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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask you what you were doing at 24?

311 replies

jewelledpineapples1 · 10/04/2020 20:08

I've just turned 24 and my future seems so uncertain. I thought by this age I would have more of a career plan.

If you don't mind sharing, what were you at 24 and how different is that to where you are now?

OP posts:
480Widdio · 10/04/2020 22:42

I was a Registered Nurse,Registered Sick Children’s Nurse and a Midwife.

I was in the Army as a QARANC Officer,

TheClitterati · 10/04/2020 22:42

Flat sharing, working in ok job but with no "prospects" and saving as much as I possibly could to go travelling - which I did when I was 26 and I never went back to any of it 😬😃

SallyWD · 10/04/2020 22:43

I'm now 45, at 24 I was a mature student at uni. I enjoyed the course but got in to debt and have never used my degree. I've always been a bit aimless when it comes to career. I'm much more focused on my personal life and for me a job has just been to pay the bills. I wish I had more drive and ambition when it came to work but I am very happy with my life.

supadupapupascupa · 10/04/2020 22:45

Mortgage, ex fiancé, redundancy at work looming. New boyfriend brighter future. Still clubbing weekly and having a ball. Wish I'd had more sex!!

ludothedog · 10/04/2020 22:45

Moved to Spain. Worked and partied hard. It was amazing! My advice would be to enjoy yourself, make a list of things you want to do/experience and work your way through it.

Plenty of time for settling down and starting a career.

MorganKitten · 10/04/2020 22:46

Working in Hollywood.

Quanrantini · 10/04/2020 22:46

Finished university... had a dead end job

partying... smoking (lived in a country where is was legal)...

Then I skirted off to China and never looked back. Now looking to do a masters in law.

MmmNutella · 10/04/2020 22:52

Temping and having a quarter life crisis. It was after the 2007/8 financial crisis and the job market wasn't great.

I wish I could tell my 24 year old self that it will all be alright. You are in a uniquely uncertain time, try not to worry, as it is out of your hands.

Think about all the options that might be open to you when life gets a bit more normal again. Maybe use this lockdown period to do lots of research and make a rough plan?

beachbreeze · 10/04/2020 22:55

I had zero plan and still don't. I was working in London and travelling for work. Now my "career" is more of a pay the bills thing, no progression! I'm 40 this year. I'm thinking there might never be a plan, and I think I'm okay with that.

JosieJosie1 · 10/04/2020 22:56

I was finished my degree and working in the second year of a graduate rotation.

zsazsajuju · 10/04/2020 22:57

Travelling and having a great time

weegiemum · 10/04/2020 22:57

When I was 24 I got married (and am still married, just had our silver wedding), and was working as a secondary school Geography teacher. We lived in a tiny basement flat in a posh part of Edinburgh, dh was still a medical student and life was very good!

Lot has changed, 3dc, I'm now disabled and can't work, dh is a GP, live in a much bigger place in the suburbs. 24 was good, but nearly-50 is pretty good too!

JosieJosie1 · 10/04/2020 22:57

Where I am now is in a job I love working for the government.

Mandraki · 10/04/2020 23:00

24 is still so young. At 24 I was living with my boyfriend and got engaged. I was in a job I hated and wanted better than but had no qualifications or plan to get out of it. I felt a bit stuck.

30 now, married, 1 child, in my first year of uni doing a nursing degree. I think in some ways I'm happier than I was then, more content with things, but in some ways less happy. I'm less happy with myself at the moment. I didnt know what I wanted to do with my life until about 18 months ago. You have plenty of time. I remember feeling the way you do, but at 22. I wanted so many things, a husband a child a job, but I was single and in a shitty job and I saw no way of getting what I wanted. Things can change fast, you just don't know what is round the corner.

krustykittens · 10/04/2020 23:02

I was working in my first job in journalism and had moved in with my now DH. I am 47 this year. I didn't have much of a plan other than work and earn as much money as possible until I met my DH. He has always been the type that needs a five year plan and we made one together. These plans have changed so much over the years as we grew older and life happened to us as well as us changing our minds about what we wanted. But we are both very happy and glad our lives have worked out the way they have. You don't really need to know what you are doing OP, just start walking toward something. You might not make it but the fact that you strove to get there, means you will find yourself somewhere else, further down the road. Nothing happens to those who stand and wait. Have a plan but be prepared to have those plans change and be able to roll with the punches life will throw at you. But I do agree with PP who said save a bit of salary every month and be financially savvy! I am an idiot with money while DH is the complete opposite and his financial planning has given us choices we would not have had, if the money had all been in my hands, as well as softening the blow of things like industry recessions.

Takeitonthechin · 10/04/2020 23:03

Starting a degree

Sparklesocks · 10/04/2020 23:06

Lived at home with my dad in SE London, worked in something of a dead end admin job and was in a long distance relationship with a man studying at uni. Didn’t make much money but had a lot of fun, was still in contact with a lot of my university friends and spent my weekends/the little money I had travelling to see them as they were scattered across the U.K.. Was pretty happy but wanted more.

Got made redundant from that dead end admin job a year later and used the payout money to do an amazing west coast to east coast trip to the US. Now I’m early 30s, still with my DP but live together now rather than a LDR. We are looking to buy our first property together (once this whole mess calms down obviously) and hopefully have kids once we are settled. Now in a decent career. Still see some of my university friends although not as often. Generally feel much more comfortable in my own skin and confident about who I am than I did at 24.

GlummyMcGlummerson · 10/04/2020 23:06

Getting married Blush

I was far, far too young. I've had my lovely babies out of it - but I wish I'd had more time to myself first. Wouldn't recommend it

raspberryk · 10/04/2020 23:07

Married 3 years, home owner, with a new baby, 2 kids and divorced by 27/28, no need to rush anything. Enjoy your 20's, at 30 I went back to uni and got a new dp so I've started again.

MadameTuffington · 10/04/2020 23:07

Ha - it was 1995 and I was just about to het married in a foreign land (to a bastard but I didn’t know it yet as I was idealistic, romantic and EXTREMELY naive), I was 2 years off having my first child and working as a Tour Guide with people from all over the world - I remember a nice Dutch lad called Remko who had to attend his own circumcision party on a boat in April 95 in order to marry a local girl - great, carefree times ...

Fishcakey · 10/04/2020 23:07

Living in my flat, going out having fun, no plans. It all turned out ok.

AndNoneForGretchenWieners · 10/04/2020 23:09

At 24 I was the married mother of a 3 year old and stepmom to two teenagers. I had a job I hated but took because it was more money that I had been on previously. I regret the job but not the baby or the husband - 17 years on I know how lucky I was.

Coughsyrupsucks · 10/04/2020 23:12

Had just left Uni (went 3 years late) was in a dead end admin job which I hated. So I started to save up, and then went travelling end of 24 and all of 25. Came back and worked in IT, loved my new career. Do what you want to and relax, you have all the time in the world at 24.

Couchbettato · 10/04/2020 23:13

I am almost 25, and this year I had my first (and maybe only) baby.

I work in a call centre, I feel like I rushed things and I also dropped out of college because I just couldn't commit to a career path.

I was always told to do what made me happy, but scorned at if I wasn't thriving academically because my interests took me elsewhere.

Well, now I've had my baby, I have opened up a new career path working with mums and babies antenatally and postnatally and have already received my training. I couldn't have seen this happening a year ago, and I also couldn't have predicted it when I was pregnant which was the most uncertain about anything I've ever felt.

I am certain I've done all of this with the right man behind me.

I know I'm not even that much older than you but what is important is that you know your own value. If you know your own value you'll know when someone is mistreating you and you won't let them tell you otherwise. It will get you places and will stop you being pressured into making decisions that you need time to think about.

SukiPutTheEarlGreyOn · 10/04/2020 23:20

Flailing about trying to work out what life was all about. Had dropped out of uni, returned from travelling and was living in London in low paid job. It was a time when opportuities could be grasped without having connections or even qualifications and so was able to work into a promising creative role within the same multinational.

Started out house and flat sharing before moving in with boyfriend in what turned out to be a soon to nose-dive relationship. Lots of partying and all night clubbing. Parts of it were great and parts grim.

Mostly, I felt all at sea and not nearly as grown up as I tried to seem. Made many mistakes and learned quite a bit. Left job and relationship a year later and gradually direction became a bit clearer. It took a couple more years to really find out what I wanted and to figure out how to go about it.

If I could go back I’d tell 24 yr old me not to worry so much, that it’s ok not to have everything figured out, to believe in yourself and trust your instincts and even though you don’t believe it at the moment all will be well (oh, and for goodness sake cut up your credit card, don’t wait a whole year to leave a wilting relationship and get the hell out of a city you never truly felt at home in.)