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Butter Vouchers

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Comments

  • #52
    Cherry Blossom
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,964 ✭✭✭Cherry Blossom


    Neames wrote: »
    I signed on for 3 weeks in my life. It was the 90s.

    Like the OP I got just over 20 quid. First week I signed on, picked up my money...and was asked did I not want the butter vouchers. No thanks you're grand.

    Arrived home. Says the mother where's the butter vouchers. Says I didn't bother with them. Says she...tis the only thing you're handing up in this house. Back on the bike for a 3 mile cycle to the dole office to ask for the butter vouchers. Humiliation.

    It’s mad isn’t it, how much everything was needed. A few pence on the butter vouchers off the weekly shop and every little counted. It’s not really a very long time ago or at least it doesn’t seem long ago to me. Most days now i have a salad for tea. It was beans on toast in those days, couldn’t afford a fancy salad every day then.


  • #53
    begbysback
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,910 ✭✭✭begbysback


    Leg End Reject wrote: »
    You were unlucky!

    Of lazy, all he had to do was go into another shop


  • #54
    begbysback
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,910 ✭✭✭begbysback


    Cherry Blossom wrote: »
    It’s mad isn’t it, how much everything was needed. A few pence on the butter vouchers off the weekly shop and every little counted. It’s not really a very long time ago or at least it doesn’t seem long ago to me. Most days now i have a salad for tea. It was beans on toast in those days, couldn’t afford a fancy salad every day then.

    Not sure exactly where you were living mate, but where I lived butter vouchers had multiple purposes, everything from buying cider to insurance discs in car windows


  • #55
    smellyoldboot
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,075 ✭✭✭smellyoldboot


    begbysback wrote: »
    Not sure exactly where you were living mate, but where I lived butter vouchers had multiple purposes, everything from buying cider to insurance discs in car windows

    I remember the local shopkeeper saying on repeat for years how he was going to start only giving out butter for the vouchers, no more fags etc. Never happened.


  • #56
    touts
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭touts


    Cherry Blossom wrote: »
    So in the 90’s for a summer in between two third level courses I signed on. After my parents income was means tested I got twenty something punts a week from social welfare. Thank dog for the butter vouchers though. A few pence off a tub of butter once a month or so. What was the point of them though? Why was butter so important to everyone’s diet that the government gave special money off vouchers for this product to the unemployed? Why not bread vouchers for example? When and why did these vouchers start and why did they stop? It seemed totally random to me as a young adult at the time. I was expected to live off 20 odd quid a week but at least I had plenty of butter.

    They were designed to support the dairy industry. People were buying oil based products that were supposed to be healthier. Butter had a bad reputation. The Co-ops put the squeeze on the government to boost butter sales. But they had to be careful not to fall foul of european competition laws hence the welfare voucher scheme rather than direct state aid.

    They don't need that support anymore because they started selling the exact same butter but with a Kerrygold brand and charged €1.50 a pack extra compared to an identical "own brand" pack beside it on the shelf. It's one of the classic marketing success stories and it saved the Irish Dairy industry. So the government stopped the vouchers.


  • #57
    Sardonicat
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,408 ✭✭✭✭Sardonicat


    My Dad was laid off on the mid 80s and as he was already in his mid fifties, finding work again was not easy. He got butter vouchers but my mother actually used them for butter and used it for baking. For a time we didnt have a telly, but we always had cakes!


  • #58
    RobertKK
    Registered Users Posts: 33,752 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    There was also the wine lake, but don't remember as wine vouchers...


  • #59
    FanadMan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,820 ✭✭✭FanadMan


    wexandproud wrote: »
    I worked in a factory that used to distribute the beef . The reason it took so long to roast was because it was meant for stewing . Used to come to us frozen and we'd cut it up using a band saw . The amount that was returned to us was unbelievable , too lean , too fat , to hard to cook , could you not dice it up for me , today doesn't suit i'd prefer to have it some other day. While some people were glad of it the amount of it wasted was criminal .

    We got the beef and I can tell you it was greatly appreciated. My mum could make anything taste great and we never went hungry despite not having a lot of money. We snared birds and rabbits and fished and planted a lot of veg so we always had something to rely on.


  • #60
    wexandproud
    Registered Users Posts: 1,063 ✭✭✭wexandproud


    Cherry Blossom wrote: »
    It’s mad isn’t it, how much everything was needed. A few pence on the butter vouchers off the weekly shop and every little counted. It’s not really a very long time ago or at least it doesn’t seem long ago to me. Most days now i have a salad for tea. It was beans on toast in those days, couldn’t afford a fancy salad every day then.
    try explaining all that to younger generations and they would think you had lost the plot . your father eating a boiled egg and you'd be hoping you'd be the one to get the top off it , a fry up was at christmas , beans on toast or bread and jam for your tea . there was no ''what would you like to eat'' or '' i dont want that ''. You ate what was put in front of you and if you didn't it was put in front of you again at next sitting
    some people don't realize how well of they are


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  • #61
    Pawwed Rig
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 22,407 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    Cherry Blossom wrote: »
    It’s mad isn’t it, how much everything was needed. A few pence on the butter vouchers off the weekly shop and every little counted. It’s not really a very long time ago or at least it doesn’t seem long ago to me. Most days now i have a salad for tea. It was beans on toast in those days, couldn’t afford a fancy salad every day then.

    Money off vouchers were treated like gold rather than something you may or may not remember to bring with you when doing the weekly shop. It was the only time we got branded stuff rather than the supermarket brands.


  • #62
    Markcheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,567 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    roy rodgers wrote: »
    Your right. The e.c back in the day created a surplus of dairy on the European Market and rather give it to the starving children of Africa at the time they pushed us to use more amd now we have a obesity problem in the country 🀣🀣

    The eu tried dumping food surpluses in africa in the 90s , it didn't go to well ( for african farmers ) , kind of wrecks any local food industry and food production system...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • #63
    endacl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,353 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    McGinniesta wrote: »
    The really smart people didn't smoke and spent it on cans and pringles instead.

    There were no Pringle here in the butter voucher days. They’re a relatively recent arrival to these shores.


  • #64
    smellyoldboot
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,075 ✭✭✭smellyoldboot


    endacl wrote: »
    There were no Pringle here in the butter voucher days. They’re a relatively recent arrival to these shores.

    Few bags of Ma Reilly's, a Touchdown Bar and a can of Smak.


  • #65
    Raffo69
    Registered Users Posts: 129 ✭✭Raffo69


    endacl wrote: »
    There were no Pringle here in the butter voucher days. They’re a relatively recent arrival to these shores.

    Pringles are out since the late 60's, into Ireland in 1991 . I'm 37. I can remember my mate using butter voucher to get smokes from the shopvan when we were about 14


  • #66
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    smellyoldboot wrote: »
    Few bags of Ma Reilly's, a Touchdown Bar and a can of Smak.

    Did Smak ever do 'supercans' or was it just the American brands? What a trip down memory lane on Christmas Day.

    My brother used to work in Quinnsworth and still talks about shoppers haggling over the butter vouchers with him insisting Dairygold and Stork were butter.


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  • #67
    Mongfinder General
    Registered Users Posts: 1,992 ✭✭✭Mongfinder General


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    Did Smak ever do 'supercans' or was it just the American brands? What a trip down memory lane on Christmas Day.

    My brother used to work in Quinnsworth and still talks about shoppers haggling over the butter vouchers with him insisting Dairygold and Stork were butter.

    I remember being in a queue in a local shop as a kid in the 1980’s. There was a man in front of me who just couldn’t accept that bread, milk, tea and butter came to £4 at the time. The look of despair on his face. Butter vouchers to him would have been a lifeline. Desperate times.


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