Rewriting the middle

Hi all and happy Sunday. I did my little introduction blog post yesterday and so I thought today I could delve a little deeper into what started this whole thing and how it’s going so far. Today I’m going to focus on money.

We are not wealthy, nor are we poor. We are six months into a thirty years mortgage and have a little rainy day fund for emergencies. We can only afford to go abroad once every three years or so, and do summer camping trips on the years in between. And what I’ve come to realise is…that’s totally NORMAL.

Social media has us all believing that everyone we know is sunning it up in Dubai every other month and driving a flash car. I have often found myself in that familiar position of thinking…what are they doing so differently to me? Why can’t I afford those things? And I think over time I’ve come to realise that they’re not different.

I follow this fantastic content creator called Mia McGrath (if you don’t know her, definitely check her out on her socials) and she has reminded me of things that I knew deep down, but had forgotten. Namely, that social media is a lie but secondly if someone has a £50,000 car on their drive, all that actually tells you is that they have spent £50,000 on a car. It tells you nothing about their bank balance and more importantly it doesn’t speak to how happy they are.

Mia has coined this term ‘frugal chic’ and I am living for it. It describes a woman (in this case) who curates a timeless wardrobe of quality items and doesn’t buy into fast fashion. She buys it nice, not twice. She understands that a treat should be just that, so is happy to get a coffee and pastry on a nice day out, but isn’t buying them daily. She finds and enjoys low cost or free activities where she can. And, perhaps most importantly she remembers her goals and sticks with her plan, not following the crowd or the latest trends. Her goal is to be wealthy, not rich. Wealth to her is being able to use her time more freely, not having endless amounts of cash. She is rich in time.

So this brings me to now…this is a huge part of how I’m rewriting this portion of my life. I’m no longer worrying about what others have or do and instead am focused on my own long game. Myself and my husband are doing a very low spend January and February. This doesn’t include essential items, I’m talking about the needless spending we’d usually do without thinking about it. The ‘Oh, I just need to pop and get some binbags from B&M’ to come out £40 less well off with nothing much to show for it. So far, I’ve found it really freeing, but it’s early days so I’ll update as I go.

Bringing this post back round to the title, do you suffer from January blues? I never really have. I think it’s because I’ve always loved a new year. I enjoy the symbolism of a fresh start, a new chapter and a chance to change things if you want to. Maybe it helps that my birthday is in January, so I always get a little boost midway through the dark, damp days. I treat January and February particularly like hibernation months. There’s less social expectations, the weather is crap and it’s generally accepted that people stay in more. For a homebody like me…that is a gift from above! What do you mean I can stay at home, the home that I pay a lot of money to own and enjoy, with my favourite people in the whole world and focus on bettering myself for the year ahead? Sign me up immediately.

Enough rambling for today, thanks for joining me in rewriting the middle. I’d love to know if you follow Mia McGrath or any similar content creators so I can check them out. Bye for now 🙂