I am a very serious person from Monday to Thursday
I mean that. Spreadsheet open. Lunch packed. Makeup done like I have a plan for my life. I can tell you what is going into rent, what is going on travel, and what I am pretending I will not spend on a cab.
Then Friday turns up with its little face on and someone drops a voice note that just says, you coming out.
And that is it. The whole budget becomes a rumour I used to believe in.
Monday me is excellent. Weekend me is a liability
Monday me is the warehouse manager with a maths degree who can add a night up in her head before the card even comes out. Monday me knows the difference between a treat and a habit. Monday me looks at the balance and feels briefly grown.
Weekend me does not care about any of that. Weekend me wants lighting, a look, a drink that turns into three, and the feeling that I am not sitting in a flat watching other people have a better time than me.
People online love saying nobody blows their budget on a Tuesday. They are right. Tuesday I am noble. Tuesday I eat leftovers and feel smug about it. Friday I am a different animal. Friday has music in it. Friday has the group chat warming up. Friday has that stupid little spark that says you have worked all week, you are allowed.
Allowed is a dangerous word when you live in London and your rent already has its hand in your pocket.
The spreadsheet is not the problem
I am good with numbers at work. Properly good. I can look at a rota and a wage and a standing order and make it make sense. That is why the weekend thing winds me up. It is not that I cannot budget. It is that I can, and I still fold.
I sit on Sunday night with the notes app like I am about to change as a person. No takeaways. No last minute Tesco flowers for myself. One night out, not two. Walk to the station. Do not get the Uber just because your feet hurt and your mouth is still running.
It looks very adult written down. It looks like the version of me who wants the promotion and a bit of money that stays put.
Then Thursday evening someone says, just a quick one. Not a big night. Not a session. Just popping in.
I have never met a quick one that stayed quick. A quick one is how a plan gets through the door without taking its shoes off.
FOMO spends faster than rent
It is not even always the big stuff. It is the pile up. Pint. Then another because you are already there. Then food because you have not eaten since the meal deal at two. Then a cab because the night bus feels like a punishment once your heels have started lying to you. Then a lip product in the morning because you looked at yourself and decided the face needed help.
None of those things are dramatic on their own. Together they eat the bit I promised I was saving.
And the worst part is I know what I am doing while I am doing it. I can feel Monday me standing at the side of the bar with her arms folded. I just do not let her speak. Weekend me has the keys. Weekend me is funnier. Weekend me gets the attention. Weekend me does not want to be the girl who says I am staying in because I am being good.
Being good sounds like a diet. Being good sounds like I am missing something. In this city, missing something feels like failing in public.
That is FOMO, I suppose. Not a fancy word. Just the fear that if I am not in the photo I become the person who only works and sleeps and reapplies mascara for nobody.
The group chat is a financial hazard
I love my people. I do. Flatmates, work lot, the ones who have seen me come in loud at one in the morning and still make tea. They are not trying to ruin me. They are just doing what everyone does. They want company. They want the night to start.
But some friendships are expensive in a way nobody admits. Not because they are using you. Because the default setting is out. Out means spending. Spending means I have to choose between looking like a laugh and looking like I have a grip.
I have started noticing who always suggests the place with the cocktails and who is happy with a cheap pint and a walk. I have started noticing who goes quiet when I say I am skint and who says come anyway, I will get the first one, which is sweet and also how I end up staying for the fourth.
I hate asking anyone to cover me. It makes my mouth small. I would rather stay in than do that little dance. Pride is expensive. So is pretending you are fine when the app is already giving you a look.
What I am actually buying
It is not just drinks. I know that. I can be honest about it here even if I am cocky about it in the kitchen.
Sometimes I am buying a version of myself. The one who looks finished. The one who flirts first and thinks later. The one who does not sit in the quiet. Sex, nights out, a new bit of makeup before I leave the bathroom. They all do the same job. They make me feel chosen for a minute. They fill the gap where a boyfriend and a buffer account are supposed to be.
Saving sounds easy when you talk about it like a personality. Just do not go out. Just cook. Just be sensible. People say that like the weekend is a hobby you can put down.
For me the weekend is how I prove I still have a life outside the warehouse radio and the promotion I keep chasing. That is the trap. I treat spending like proof I am not shrinking.
Monday me wants money that stays. Weekend me wants a night that feels like I am not waiting for my life to start. They have never once sat down and agreed on a number.
The Sunday inventory
Sunday is when the bill arrives in my head. Not just the card. The mood.
Bags by the door. Uniform waiting. That low dread that is half work and half I did it again. I add it up in seconds. I always can. Drinks. Cab. Extra pizza. The top I did not need. My degree shows up at the worst time, usually after the money has already gone.
I do not spiral into a speech. I just go quiet in the cab home, or on the night bus if I have pretended to be noble at the end. Makeup in the window. Feet wrecked. Replaying the bit where I should have left after one and did not.
Then I open the notes app again like a woman who has learned something. I have not. Not fully. I have only learned that I am consistent. Discipline until Thursday. Then a voice note. Then the spreadsheet becomes folklore.
What I am trying instead, without becoming boring
I am not about to turn into one of those people who announce they do not go out anymore like it is a personality transplant. I like going out. I like being looked at. I like a room with noise in it. That is not changing this month.
But I am trying to stop lying to the page.
If I know I am going out, I put the night in the budget before Thursday. Not after, when I am already in the toilet redoing my face and calling it a one off. A planned blow is still a blow. It is just an honest one.
I pick the cheaper room first. Not the place that needs a new outfit to walk into. I take the trainers in the bag. I eat before I leave so I am not starving into a twenty pound mistake. I set a number in my head that I can say out loud. Once it is gone, I am gone. That last bit is the one I keep failing, so I am saying it here like that might make it stick.
And if the group chat starts up and I am actually skint, I am practising the sentence that feels like sandpaper. I am in, just not tonight. Come to ours. I will get bits in. That is not as glamorous as a cab pulling up. It also does not send me into Wednesday with that tight feeling under the ribs.
The promotion will help. I keep telling myself that. A better title. A better number. It will help. It will not turn Friday me into a saint. Friday me will still want the lights. I just want Monday me to have something left when she opens the app and hopes, stupidly, that the number has changed.
Saving is easy on paper. Paper does not get dressed. Paper does not hear a laugh in a voice note. Paper does not live in a city that charges you for the privilege of not sitting at home with your thoughts.
The weekend starts, and I become available to myself in the most expensive way. That is the truth of it. I can be disciplined. I am. Then someone says out, and I remember I would rather be in the room than be good.
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saving, weekend, budget, FOMO, payday, London, nightlife, rent, overdraft, discipline, friends, spending, money, promotion, warehouse, takeaway, pubs, spreadsheet, pride, nightlife
