I can only marvel when I look back and realise what I was able to afford in my early twenties. Even though I already had a mortgage on a two bed maisonette, was on a decent but not spectacular graduate wage, and had an extremely active social life, I still somehow saved £2,500 in cash quite easily.
Handing this wad over to a private seller in the next town over got me not just my first ever proper grown up car, a 2.5L four door, only a few years old, it was a very flash car. A well respected reliable European make, but in one of a handful of extremely sexy body styles. It was not only a decent roundabout and a damn fine way to commute (20 minutes, two motorway junctions), I could now cruise comfortably at 80 on the motorway on the very long drives to visit the folks in the land of coal and crumpets, where a whippet or a stolen Ford Fiesta was the preferred mode of transport. I tried not to let my obvious wealth and success humiliate them. I probably failed. My young cousins wanted to be driven everywhere, and I gladly did so.
Despite passing my test well after my peers, in just a few short years I had gone from knocking about in my best mate's mothers ancient Nissan Micra (the effort of making a long distance motorway drive being what finally did for the poor thing), to certified legend. I don't even really remember what it cost to insure, tax, maintain or run, that's how affordable it was against my monthly budget. I doubt I even gave the fact I should also be factoring in a £250 a year depreciation cost a second's thought. I only really remember wondering if it was cost effective to be in the AA/RAC or not. Probably not.
Total freedom. There was not a city I couldn't drive into for free, and the Dartford Crossing was a mere annoyance, at £1 a pop. Loose change.
I see that petrol was half the cost back then than it is now. Half!
I doubt there is a single part of the above story that a young person today can relate to. I didn't even have a student loan to pay off.
