It gets better. 30 was rough for me:
- We were saving, but it seemed that our numbers were creeping up slowly. However, if we hadn't gone through those years, we wouldn't be where we are now.
- Don't give in to lifestyle creep. At 30 so many of our friends were already in "move up houses" and were starting to take luxury vacations. And we didn't, which occasionally made us feel like losers. Today we can write a check for our children's college tuition, while those people are worrying about student loans. We're about to build our retirement house -- and we can pay cash -- while those folks have second (or third) mortgages and call them HELOCs.
- Do the right things with your kids. At 30 we had all our children, and they were WORK. Feed them healthy foods, get them out to the park a couple times a week, read every day, think up science experiments, let them help with chores, pray with them. You want to do all these things, but you yourself rarely get a break. The first few years of school is a lot of work for you. Life with small children is exhausting much of the time. But if you do all those right things, you will see the payoff later. Sometimes when you're in the midst of it, you can't see the end, but I have two absolutely wonderful young ladies now, and much of that is due to all the things we did with them in those first, most formative years.