What your much less rich buddy actually thinks of you

‘So, who’s up for booking glamping tents at that festival?’ the WhatsApp message reads. Everyone pings back straight away with enthusiastic approval. Then comes the kicker. A Bedouin Tent for four comes in at, gulp, £2,355. Each.

Such is the reality of trying to keep up with my wealthy friends over the school summer holidays, now mercifully at an end.

Despite the rain, most have tried to squeeze every last drop of fun out of July and August, with sailing trips on the Solent, expensive dinners and weekends away by the sea.

But dear God, the cost of it all. And the anxiety of saying yes to any innocent suggestion of ‘a chilled night or two away’ when your companions are so much more loaded than you… and you’re already wondering how you’ll pay this winter’s gas bill.

I reluctantly bowed out of the festival. As much as I would love a weekend partying with some of my oldest friends and their kids, the truth is I am increasingly out of my depth financially.

Georgina says she’s suffered the anxiety of saying yes to an innocent ‘night or two away’ with wealthy friends … and you’re already wondering how you’ll pay this winter’s gas bill

And as I scroll through Instagram and see their luxury holidays abroad – one hired a yacht for a week in the Med, another posed with a glass of bubbles by an infinity pool in the Caribbean – I have had to fight the surge of Fomo (fear of missing out) and envy that envelops me at this time of year.

Our family holiday last summer, a week in Ireland and a few days glamping in a rain-soaked shepherd’s hut in Dorset, has made me realise there’s a widening gulf between me and my more affluent pals.

When a friend recently asked if I could join her for a long weekend in Ibiza, I jokingly asked if she’d heard of something called the ‘cost-of-living crisis’. She simply laughed and said it sounded very unpleasant.

Bring out the small violin, I hear you say. I know it’s a ridiculous first-world problem when so many are truly struggling – but still, that Theodore Roosevelt quote about comparison being the thief of joy rings true at times.

Such as when I’m forced to admire a friend’s new wine cellar, which is twice the size of our repainted 1980s kitchen.

At our annual university get-together each year, it’s not uncommon for bottle after bottle of champagne to be ordered. As the four-course feast arrives – smoked salmon, celeriac carpaccio, fillet of beef, chocolate and marmalade lamington – I dread to see what the final bill will be. £300. Each!

That sort of expenditure is enough to wipe me out for a month, and I’m already maxed out on my overdraft.

Even though we met at Exeter University in the late 1990s and have followed similar middle-class trajectories in life – 2.4 kids, Volvo, labrador and so on – I earn considerably less than most of my friends.

While many of them have gone on to become CEOs and fund managers, I struggle on less than the UK’s average full-time salary of £35,000 as a freelance journalist. I have been self-employed for nearly 15 years and work around my three children, now 15, 12 and ten.

A scroll through her friends’ Instagram feeds about their luxury summer holidays – one hired a yacht in the Med – exposed the widening gulf between Georgina and her affluent pals

Thankfully, I’ve never felt judged by my friends for my relative lack of money. I do sometimes suggest meeting for brunch at a local cafe rather than one of the expensive swanky restaurants they frequent, though. I’ve only had one time where an old friend refused. After she turned her nose up at Wagamama, we ended up having oysters and champagne at a new restaurant in Soho. We had such fun but I regretted it the next day when I checked my bank balance.

Learning from Oystergate, I’ve started telling friends I can only join them for a drink rather than dinner if I’m a bit broke that month. Generally, they are very understanding.

Quietly, some friends go out of their way to help me. One was happy to wait for the £75 I owed her for dinner until a big invoice was paid; another sometimes insists on picking up the bill at the end of the night because, she says, she can and she knows I would do the same for her if I could.

There is no social hierarchy in my various groups, as such; we’ve known each other too long for that. But I do find it hard that some female friends now work four days a week yet earn far more than me.

Fortunately my husband Dom, a lawyer, earns enough that I don’t have to worry about paying the mortgage each month. But we have separate bank accounts (something my late mother always advised), so I’m acutely aware of my own precarious pay situation.

It is therefore a huge relief to see the start of term and a socially quieter autumn rolling around again. A chance to recoup some of the money I’ve splurged chasing sun-kissed memories with these mates. For the most part, I’ve had to accept that I simply can’t keep up with them – at least, not all the time.