Welcome to Money Diaries where we are tackling the ever-present taboo that is money. We’re asking real people how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we’re tracking every last penny.
This week: “I’m a 38-year-old manager working in a public sector organisation. My organisation has just recently announced that it will be restructuring and that there will be redundancies — stressfully, we don’t yet know which roles are safe and which aren’t, making it impossible to plan next steps. I live in a small town in Scotland with my partner, D. D owns the house we live in, although we split the mortgage. We’ve been renovating the house since we moved in, latterly splitting the renovation costs 50/50. I also own and currently rent out a flat that I bought before I met D. More excitingly, we are getting married in August. Even though we are trying to keep costs down through DIY-ing the wedding as much as possible, we are probably going to go a little over the £10k we had originally budgeted for. “
Occupation: Account Manager
Industry: Public Sector
Age: 38
Location: Scotland
Salary: £49,000
Paycheque Amount: About £2,650 (recently realised I was being underpaid and so haven’t yet had a payslip with the ‘correct’ monthly amount).
Number of housemates: One, my partner D.
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: Mortgage is £500 for my half.
Loan payments: None
Savings?: £42,000 in savings and current accounts, £30,000 in premium bonds, £20,000 in ISAs.
Utilities: My half of each is: £20.75 WiFi, £111 Council Tax, £35 Electricity, £54.27 Gas.
Pension? I pay in about 8% and my employer pays in 14.5%. I really need to increase my contributions further.
All other monthly payments: £10 phone, £28.50 gym membership, £155 personal trainer, £7 car insurance, £166 Cycle2work scheme. Subscriptions: £2.99 Apple storage, £12.25 charity lottery, £12 National Lottery, £28 charity donation, £9.99 Now TV, £3 Netflix. We also have a window cleaner £17 for my half, every second month. I also pay £90 per month to the letting agent that manages my flat.
Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
I did my undergraduate degree in Scotland and the fees were covered by the Scottish government and my dad covered my rent. I had a small loan and I had a part time job for two years to cover my other expenses. I did a master’s degree in a European country pre-Brexit where the tuition fee was just £1,500 – my dad generously paid this. I covered my accommodation, living costs and fieldwork expenses with my savings.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?
I don’t remember money specific conversations but I always knew the importance of saving over spending, not frittering money away and doing something yourself rather than paying someone else to do it for you. Culturally speaking, Scottish Presbyterian attitudes to work were definitely instilled in my siblings and I from a young age. My siblings and I were fortunate to be able to have sports and music hobbies and we’d go on a UK holiday once a year. One of my parents couldn’t work for several years due to poor health and I appreciate now that must have been tough.
If you have, when did you move out of your parents/guardians house?
I moved out at 17 when I went to university. I moved back in for six months when I was 28 and had returned from living overseas and was job hunting.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?
At 22 I moved overseas for work and paid my own way, lived alone and was financially responsible. That said, my parents have been extremely generous with financial gifts in the last 10 years, including covering my master’s degree fees. Now I share bills and mortgage with D so I suppose I am financially co-dependent.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I was 14 and started working in a beauty salon on Saturdays and I earned £2 an hour. My older siblings all got jobs when they were about 13 or 14 and I followed suit as I felt like it was expected of me.
Do you worry about money now?
A month ago I would have said not really, but since my company’s restructuring announcement, I am worried about job security. Although I know I am very fortunate in many ways, as we have no dependents, D has a comfortable salary (about £70k), we have savings and no debts beyond our mortgage.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?
Yes, I’ve received about £90k from parents which is money they inherited. I am fully aware of the step up in life this has given me. Two-thirds of this money was used a deposit for buying my first flat, which I have since paid off the mortgage for and let out via an agency since I moved into D’s house. Renting out my flat means I earn, after tax, about £3k each year. Despite the extra income, I really dislike being a landlord (for several reasons) and will likely try to sell later in the year.
Day One
6 a.m. — D wakes me up with a cup of tea. D’s parents’ dogs are staying with us while they’re away so we are up early to take them for a walk before work.
6:30 a.m. — We head to a nearby trail and it’s a bright and beautiful day for a walk, if cold. We don’t see another soul.
7:20 a.m. — Back home and breakfasts had by all (meat and biscuits for the doggos, overnight oats and coffee for D and I). I catch up on the latest Money Diary and read the Guardian online. I do some tidying and laundry before logging onto my computer as I am WFH today.
9 a.m. — D comes into my office to ask if I knew that we were having our new bathroom furniture delivered today? We’re having our bathroom renovated next week and no, I didn’t know this was being delivered today.
10:20 a.m. — Break for a cup of tea and a banana. Lots of deadlines to meet today. Everyone at work is understandably stressed due to the news about forthcoming restructure, myself included. This stress manifests in getting in frustrated with each other for things that wouldn’t normally bother them. I’ve had a couple of calls this morning from colleagues where I feel that I am caught in the middle of internal politics.
10:35 a.m. — New bathroom furniture delivered – D deals with the delivery people.
11 a.m. — Call with my direct report who is wonderfully positive then crack on with some paperwork
12:50 p.m. — D knocks on my office door for a lunch break. I make a poor excuse for an omelette for us to share with a potato waffle each, while D hangs out washing on the line. I have 15 minutes reading my book in the garden before back to work. I grab a handful of pretzels and a cup of tea for the afternoon.
5:05 p.m. — Finish work for the day and feel emotionally drained after a tougher than normal working week. Head up to D’s office and pester him to finish.
6 p.m. — Evening walk for the dogs in the countryside, again we don’t see another soul.
7 p.m. — Back home I change to go out to the gym for a lacklustre upper body session.
8:15 p.m. — Get back home and D’s made baked potatoes and salad for tea. We open a bag of Smash! — chocolate covered corn — that D brought back from Norway — incredibly addictive — while watching TV. My eating habits have been poorer than usual this week due to work stress.
10:15 p.m. — Bedtime. I read a few pages of my book (A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike) before falling asleep.
Total: £0
Day Two
6:15 a.m. — Wake up and I make the morning tea (for me) and coffee (for D) and bring them back to bed.
7 a.m. — Downstairs for more overnight oats and coffee, then head out to take the dogs for a walk in woods behind our house. It’s another bright but cold day and I double-layer my down jackets.
8:30 a.m. — Home again, dogs fed, and I’m trying to build myself up to go out for a run. Another coffee and a banana while I faff around not wanting to go out.
9:45 a.m. — I finally get out of the door — this is due to be a long run, but I don’t want to have too many expectations or worry too much about my pacing. My long run last weekend was disastrous and I had to call D to collect me.
11:08 a.m. — I stop briefly at a bakery in a village I run through to buy some scones (I’ve had cravings for scones recently). They’re £1.50 and I only have a card and the minimum charge is £2. On the counter at the bakery they’re selling Twixes past their ‘best before’ dates for 50p. I buy one so I can use my card to pay, £2. Squash everything into my running vest and set off again, soon passing a field of little lambs with their mums — so cute.
12:40 p.m. — I get home and I’ve run 30km. I’m so lucky to live where I do — today I was treated to spectacular views of the mountainside while running along quiet single-track roads between fields. After a difficult week at work, this run was just what I needed and my mood is so much improved from yesterday.
1 p.m. — Shower finished and D has put some jalapeno veggie burgers in the airfryer. We eat them in the garden to make the most of the good weather. We then have our scones with raspberry jam with some tea and coffee.
2 p.m. — Second walk of the day for the dogs and we hear a woodpecker.
3:30 p.m. — We head home making a stop on the way back — D has to pick up some sandpaper while I pop into Lidl to buy apples, kiwis, satsumas, laundry detergent, dishwasher salt, dishwasher tablets and toothbrush heads. The cleaning products are expensive, £33.
4:30 p.m. — More tea and an apple, then I get around to cleaning out the fridge which has been on my to do list for ages.
6 p.m. — D heads out for his long run, while I start making a Meera Sodha recipe (carrot falafel) and some hummus. I watch some Stacy Dooley documentaries on iPlayer while cooking.
8:30 p.m. — D returns home and we eat before watching an episode of Sweetpea on NowTV.
10:30 p.m. — Shattered I head to bed and barely manage a few pages of my book.
Total: £35
Day Three
6:30 a.m. — Wake up and nervously move my legs to assess how stiff they are after yesterday’s run — not so bad! D is on tea and coffee duty. I do my morning check of the Happy Doggo Instagram account to see how those Thai dogs are doing today.
8 a.m. — D needs to drop his parents’ dogs off at a kennel today – we can’t keep them for longer as next week we’re taking my parents’ dogs while they’re away. Even for dog obsessives like us, four dogs would be a bit too much to handle. D heads off for the four-hour round trip, while I do some laundry and clear out our bathroom ahead of next week’s bathroom renovation.
11 a.m. — I find the rest of the Smash! that I told D to hide as I didn’t trust myself around them. I can’t resist and quite quickly feel sick from eating too many.
1 p.m. — D’s home and it’s baked potatoes for lunch. I tell him off for not hiding the Smash! from me as he knows I have no self-control around them.
2 p.m. — We decide to head out on our MTBs. We drive to some trails in the Cairngorms but when we arrive we realise that D has a puncture AND we’ve forgotten all tools. D insists I still go out and he will go for a walk instead. I head off without a planned route — I only see pheasants, sheep and buzzards until I meet D back at the car.
5 p.m. — On the way home, D suggests we stop in at one of our favourite country pubs. He has a Guiness Zero and I have a non-alcoholic Kopparberg. We share a bag of crisps and D kindly pays. We discuss the bathroom renovation and agree that we probably should strip the wallpaper… which gives us one evening to do it!
5:30 p.m. — Home. D starts on the wallpaper and I make some soup for lunch for the next couple of days before joining him.
9:30 p.m. — With a short break to eat the leftover falafels and hummus, we’ve stripped 90% of the wallpaper — though there are some bits we can’t reach until the existing shower is removed. I prepare my things for work in the morning and head to bed to read for a short while.
10:30 p.m. — D comes to bed and sheepishly confesses that he found the rest of the Smash!.
Total: £0
Day Four
5:45 a.m. — Early wakeup for me as I am in the office today and need to wash my hair first. Our bathroom fitting starts today so this will be my last shower at home for a few days at least — we will use showers at our gym until we have a fully functioning shower again.
7:30 a.m. — Bus to work. I tend to buy a multipack of five tickets which works out cheaper than buying individually. I use one of these so I don’t need to pay anything today.
8:30 a.m. — Arrive at my desk and eat the overnight oats I have brought from home, before going into a team meeting. I’m annoyed at myself for forgetting to bring my travel mug so head to café to buy a tea, £2.75.
9:30 a.m. — I attend a professional development training session. During the break I go to the café to buy a coffee, £2.75. I learn from other colleagues in different teams some worrying news about the proposed redundancies. I email my manager to ask what’s going on.
1 p.m. — Lunch time and I have the soup I brought from home. I head to the supermarket to pick up a few things: cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, bananas, peppers, dark chocolate, and finally chocolate biscuits to offer the bathroom fitters. I pay using the joint account, £9.17 for my half. There are good deals on Easter eggs so I buy one for D and a can of Irn Bru for myself, £3.24.
1:45 p.m. — More meetings in the afternoon, including a catch up with my line manager who assures me that the information that I heard this morning about the restructure is incorrect.
5 p.m. — Bus home.
6 p.m. — Arrive home. The bathroom fitters have made great progress and it’s a quick change of clothes before D and I head out to running club.
7:30 p.m. — It’s been a tough but fun speedwork session and D and I use the showers in the gym (we are members so no cost to us).
8 p.m. — We get home and make a veggie chilli. I put on the latest episode of White Lotus to watch while we are eating — Season 3 is poor compared to the previous two.
9:30 p.m. — Bed!
Total: £17.91
Day Five
6 a.m. — Wake up for another day in the office.
7:15 a.m. — While I am getting ready D goes to the shop for eggs, bread and yoghurt and I get a notification from our joint account, £2.67 for my half.
8 a.m. — Bus to work I buy a single ticket as I will get a lift home with D this evening, £3.20.
9 a.m. — Traffic delays mean I am later than normal to work. Sooo many emails have come in overnight and I am straight onto a call with a colleague overseas.
12 p.m. — At lunchtime, I walk to Boots to drop off used contact lens cases at their Terracycle recycling point. On the way out I get distracted by suncream (I have a bit of an obsession with suncream) and succumb to the lures of a new facial SPF I haven’t tried before, £19.33.
5:15 p.m. — Leave work slightly later than normal as I walk to meet D. I feel frazzled from work — everything is urgent right now and the strain everyone is under is obvious. D and I have an appointment with our wedding celebrant to talk about our ceremony, vows and the paperwork we need to do.
7 p.m. — Finish our meeting with our wedding celebrant who is just lovely. We make our way home going via the library for me to pick up a book that’s waiting for me (There Are Rivers In The Sky).
7:30 p.m. — Home and I am greeted by my parents’ two dogs who were dropped off this afternoon while I was in the office — such a good welcome to come home to. Leftover veggie chilli and brown rice for tea.
8 p.m. — The rest of the evening with the four of us sitting in front of the fire. I catch up on some paperwork I need to do for the committee of my running club.
9:30 p.m. — Up to bed and read more of my book.
Total: £25.20
Day Six
6:45 a.m. — Awake, and D has already left for his day in the office.
7:30 a.m. — Take the dogs for a first walk of the day around the field and woods behind our house.
8:30 a.m. — Sit down at my computer, with a big cup of coffee.
1:30 p.m. — Stop for lunch and then take the dogs for a walk at a nearby park. Offer the bathroom fitters a cup of tea and a biscuit? They decline — they don’t want a break!
2:30 p.m. — I remember that I am really running low on contact lenses. I find a discount code online and order. I also go through the EasyFundraising website, meaning a donation is made by the contact lens website to my favourite charity. This supply of lenses will last me about nine months, £284.89.
5 p.m. — Finish work, feed the dogs and then head out for an easy run (7km). Get home, say hi to D who’s returned from work, and then head to the gym.
7 p.m. — Strength and conditioning session with my PT. I’ve been working with my PT since last summer as I wanted to get in better shape for my wedding. I’m really enjoying the sessions and my confidence in using weights has improved so much.
8:20 p.m. — Showered and head home from the gym with D who’s also been there using the treadmill. D somehow found enough ingredients to magic up a pasta and we eat that.
8:45 p.m. — We set about tackling the final 10% of the wallpaper stripping in the bathroom.
10 p.m. — Bed.
Total: £284.89
Day Seven
6:30 a.m. — The best wake-up – a cup of tea and a happy dog!
6:45 a.m. — Head out with D and the dogs to a local trail.
8 a.m. — I walk to the supermarket to grab some things before work. Bananas, apples, courgettes, a big bag of coffee beans, tempeh, cottage cheese, sweet potatoes and eggs, £13.33 for my half.
12:50 p.m. — Stop for lunch — baked sweet potato and cottage cheese for me. Then I take the dogs to the park for a run around. I subscribe to my local newspaper online for a month, £3.49.
5 p.m. — Bathroom fitters have gone and I have a look at how things are going — getting excited about having a shiny new bathroom! Head out with D on third dog walk of the day just behind our house.
6 p.m. — I go off to do an interval training run (8km) and then head to the gym afterwards for a shower.
7:30 p.m. — D is out with friends for his own interval training (they’re too fast for me to join!) and I make a frittata and salad for tea.
9 p.m. — D home, we watch some TV in front of the fire before heading to bed.
Total: £16.82
The Breakdown
Conclusion
“This was an exceptional week due to the contact lens expense. Other than that, this was a relatively typical week. Most of my weekly spending goes on buying supermarket food and I don’t often go to restaurants or have takeaways. I probably need to transfer some of my money into ISAs and out of my savings and current accounts to take more advantage of the benefits those can offer.”
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