Thirty. And Nobody Warned You

The one edition where the price tables are not a joke about the past. A man turning thirty is looking at the same numbers as a threat rather than a memory, and the book says so instead of pretending otherwise.

What is in it

• The years you could have been born, and what a house, a week of work and a pound actually cost in each of them.
• What has changed since, with the figures rather than the sighing.
• The honest bits about the age, written by somebody not pretending it is fine.
• Quizzes and things to argue about.
• Things you can now say and get away with.
• Around forty pages to fill in, which is the part that survives.

Formats and price

Part of Milestone Birthdays, an Home Truths series.

Frequently asked

Do the price tables work for a thirtieth?

They work differently. For the older books the gap between then and now is the joke. At thirty the numbers are current, so the tables run the other way: what the same house cost when his parents were his age, and how many years of his own pay that is now.

Is it a book about failing to hit milestones?

No, and that is the trap this part of the shop falls into. There is nothing in it about houses not bought or careers not started. The honest chapter is about the specific thing that happens at thirty, which is that the comparisons start being with people you know rather than with people on television.

Is every fact in it sourced?

Yes, to the Nationwide house price index, the Bank of England historical dataset, the Office for National Statistics and the Official Charts Company.