I was 18 when I moved out of home for the first time. My own residence was, it is safe to say, not in the most sanitary of areas and the apartment itself was little more than a room with a kitchen and restroom attached. Paint was coming off the walls, water came in through the windows and my upstairs neighbors were growing pot. I look back now and wonder how I coped, especially on nights when my other neighbors would have a blistering domestic row in the lobby.

Yet, despite the many – many! – floors of my first private residence, I loved it. I went from living with my parents in a quiet suburb, in a five-bedroom house that was only a couple of years old, to living in a rough area in an apartment that had so much mold it irritated my asthma. Yet I still loved it, and one of the crowning moments of glory was when the first bill arrived.

Like most kids, I’d had arguments with my father about the amount of time I spent on the phone or watching TV. He always used to shout at me that when I was paying the bills, I could do whatever I wanted, but until then I’d be a bit more careful. I naturally resented this in my early teenage years, and even when I was 18, I still wasn’t quite over it. Hence the excitement when my first electricity bill arrived.

I remember opening it, a massive grin on my face, because now I was paying the bills and I could do what I wanted. I’d reveled in the freedom of not living with my – admittedly fairly strict – parents, but that first bill was the cherry on the top. I studied the bill and was shocked at how low it was; in my naivity I’d assumed the bill would be the same size as the ones my father had waved angrily in my face years before. I gleefully wrote a check and mailed it the same day, brimming with a sense of survival and feeling more adult than ever before.

That night, I was turning the lamps out in the apartment when I realised I could do what I wanted with them. There was no one to yell at me to turn them off; that hadn’t really hit home until I’d had and paid that first bill. I toyed with the idea of leaving them on all night… just because I could. Although I didn’t, the knowledge I could was wonderful, and the memory of that moment still makes me smile.

Every birthday and Christmas, without fail, an Aunt who lived in Australia would send me a birthday card. I’d see the card with it’s foreign postmark and rush to open it. Inside there would always be a crisp $20 note.

I can still remember now how happy that used to make me feel. The promise of this note, given to me by someone far away, who wouldn’t know what I spent it on. Whenever I got money from my parents as a gift, there was always a knowledge that they would know whatever I bought, and therefore it should be acceptable to them. But this faraway Aunt would never know; I had $20, and no one could tell me how to spend it.

Nowadays, I treat $20 bills almost with disdain. In the age of the credit card, I’ve almost stopped using cash all together, and even when I do have actual bills they never seem to amount to much. A grand purchase of something I really want is rarely going to be covered by cash; I now associate the feeling of infinite spending possibilities with an anonymous bit of plastic.

When I think what I spend $20 on now, it amazes and delights me that so much thought used to go into what I’d spend that gift from my Aunt on. There are days when I spend $50 without really noticing on things that life unfortunately deems essential, such as food or gas. A simple amount of $20 is now almost ruined, as my expectations and responsibilities have changed.
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