Nicole Haddow

It wouldn't be unusual to go out and spend $80 on dinner and drinks on a Thursday night and then there was being out on the weekend and the taxis and the brunch and all of those things.

And when you stop doing that, you put pressure on the friendships because all of a sudden you're asking people to change their lifestyle.

And if they don't want to do that, they don't have to do that.

But it absolutely creates some friction.

I don't know if I developed strategies at the time.

I know I found it incredibly difficult, but I did end up spending more time with people who were at a different stage in their lives.

So good friends of mine, Bo and Kim, had a child when I was saving and so they were at home.

So I'd go over to their house and they'd put him to bed and we'd have a very cheap bottle of wine and, you know, watch a movie or listen to music and talk.

So I ended up

spending my time with people who who were in a different life phase so that it wasn't so hard for me but it definitely impacted my relationships i mean even dating it's expensive just to to go out for dates if you're a single person and i kind of had to put that on the back burner too and i think that's also even in work setting it's hard when you're the only one not going out with everybody um and i think you said in your book um you chose not to because of the moderation thing

Well, I have spent most of my career working in the media and people who work in the media are well known for working hard and playing hard.

So it's very hard when on Friday night everyone's leaving the office to go to the pub and you've got to turn around and say, I can't go.

But for me, it was either go and...

watch everybody increasingly get merrier and merrier or just go home and and you know sit on the internet and and look at what properties were online and try and make it you know a useful period of time rather than feeling sorry for myself which i got to eventually it took a while though

Yeah, well, that's exactly it.

And I mean, I'm in a different stage now.

I've sort of come out the other side and I'm able to go out with everyone and even buy dinner for friends who sort of let me sleep on the couch when I was, you know, trying to do that power save.

So you come full circle.

But it was really rewarding in the respect that the people who did stay in my life and support me in those choices are even better friends now than they were then.

Absolutely.