This is a tribute for everyone navigating the torturous and bumpy age: 27 – 35 years

Sit up, shut up, and read.

The acne-ridden, teenage phase is not the most turbulent in life.

That age from 27 to 35 years is a soul crusher. It’s the phase that serves the realities of life as they are. Un-peppered. No padding.

In the teenage phase, anything stupid and ridiculous is patronized with:

“Hey, they are teens, what do you expect? It’s their time to be young and reckless.”

At 27 to 35 years, you’ll miss this apathy.

At this stage, you are dealing with ego, first. There’s a lot of self-examination when dealing with accepting your list of friends getting smaller, and smaller. Suddenly, your Do-or-Die gang is no longer so much Do-or-Die. Who turns down the gang at the last minute before the road trip of the year?

Did I get boring at some point?

At this stage, you get busy cleaning up the messes you made in your late teens and early 20’s. Suddenly, spontaneous weekend-long raves and out-of-town drives that made Monday classes an automatic miss start to bite. Oh, all the drugs.

“Drugs?” the alter ego will ask. “We just did base-line drugs.”

Well, talking of base-line, that standard ‘pass’ in your finals is a stumbling block. Newbies with an ‘upper credit’ mark, or ‘distinction’ keep getting the nod for vacant upstairs offices.

At this age, career demands are at the peak. Long hours, dawn to dusk. You need to log in as many hours at work as you possibly can. A lot of times, work spills over into weekends. It’s a busy phase.

At this stage, most relationships are touchy, fragile and demanding. A lot of people convert their heady college relationships into new marriages. That’s fine. What’s not fine is expecting the carefree, happy-go-lucky college moods follow you into the new marriage.

At this age, the probability of a toddler (or, toddlers), in the mix.

A toddler is a bundle of joy.

At this age, that line seems a tad too colorful when it gets into the overall matrix. It’s not a piece of cake balancing parenting with tight finances. To plump out the finances, you need more hours at work, sometimes second and third jobs.

This burns out fickle virtues you saw in your significant other, like patience.

“You don’t spend time with the baby.”

Aaaargh!!

Since work and family takes up lots of time, exercise is non-existent. The finance angle doesn’t allow any chance of joining a decent gym. Health issues start to knock.

The 27-35 year phase is the hardest stretch to navigate.

However, it’s not all doom. You can still atone yourself, make some good choices. You can line a good narrative for the kids, at the very least.

Offer, or attempt to give better mentorship than you had as a kid. Especially on the financial point – on the social front, the kid’s fate lies with choices they make later.

A little like all the wrongs one you made in college.

Teach them the basics of finance, and money management. The age-old, surefire way of building savings. Luckily, there’s structures to help you along.

The Jumbo Junior Bank Account, with Co-op Bank.

Co-op Bank has a transitional account that’s a perfect tool to teach the saving culture to kids, and financial discipline that will be beneficial in their adulthood. It’s designed for children below the age of 18 years, for the safe keeping of money.

Besides, there’s a load of unbelievable benefits, like, automatic membership to the elite Jumbo Junior Club.

To sign up, or learn more about Jumbo Junior, visit the nearest Co-op Bank branch, or click here.

The Big Bank Account….For Little People!