I want this blog to be transparent and honest, so here is a vulnerable entry…
October 28th 2026, I achieved a personal milestone: £100k in personal income over my lifetime.
My first job was part-time, building bikes and working on the Outdoor department for Smyths Toys.
It was August 2019, my mum’s boyfriend at the time forced me to walk into shops and hand in my CV to get a job alongside my A-Levels.
Whilst I was reluctant, this job helped me with developing confidence. The story of that is for another day however…
In 2019, I was working on my spreadsheet skills and I made myself a Finance Tracker, that I’ve updated since creating it.
Every bit of income, every expense, very intense.
But, it means that I can track things like this.
To mark the occasion, I bought a watch. I’m quite sentimental and want to mark milestones in my life.
I wanted the watch to cost what I earnt in an entire month at £5/hr at Smyths.
My first month, August 2019, I earnt £281.74 (just over 56 hours in the month).
The watch was £299 for one I thought was nice and near-enough to this price range.
Now, it took me 86 months (just over 7 years) to achieve this.
I had the Smyths job at £5 per hour, I was an apprentice on £15k per year.
Then, starting my own business - I didn’t take any money personally for 15 months, and I didn’t take a “living wage” for 23 months.
This has been very up and down and definitely very slow to achieve this goal, as minimum wage would mean it should be just over 4 years away…
But, this is how long it took, this is the transparency I wanted.
For me, I wanted a reminder of the sacrifice I made taking on that job at Smyths.
Around Christmas, I would do 40-50 hour weeks alongside my 40 hours of A-Levels per week. All for £5/hr…
That time in my life was where I learnt the hard work, and developed a relationship with money.
I invested it, I budgeted it, I made it stretch.
Now, I wanted a watch to wear to mark the occasion of the achievement as well as knowing what it took to earn the price of the watch when I started out.
But, I’m going to be real with you…
I ordered it and when that money left my account, I didn’t feel happy. It was anti-climatic.
I just stared at the ‘order confirmed’ screen for couple minutes - almost blankly.
The watch arrived a week ago… it’s still in the packaging from DPD.
I haven’t opened it.
This was meant to be a happy milestone.
But the reality is, I just don’t feel worthy of it.
I don’t feel happy at this milestone.
I thought earning £100k in my life would be life-changing.
It’s not.
I feel this sense of shame that it took 7 years to achieve.
It doesn’t feel like a celebration, even though it is.
If this was a friend that was going through this and I was observing, I would be over the moon for them!
It’s a great achievement in it’s own right.
But for now, I have the watch in the original delivery packaging and don’t feel like I can open it yet.
I achieved what I set out to achieve, I did the thing, why do I not feel good about it?
This has really opened my eyes to a couple things.
I will always be chasing the next thing and very quickly adjust to my new baseline.
I need to enjoy the journey more, clearly this shows I don’t enjoy the destination, so why suffer in both places?
“You’ve already achieved things you said would make you happy” has never felt more true.
I know that the 16 year old starting Smyths playing out in his head that he would need to work for 20,000 hours to earn this money would be happy we are finally here.
I know the 19 year old choosing a low-paying apprenticeship, but with plenty of knowledge and skill building opportunities would be happy we reached it.
I know the 21 year old being made redundant from his apprenticeship, but using the skills he learnt on that apprenticeship to build a business to propel him there would be happy.
I know the 21 year old choosing to start his business and taking a chance to back himself would be happy we achieved this milestone.
So why is 23 year old me not happy with it?
I don’t know, but that’s what I’m struggling with at the moment.
Not sure if this is a diary entry or a blog post, but we are sticking with the theme of making myself uncomfortable
