By Elizabeth Davies
Dwelling on my financial future can be depressing so I thought I’d spend this week concentrating on the little things about being young and poor that I’ve developed some strange appreciation for.
When my card gets declined buying candy and white bread I don’t blush and mutter apologies, nor does the cashier awkwardly look away and suggest I try again. We both exchange a knowing smile, she gives a small laugh as I confess, "Well, it was worth a try".
One day I’m sure I will feel a pang of nostalgia for the nights I’ve headed to a bar at 11:45 only to kill time until midnight before ordering a drink and waiting, biting my bottom lip, crossing my fingers, desperately hoping that my pay has come through. The relief, the exhilaration, and quite literally the sweet taste of a dollar earned.
For the last year I have been getting free hair-cuts from Servilles academy students. While others are paying $100 for a trim, I’m helping out a fellow student as well as saving myself more than a couple of dollars. Sure I may risk a slightly lop-sided hairdo, but I can always call it ‘experimental fashion’ – this seems to cover just about every style blunder in your youth.
Strangely enough I’ve even developed a soft spot for Auckland’s infamous public transport system. What would normally be a ten minute drive turns into an hour where everything is out of my hands. All I can do is listen to music and people watch - a designated time in the day to just think.
Last week I was running to my stop when I saw my bus coming and realised I would never make it. I gave up and let out a string of words I cannot repeat.
All of a sudden I heard the bus brake and the doors open. The driver gave me a huge smile and said, “Don’t worry love, no man left behind!”
He proceeded to sing the entire trip, and wished me a good day at school as I disembarked at uni. That man restored my faith in humanity on what would likely have been a miserable day.
I love the odd Saturday morning spent rifling through the racks at Save-mart, hunting down the perfect ‘new’ outfit for the night for a sweet $10 price tag.
These are the last days of my life when it will be socially acceptable to pay for anything in handfuls of sofa coins, or sleep on a mattress on the floor because I can’t afford a bed base, or live off noodles for a week in order to afford a weekend away, or steal from my parent's pantry because mine is empty.
I may as well cherish these quintessential characteristics of life in your twenties.
At this age I still have a huge amount of financial freedom. I don’t have kids to feed, or rates to pay, I simply have life to live. I’ve reached a time in my life when, financially speaking, things have never been this hard before, and at the same time, will never be this easy again.
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*Elizabeth Davies is a 23 year old post graduate journalism student at Auckland University of Technology. She lives with her partner in Epsom and spends her free time refurbishing vintage furniture and attempting to bake while fighting a daily battle against her bank balance. She writes a weekly article for interest.co.nz on money matters and financial struggles from a young person's perspective.
8 Comments
"One day I’m sure I will feel a pang of nostalgia for the nights I’ve headed to a bar at 11:45 only to kill time until midnight before ordering a drink and waiting, biting my bottom lip, crossing my fingers, desperately hoping that my pay has come through."
Are you for real, girl? I try to remember back 50 years or more when I was in any similar situation. Right, the bars were not open but even then my pay came in as a bank deposit, but I am certain that I never attempted to live my financial life as close to the bone as that. It is called planning and even at twenty something, it is available to all.
It just makes me wonder whether you are giving yourself the chance of a real (useful) education... in personal finance.
Rest assured I certainly live according to a frugal financial plan but there are definitely times when I live week to week, as does everyone. At times like your best friend's 21st, or a catch up with people you haven't seen in months, or even just at the end of a really hard day, yes I will choose to buy myself a drink - even if it doesn't quite fit into the financial plan. cheers, Elizabeth
Elizabeth should explore - if she's half an investigative journalist - just exactly what 'wealth' and 'poverty' actually are.
I give her this suggestion: The ability - or inability - to acquire processed parts of the planet.
On that basis, her generation is very worse off than the one before. Nothing to do with the age of the person, but to do with the point on the continuum:
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Sustainability.html
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/my-great-hope-for-the-future/
Someone - preferably of her generation - should disseminate that stuff to the others, and they should get themselves a game-plan. Actually some have. She should interview Louis Chambers of Gereration Zero, as to what's ahead. He's a Rhodes Scholar, sharp cookie, and probably odds-on a future PM.
No good complaining that the deckchairs are sliding..................................
lol when i saw this i couldn't help but crack up and login to comment.....i lived that life through uni and to be honest it was wonderful complete indulgence in the fact that i had no insurance, no super, no mortgage, no worries and the world was at my feet!
opportunity was only parrelelled by my ambition to create to do better.
The things that older people cling to as their touchstones and habitual parts of adult life are not apart of that time for alot of young aults I have to say for all the meanies out there, take a chill pill - remember adulthood is coming at an older age! parenthood in your thirties and foruties IS becoming the norm, so is spending your twenties figuring out WHO you are and WHAT your place in the world will be and how that fuels into your own career path.
Those times of frugality are what now make me shop online for bargains, question the price of EVERYTHING (and where it comes from) and how I choose to spend my now hard-earned money. Some of that living week to week actually made it ok not to try and keep up with everything else everyone was doing. Learning how to prioritise what needed to be paid first eg rent lol and how to buy and cook food on the cheap and buy scrumpies/ drinking before going out to town!
I love reading your opinion pieces! Thanks
from a 26 y/old reformed poor uni student
So glad that you can relate ( I think almost every university student or twenty-something can). We know that this financial freedom won't last forever and sometimes you just have to smile and learn to love the little things that make your twenties such a unique stage in your life. Cheers, Elizabeth
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