I'm making mince tonight--basically boiled hamburger meat with onions and peas. This was a staple in my MIL's house, and I've come to regard it as a comfort food. It calls for one onion per pound of meat (Ishbel probably has a different variation on the theme, but I'm only going to talk about my MIL's way).

But she told me that when times were tough, the ratio would be the reverse: a quarter of a pound of meat for a pound of onions (or "ingyuns" as MIL called them).

I also remember my grandmother-in-law saving a dozen peas in a teeny-tiny Tupperware about an inch and half in diameter and saying "That'll dae ma lunch the morrow." In other words, waste not, want not.

Do you recall any specific frugal things your elders told you they practiced, or taught you?