It was recently my birthday, not something I announce or broadcast and thankfully the barrage of messages and Facebook wall posts was limited to only a few this year. It's not that I don't appreciate peoples well wishes, but more of a "I hate my birthday, it always comes with bad luck for some reason and I just like to get through the day unharmed". Sadly however, this year was not the year. It was so stressful it actually took me 3 whole days to realise I had changed age. I was reading in bed and suddenly it struck me, I'm 31 now and not 30 anymore. So naturally I had to text my mummy and remind her I had changed ages just incase she had also forgotten..... she had not forgotten. But what has all this got to do with money in your 30's?
Well let's look at the reasons my birthday was a mess. The day before, my car (unreliable as it is) had decided to break down, and although I managed to get it home it is completely un-drivable and as I write this remains so for the next 5 days. Thanks to my newly found knowledge of cars and a few fantastic mechanics, I was able to diagnose the problem without any callouts or garage visits. But this also meant I was suddenly aware of how much this would cost to fix with Google dutifully quoting £700-£3300. So aside from the fact I knew I now couldn't go anywhere and would have to cancel most meetings for the next 1-2 weeks I was also dreading the fact that any savings I had (which wasn't a lot left at this point) would be poured into my beloved vehicle Beauty in order to be able to just live and work again.
My birthday then rolled around but it didn't feel any different to a normal day and of course there was no chance of me meeting up with anyone for coffee and snacks, and low and behold Mercury Retrograde had something else in store for me, a laptop battery that decided to die. I decided that I would take my sorry self to town and get it looked at, managed to snag a lift from mummy on her way to an appointment, and then stood outside in the rain in front of the repair shop that for no apparent reason was closed. I was now sad, wet, and stuck. I decided to walk to Apple and they diagnosed it needed a new battery and was unreliable at best whilst plugged in, but I was still stuck. So I sat on my own on the shopping centre seats, waiting for a lift home on my 31st birthday. How depressing! I am well aware there are worse things in the world but for someone who wanted this to be a productive year, I was running so dry I might as well be in the Nevada dessert.
It got me thinking, for all the hours we work and goals we set and things we want to do and see, what does money actually mean to us in our thirties? We are told we should be saving money but also buying a house, while driving a reliable car, planning for retirement, not eating out too much but also enjoying life, going on holidays but not too extravagant because thats banal, looking presentable and cooking good food when we aren't eating out but what about the rest of the bills we are faced with that we can't account for. The broken washing machines, the car parts and labour, the laptops and phones and TV's that can all blow up or break down or decide to stop working at a moments notice even for those of us that take great care of our belongings. Is it possible to do ALL this and still have some leftover for that birthday present or party? Not to mention it's the age where everyone is getting married and having kids and increasingly expecting us to be there all the time for everyone at all dinner parties or days out.
It might just be me but in an age range where we 'should' be buying all of the important things like homes and potentially wedding dresses, food shopping and utility bills, we are also still young enough that we want to go to a Butlins Big Weekender or a girls trip to Marbella but in this economy, who is actually doing that successfully?!
I guess the moral of the story is what are we really spending our money on, do we now all hate birthdays and how are we all coping?
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