remember the excitement when we got a washing machine, also when we got a fridge as we used to keep things in the "safe" which was a cupboard that vented to outside with a mesh covering that would stop the flies etc getting in. The farmer from the "White Swan Dairy" - which is now White Swan Rd - used to come everyday in his horse and cart and we used to run out with our billies for our milk and cream. The horse knew the run and used to just plod along with the farmer in the back if the cart. The section at the corner of Duke st & Dominion Rd was the home paddock for the Ash farm and used to have a haystack and a horse in it!! We grew just about all our vegetables and the next door neighbour had chickens and they used to give us some of their eggs. The only packet food I can remember was Jelly and that was a treat mainly for special occasions. Everything else was weighed out. Another treat was buying the broken biscuits from the grocer. My mother made all our clothes and also sewed for others for what the ladies used to call "pin money." Our butcher was Mr Shaw on Dominion Rd. and he used to buy his animals and kill them himself so he could be happy with the quality he was selling. We had power cuts in Auckland and there was a time when we had to cook our dinner on pots over the fire!! I also remember when pantyhose came in and the relief on being able to ditch those awful stockings and suspender belts. I think we were much healthier then as the food was not processed or sprayed etc. like it is today.

We had the typical ¼acre, large vegie garden .. grew nearly everything we ate any excess my mum sold to the local shop (country town/village). They did buy in potatoes, enough for the whole year from memory. Had chickens for awhile and gooseberry bushes.
Chicken was definitely only eaten at Christmas and occasionally on someones birthday a real treat.
Sweets, chippies and high sugar foods were usually kept for special birthdays (in our neighbourhood)
Mum and all my aunts and grandparents had their own vegie gardens, fruit trees and all did bottling, preserving, jam making as well as chutney, relish and sauce.
Tomato Sauce was Watties or Oak and only bought on special occasions. We mainly had Plum sauce. Same as Fizzy drinks (fanta was my favourite) and Ice cream.
Only bought biscuits were Huntly and Palmers crackers and granny always had choc thins for us kids (we were allowed 2 sandwiched together so didn't get chocolate on her good furniture).
Mum cooked the obligatory meat and 2 vege, with a roast on sunday midday. Puddings were bottled fruit and custard or cream, steamed pud again with either custard, cream of milk. Rice pudding or sago, tapioca, flaked rice, semolina.
We didn't have a lot of fresh fruit unless it was in season.
Trips to the Hawkes Bay for Stone fruit in January and down to the Horowhenua for strawberries and Raspberries too. We had a lemon tree and neighbours had feijoa's. Plums we got from the roadside as did the blackberries, grapefruit came from an aunt, another aunt had bee's so we got our honey in 10lb biscuit tins. Best honey available.

Bread was only white and uncut baracoutta with the Krissycrust yummy, milk came in glass bottles delivered to the gate and with an inch of cream on top, nice on porridge or if lucky on your fruit at tea time. had an aunt who could slice bread as thin as (you could literally see through it). Only had butter or dripping for your sandwiches (margarine was prohibited), we did get peanut butter as a treat from time to time.
We had a twin tub washing machine, rather than the agitator one. Polished wooden floors were considered to be for poor people (couldn't afford carpet).
Drying clothes was out on the line or Mum got Dad to string a couple of lines up in our garage for winter, otherwise she hung things over the fire screen in front of the fire or put them in the oven to dry (until she melted some socks).
Mothers stayed at home, very few married women worked, so they baked, preserved, sewed and gardened as well as ran Plunket, WDFF, etc.
I never had newly bought clothes until I left school in the 70's and could afford to buy my own, everything was homemade or passed down through the families. the exception being shoes and underwear.
Much much more I can remember like the milk bars (I was too young to be allowed to go). Saturday night baths for church on Sunday.