I was going to title this post – sitting in Starbucks on my 30th birthday but it was a Waitrose cafe, and this suits much better.

I listen to Suze Orman’s Women and money podcast regularly and one phrase that pops up is:

‘Live below your means and within your needs’.

How? And below your means? What does that mean to be living on the bare minimum I have?

Well, no it means to be living on what you have and not spending just because you have money to spend and buy only what you need. It’s explained in the video below.

Birthday’s bring up past birthdays, there’s an attachment to them of remembering ones from childhood where it was overly celebrated and it felt like MY day, I felt really special and loved. Fast forward to my twenties when I had a big Halloween Party one year and then as the years went on it got less and less. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s brought forward non-attachment to certain days and what we set as expectations.

Anyway back to present day, it’s my 30th birthday and my husband is working, my maternity leave is finished and I’m building up personal savings and money to study too. It’s that time of the month where, as much as I don’t want to say it but it’s running out, at least for spending, food is fine, baby SK essentials are covered, it’s just tight.

It’s so easy on a birthday to go – ‘Oh I’ll get this cos it’s my birthday.’ ‘Oh I’ll treat myself just this day’.

I didn’t do that. I broke the norm on that thought pattern.

I simply did what I could afford to which was use a gift of a shopping voucher to buy an item of clothing (good quality denim) that will last, I went to meeting about becoming self employed with what happened to be the most cheerful man I’ve met in a long time. I forgot my water and got a bottle for 35p, in a cafe I spent £5.75 on a small meal that I could eat while at my laptop enjoying baby-free me time where I edited video footage and made three small videos to upload without me picking up SK to sit on my lap to (not really) ‘help me.’

It felt wonderful to try on clothes, walk through a mall and upload video without interruptions, nappy changes. I felt so in flow I forgot I was in a mall. Things that others do all the time and take for granted.

I’ve also saved £225 birthday money to go towards studying for a career I actually enjoy and make money from, I could have blown that on stuff, like clothes, food, petrol. I am getting more excited about saving than spending like Suze says!

I could have used my travel card to go into central London, I could have bought magazines, I could have eaten a much nicer meal, I could have bought extra beyond the voucher. Then I realised something else, each birthday we think we will remember as this fantastic day, when unless you are whisked away to Mexico or The Galapagos Island, it’s all just stuff. That new dress, that film, that meal, they are just things.

At 26 I wrote 26 things that are transforming my life, inspiring to some though I know in my heart I wasn’t really happy. Then snapshots from turning 28, I was a bit happier then, though still confused about where my journey was actually going (aren’t we all in our twenties). Most recently in which I turn 29 the point I’m making is, unless I wrote about the Frida Kahlo cushion (I still have it, it matches our yellow walls), the broccoli dinner or sightseeing two years ago, I would have struggled to remember.

This isn’t a ‘Ha! Beat the memory game because I like to write about everything’ the point is, it’s another day, enjoy it and live below your means and within your needs.

On a final note I feel it’s no coincidence I found out about Suze Orman at 29, the same age she went from waitress to broker to a huge financial expert in the US.