Sunday 30 August 2009

Money Money Money, not really funny


I'm awake at 9.30am on a Sunday. This is an extremely rare occurrence and only happens when a) There's the prospect of a free breakfast b) I'm so hungover I need to get Alka Seltzer out of the medicine cabinet. Neither of these are the reason for today's early arising. Instead, my mind is riddled with financial woes. Now, despite it being the credit crunch/recession/era of the staycation where everyone is growing their own fruit (Gemma!) and cutting back to save money, I still feel my financial position is a pretty bad one. For several reasons:

1. I earn considerably less than 90% of the people I know despite being well educated and fairly skilled in my profession.

2. I still have to borrow money from my parents once in a blue moon to stay afloat.

3. I have paid off a negligable amount of my 10k student loan having graduated 6 years ago.

4. I spend pretty much what I earn every month, which means I can't save anything. Ever.

5. I have no assets except my CD collection.

Now you're probably reading this thinking either 'Don't worry about it, you're in your 20s, just go with the flow and everything will be OK', or 'Don't be such a selfish bint, there are starving people in the world and you're worried about YOUR finances - at least you have clean water and a roof over your head'. My response to both these thoughts is: a person's financial woes are relative to their peer group and social circle. Yes, I am lucky not to be living in the third world, but not everyone in the third world is unhappy - because they have no outside frame of reference; everyone they know is just like them financially or otherwise. When I was at university, I didn't have any money - but that was OK because none of my friends did either. When we were all young graduates, I was earning pittance, but again it was OK because everyone else was too. The difference is now is that I still earn pittance relative to what everyone else is earning. A couple of weeks ago I told my brother what I earned and he laughed - unsure that I was telling the truth. He then (both helpfully and unhelpfully) said 'When I was your age I owned my own flat in Highgate and had a BMW'. Thanks dude. The thing is, if I did want to try and save money, I would have to cut back to the point where I would FEEL a lot worse of on a day-to-day basis. There's a great episode of Friends where Joey, Rachel and Phoebe are at odds with Ross, Chandler and Monica over their respective earnings. Monica wants to go to a fancy restaurant to celebrate a promotion and Rachel ends up ordering tap water and a side salad. I don't want to be that person. If I go to a restaurant I want to be able to order (within reasonable means), the thing that I actually want to eat, otherwise what's the point of going? But if I want to save I won't be able to do this, or even go to restaurants in the first place which would be disastrous because eating out is one of the greatest personal pleasures in my life.

I could, on the other hand, become richer by getting a job that paid more. The problem is, I have quite a nice job, and due to the basic economic principle of supply and demand, lots of people would like my job and as a result I have to put up with low wages. I was never motivated by money in my career - earning shed loads of money is not what I'm about and my stress is not because I don't earn a lot of money but rather I earn considerably less than my peers. I've always stuck to my principles of never becoming a corporate whore. I could be one - lots of PPE graduates are, and earn loads and have nice houses and cars. But I bet when they tell people what they do, no one cares. Whereas when I tell people what I do, people are genuinely interested. But are my financial worries the price that needs to be paid to have a genuinely interesting job?

My other half always tells me to stop stressing about money. But he earns twice what I do. And apparently even he finds it difficult to save. So maybe I am actually doing OK - that thought might help me sleep better on a Sunday morning.

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