Dear Clare,
It’s 2035, you are 45 years old, and I want to talk to you about Tom Hanks. I really hope he hasn’t been cancelled in the decade between my timeline and yours, because he recently said something that made me feel a lot better about life.
He said he thinks that 35 – the age you are as I write this – was the hardest age to be, and that feels pretty spot-on. Here in 2025, the children are still small, and are all-consuming in ways that you probably now miss very much. Your daughter is 18 months old, with a topknot that sticks straight up in the air, and she would probably live inside your actual skin if she could. Your sons are six and 10, and they shove each other around the place with exactly the same intensity as the love they have for one another.
As I write this, every resource in my life feels stretched and squeezed to its absolute limits: money, time, energy, patience … No amount of money that I earn ever seems to be enough, with sky-high childcare costs, a ginormous mortgage and living costs that continue to rise. Every day, there is something new to juggle and I often feel as though I’m trying to squeeze all of my own “stuff” – sleep, personal grooming, exercise, career – into the gaps left by everyone else. It feels like we are living through a bottleneck of some kind, and I know that it’s not sustainable.
I suppose you might laugh at this – knowing what lies ahead in ways that I can’t – but I hope that’s not the case. I hope the bottleneck has opened up in the time that has elapsed since I wrote this letter, and that you are able to enjoy the fruits of your own labour a little more. I hope you feel “caught up” at long last, and that you are able to look back at me with the sort of knowing compassion that I feel when I think about 2015 Clare.
I hope life feels gentler for you now, and the financial pressure has lifted a little. I hope you can make your gym payment without feeling a pang of guilt, that you can invest time and money in a proper skincare routine, and I’d love it if you were able to travel a little, now that your children are older. I hope you’ve been to Copenhagen and Lisbon, and that you paid for it all from a holiday fund and not on a credit card. In fact, rather than blindly hoping, I’m trying to make choices and take actions now, so that all of this might be possible.
“Lifestyle creep” (where your expenditure grows in tandem with your salary) has pushed my monthly outgoings up, so, from now on, I’m prioritising the spending that really brings value to my life – things such as good food, good quality skincare, and days out with the kids.
As my capacity starts to increase ever so slightly, I am putting in the time and discipline to grow my career into something that will sustain and fulfil you. I hope that now that you’re 45, you have the freedom to say “no” to work that isn’t right for you, or that could push you into burnout.
I’m mapping out – and eagerly awaiting – the moments when your financial burdens might dramatically reduce: the end of the car lease, when the mortgage is finally paid off, the day your daughter starts school, and planning how that money might be used to create an emergency fund (demolished when you bought your house and not yet recovered), invest in an Isa or boost your paltry pension.
But while I wait for those moments, I am doing the small things I can to give you a safety net. I am rounding up your purchases and investing the change. I’m getting cashback on as many of my purchases as I can, and squirrelling that away for you. I’m embracing the preloved economy and buying most things secondhand, while selling the things I no longer want or need, so that you might have a little more money and a little less clutter.
But the greatest gift that I want to give to you – and I really hope that it sticks – is that I am no longer going to spend your hard-earned money in order to please, appease or impress other people. It’s not about being selfish or stingy. I will pay my own way, I will be kind and I will be generous, but I will not put others’ desires or demands ahead of your financial security and wellbeing. Not any more.
If I’m honest, I’m a little frightened at how fast the time between writing and reading this letter will pass, and I hope that I’m doing enough to create the life that I want for you. Time will tell, I suppose.
With love,
Clare x
PS. If you’re reading this and feeling similarly squeezed, here are three small changes you can make – starting today:
1 Review your spending with an honest, but not judgmental eye. What could you cut without sacrificing quality of life? We often waste more money than we think without realising it.
2 There are savvy ways to save money without you feeling the pinch. Lots of banking apps allow you to automatically round up your purchases and save the spare change.
3 Find out what works for you, and stick to it. There are a thousand trends to follow online, but mostly they just result in waste. Whether it’s skincare, fashion or home decor, you probably already know what you like, deep down. Invest in fewer, higher quality things and forget about the fads.
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