What would I tell my thirty year old self?

Prince Harry has just reached the big 3-0 and ITV’s Loose Women Sponsors, Tombola, have challenged me to look back a decade and ask what I would tell my 30 year old self.

My life has changed immensely since then!

At 30 I just had three children and had worked for a well known supermarket for 15 years.  I had worked my way up the career ladder and was engaged to my soon to be husband, whom I met at work.  We longed to own our house but it was looking extremely unlikely as rent and childcare costs meant we just couldn’t save enough for a decent deposit.

Looking back we were stressed out, working alternate shifts to try to save money on childcare so we could afford a deposit on a house and to get married.

So what would I tell myself?

The hard work was worth it!

We got married on a budget but had an amazing and memorable day, because it was our day.  I look back and chuckle that hubby forget to do both his jobs – remember to take the order of service and sort the video camera out.  The poor usher, Phil, had to do a mad dash back to the hotel to collect the order of service and as for the video camera, whilst present at the service had no disc in it…………..oh and to take the label of the bottom of his shoes as the whole church erupted into laughter when he knelt down.

We bought and moved into our house just 2 weeks before our wedding, mashing up the two most stressful of times of our lives, but managed to do it and all with a sense of humour.

I would also say to myself that buying a “doer-upper” house would take much longer and cost much more money then you ever imagined to do-up.  10 years on and we are still going!

Career-wise I would tell myself to make the jump from Tesco sooner and that I would adore my new job with an Investment Bank as it gave me a new found confidence in my abilities, plus much more reasonable hours so I could spend valuable time at home with the children.

However, if I had told my 30 year old self that I would have another 3 children to add to our family in the next ten years, I would probably have died laughing!  I always wanted a big family but I never thought we would be able to manage.  I would also tell myself that the teenage years are a huge challenge, like nothing I would ever imagine, but the hard work and patience would pay off and I successfully raised two of my babies into adulthood without too much pain!

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