Congrats to Kat for recently turning 40. Her comment about wishing to have it together at this age struck home.

I’m 43 (with another birthday immediately around the corner) and recently had to think my way through this issue. After all, graduating from high school, I figured I would have done much better than my parents did by middle age. As I enter that phase of my life, nothing could be further than the truth.

To further rub salt in the wounds, I flip open almost any magazine to see advertising featuring images of attrative younger people in their well-appointed, perfectly designed homes or having fun in the sun at some exotic locale that up to know only ranked a mention and photo in an old copy of National Geographic or in a Jimmy Buffett song.

Then I look around my neighbourhood, which once was blue collar. Now it is refurbished or rebuilt homes selling for just shy of seven digits, each with two luxury SUVs or better in the driveway.
Neighbours talking about their recent trip to the very same tropical locals mentioned earlier. It’s enough to make you want spill your margarita.

Sitting in my rented basement suite with my aging 15 year old car outside, it can all seem a little depressing. But, I have to remember, I still have slightly more than half of my work years ahead of me and they should be my best earning years. And, on occasion, life throws different opportunities our way. So where I sit right now is not indicative of where I may be sitting five, ten or twenty years from now, which is lot of time to get it together.

And it doesn’t mean my neighbours have it together either, just because those around me have the toys and trips. We don’t have the ability to look under the hood to see what sort of debt load they are carrying or how they are financing their lifestyle.

Finally, I spent an hour at the beach this afternoon. Hawaii without palm trees, but otherwise tropical and it only cost me two or three litres of gas to get there. For a brief time, nothing else including a light wallet mattered.