It might not have been the worst phone call I’ve ever made, but I certainly was squirming in shame throughout. I was 31, on my first proper holiday with a new partner, and I’d snuck out of our romantic Cornish cottage first thing to ask my mum for money. The life-saving amount? £100.
I was embarrassed about tapping up the Bank of Mum and Dad, no question. But not so ashamed that I’d ask my new boyfriend for the money, especially while we were on holiday. Obviously the £100 wouldn’t solve all my money problems , but it would bridge the day or two before I – hopefully – got paid by one of the various clients who kept promising to fulfil their obligations.
Later, on a windy clifftop walk, Ben, unaware of the extent of my debt but with a few thousand of his own to shift, wondered what it might look like if we both began to pay off our credit cards. Immediately, I thought of freedom. The state of being debt-free buys you your freedom! And then, pitifully, I remembered that I couldn’t.
I simply could not afford to ever pay off all of this evil debt. Freedom was getting to say yes to cocktails and brunch , not turning into a couple who only stayed at home and ate baked beans. Ben and I discovered early on that we’d come to the relationship with different attitudes to money.
He was frugal and considered every outgoing, except for occasional “to-hell-with-it” sprees. I was someone who never considered the future or what it might cost, and didn’t want a pesky th.