I recently came into a small amount of money – some hardship pay for the summer work in the Central African Republic that I didn’t realise was coming my way. So I now have an unexpected $4,500. It got me thinking about money. Growing up in Salford, Greater Manchester, sweets at the corner shop down the cobbled alley at the back of the house cost a penny. He-man plastic toys cost a couple of pounds. Ten pounds seemed like a most princely sum. It took a couple of weeks of pocket money to have a pound. I remember the scandalous tones used in the family to talk about another family who had celebrated the birthday of one of their children at Wimpey’s (a cheaper version of McDonald’s) where all the invites had been treated to a full meal plus cake. The rumoured cost was 30 pounds. I’ve spent the same amount on a single meal several times in the last year and not thought much about it.

For much of my life a hundred pounds seemed like a huge amount. In my teens I would dream of spending such vast sums on adolescent male dreams – progressively a computer (400 pounds for an Atari if I recall correctly), a mountain bike, a drum kit, an electric guitar, and then of course a car. If someone had given me a thousand pounds it would have felt like I’d won the lottery. I did holidays in Europe that cost 50 pounds (including the flight to Switzerland), raised a couple of hundred pounds for a life-changing couple of weeks in Romania, and dreamed of the mega-expensive Inter-Rail pass (about 300 pounds again if memory serves). A month travelling around the USA on Greyhound after two months as a camp counselor cost about $700 I think, with the bus ticket taking up around $400.

But at 34 (I say that deliberately because it sounds far younger than the soon-to-be-reached 35) what do you do with $4,500? How would you treat yourself? I have more than enough gadgets – I just need more dedicated time to use them. I already get plenty of exotic travel – my holidays are for seeing family and friends. A nice car doesn’t make much sense in Freetown, and I’m already buying a car. And anyway, what is the real difference between a basic car and a luxury one? I have enough clothes, and again, what do nice clothes give you, especially when you’re past wanting to impress anyone of the opposite sex except your wife and daughters?

So, I’ll probably give some to the church, some to my daughters to help pay their university fees and some to the investment account I have to buy some more shares, to one day buy a second house in Abidjan, which will help raise more money, and the $4,500 will probably be intact on my death and transferred by will to my children. After a while, you seem to just send your money to the bank and then the numbers on your annual statement change that little bit without it making an iota of difference to your life.