_Stormborn@reddit

To look after your health above all else.

I did not.

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VarangianWRLD@reddit (OP)

It's nice, almost an obsession. But nice