Where is Home?

Until very recently, I had always been very firm about where my home was. I had always lived in a little corner of North West London, and had only moved once in my life about 5 miles down the road. Then in the space of a month, my parents uprooted to the South Coast, and I moved again back up to the Midlands. It was a bit hectic and rather confusing, and I’m still trying to process it all.

I’ve been at University here for about 6 weeks now, and I seem to be coping relatively well so far. Things are busy, but I quite like them being busy and I’ve made a group of friends and enjoying my course. There is one thing that has been bothering me since I’ve moved here though, and that’s that I’m not really sure where home even is anymore.

For most of my friends here, it’s simple; they’ve always lived in the same area and still do, and that’s home. It’s a little more complicated on my side. For me, I think, London will always be my home. It’s my favourite city in the world, it’s where I grew up and where so many life-changing events happened to me. It’s where all of my friends are in the holidays and everything is familiar. I don’t have to think about how the tube works or the times of the buses, how late everything is open or where I need to go to get something. It’s a diverse and open-minded city with things going on all the time that I can just escape into and find something new. I’ve been to visit a few times since I’ve been at University, and every time I step off at St. Pancras station, I feel so happy and relaxed.

I did spend three weeks in that town on the south coast, and whilst I know all my stuff and some of my family is there, I just can’t call it home. The house is unfamiliar and not mine, it takes a half hour walk to get to any form of civilisation and I have nobody there besides my dad and some of my stepfamily. Part of this struggle, I think, is that I haven’t been able to go back since I moved to University, for a number of reasons. The first is that, I just find it easier to settle into a place if I don’t leave it for a while. Second is money and time; a train from the midlands to the south coast is not direct, nor cheap and I can’t really afford the train tickets nor the 5 hour journey to get there. There have been many weekends here my friends have headed off home and it’s been making me think about where that is a lot.

Last weekend I spent my first nights away from my University town, in the centre of London with a friend. I was worried that it was going to make me homesick and not want to go back, that I was going to go back to University and hate every minute I wasn’t back in London.

But, as I boarded the train due north and sat in my seat, I had an odd, comforting thought that I couldn’t wait to get back to my pokey student room and see my friends and get back to the town. I was filled with relief that my excursion back to my home city hadn’t made me incredibly sad, and in fact had made me realise how attached I had become to this little city in a few short weeks. It’s definitely no London, and I have to say I do miss being able to attend all the book events I used to when I lived in London. But for now, this little city in the middle of the country really isn’t such a bad place to call my new temporary home.

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Learning The Value of Money

I've always been quite good with money. I'm not on to splurge on really expensive things, not unless it's something I need and/or will use regularly. I'm not interested in the latest "thing" - whether it's clothes, shoes, bags, mobiles, other technology and so on - because it's new and everyone else has it. If I don't want it or don't need it, I won't get it.

My brother and my dad say I'm tight, but I consider myself to be careful. When out shopping for clothes, if you're in my company, it's quite common to hear me say, "Oh, I like that!" before going over to take a closer look at whatever caught my eye, look at the price tag, and then say "Not that much," and walk away. I just really don't see the point in spending money on expensive things, when, in my opinion, there are better things I can spend my money on. I always end up thinking, "I could buy that single top, or I could by several books, take my mum to the cinema, or buy several other, cheaper tops..." I like value for my money, and I'm not going to by something just because it has a logo or a name on it.

Despite being careful with my money, I've had my eyes opened recently to how frivolous I can be with money, too. We've recently been having some financial difficulties at home, and money has been extremely tight. Food needs to be bought, bills need to be paid. A day out shopping just to get out the house on a day off wasn't feasible. If I was going out and might be thirsty, I'd have to take a bottle of water with me instead of buying one, things were that bad. Every penny was needed. I couldn't just buy things because I wanted them.

Unfortunately, our financial difficulties just as I started putting on weight. I went up a dress size, and most of my clothes no longer fit. I had already started to replace the clothes that needed replacing, when we started having problems, but I wasn't done. There were certain things I simply needed, but I now had to be extra careful with my spending. I could no longer shop for just what I wanted; I had to think carefully about what I was buying. It meant turning away from clothes I would have liked, but simply couldn't afford right now. As well, I have two weddings coming up, and I no longer had any wedding-appropriate clothes that fit. It was so stressful; trying to balance buying the things I needed along with making sure I had enough money for our basic necessities.

There were so many things I had to say no to myself about. I had just got myself to the point where I wasn't going to let fear stop me from doing the things I wanted to - but then not having enough money stopped me. It's so disheartening to have worked up the courage to go ahead with something that has scares you, and then not be able to do it anyway. But on top of that, I wanted to take my family on holiday this year. I wanted days out to see and experience things. Even thought things are a little better now, I honestly don't know if I can save enough now to make these things happen.

I think money is something most of us take for granted - whether we splurge, save, or are careful with our spending. It's just there for us when we want it, to buy the drink, or the chocolate bar, or the bag of crisps. But when life happens and suddenly money is scarce, you really come to realise how much you spend on nothing. That £1 I would normally spend on a bottle of coke was now needed to buy four pints of milk, or to go towards buying a loaf of bread. Scrimping and going without isn't fun, it's actually damn stressful, but I now realise I'm not quite as careful with money as I originally thought. It's made me look at money in a completely different way. Of course I will spend the odd few quid on things I want as a treat, but now I really know the value of money, and will make more thoughtful decisions on my spending in future.



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