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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 26-year-old who has lived in Durham since I moved for uni. Five months ago I made a big career change from being a geotechnical engineer to an associate project manager in utilities (I actually wrote a Money Diary back in early 2020). The new job is a little less lively, a fair commute and I miss being outdoors so much, but the salary increase and career progression opportunities do make up for it. Staying in the construction sector utilises the knowledge I’ve picked up on site, and I’m still ploughing on in a male-dominated area.
I bought my little house two years ago and am busy rebuilding my savings with a focus on FIRE (or at least FI). I’m a naturally frugal person but still hold the view that while money isn’t everything, it does give you the luxury of choice and in doing so makes it easier to be happy.”
Occupation: Associate project manager
Industry: Utilities
Age: 26
Location: Durham
Salary: £45,500, plus annual bonus and company car.
Paycheque amount: Varies depending on commuting overtime but usually around £2,800 after the cost of my hire car is taken off my salary. I also sacrifice £60 to SIP.
Number of housemates: One: my lovely lodger, K.
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: £376 mortgage. It used to be higher but after overpaying by the maximum amount the last two years, the bank reassessed my payment and reduced it. I don’t mind as I can get a better return on my money elsewhere, since I was lucky enough to lock in 1.98% just before interest rates skyrocketed. I know my mortgage looks outrageous to many people but every region has its perks, and low house prices are one of the northeast’s.
Loan payments: None.
Pension? Yes, I’ve contributed the maximum matched percentage ever since I started working and have transferred my previous pensions into my current one, totalling just under £18,000. I now pay 6% while my employer pays 12%. I’ve never had such generous employer contributions and plan to make the most of it.
Savings? £23,000 in a high interest savings account, £20,000 stocks, £11,600 S&S LISA (I used my H2B when buying my house so my LISA is in it for the long haul until I retire) and £5,000 in a one-year fixed term deposit at 5.1%.
Utilities: £17.69 water, £76 council tax, £10 broadband, £35-70 gas and electric (all my half).
All other monthly payments: £1.95 35GB SIM only. Subscriptions: £5.99 Spotify, £0.99 iCloud, £30 gym membership. I do some annually as they cost less, like my £59.88/year Freetrade basic account and £54.99/year Strava Premium.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?
When I was younger I never realised how hard my mum worked for the money to put me through private education. As a single mother who left school at 16, at one point she held down five jobs/side hustles including working at a care home, cleaning houses, childminding, selling baked goods at car boot sales and doing people’s ironing in the evening when I went to bed. I knew money was something to be worked for. She was entirely self-taught around finances and once I was older she started to educate me on things like emergency funds, passive income and the stock market.
If you have, when did you move out of your parents’/guardians’ house?
I moved out for uni at 18, coming back for holidays. I got a full-time job and was self-sufficient straight after graduation at 21, and never moved back.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?
I’ve been financially responsible for myself (in that I can cover any aspect of my finances independently if I need to) since I was 21. However, my mum is aware that while an inheritance is extremely helpful, passing on money now at an earlier stage in my life allows me to focus on saving more, utilising compound interest, and paying my mortgage off early. She sends me £100 a month and often covers proportions of large bills such as when I needed a new boiler and roof. But she’s often said she would never do that if she knew I wasn’t saving the money, and if it’s around wintertime it usually ends up being my main birthday/Christmas present (which I don’t mind).
What was your first job and why did you get it?
Babysitting for a neighbour because they asked me. I loved it but Mum always made it very clear my focus should be on getting good grades, not earning money. She paid me £5 a week to clean the bathroom instead.
Do you worry about money now?
No. I’m very aware of it at all times and record everything I spend to the penny, but not out of worry. Even if I were to lose my job, I have a large emergency fund and income from my spare room.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?
I’ve never received any inheritance. I have a lovely lodger, K, who pays £130 p/w for the spare double ensuite, which is very reasonably priced for the area (similar rooms in the area are at least £190). It also means I’m not paying the single tax as we split all the bills. My mum gifted me £40,000 when buying my house, which was very generous of her. I could have afforded the house on my own but the larger deposit meant I could access a lower interest rate on my mortgage and not have to sell so much of my stock portfolio.
5:35 a.m. — Alarm goes off. I’m in the office today but I usually go to the gym first. Microwave my lunch to put in my thermos and pack my little tub of yoghurt, stewed apple and homemade granola.
7 a.m. — Class over, quick shower, wash hair and then head to Caffè Nero with my reusable cup to pick up my free weekly coffee on Octoplus for my hour and a half commute.
8:50 a.m. — Arrive at work, grab a hot desk and go around unloading some pot plants my boss said I could buy for the office rooms before my first meeting at 9:30 a.m.
12:30 p.m. — I head outside to walk to the graveyard where I like to eat my lunch if the weather’s nice enough. I stop by the church charity shop for 20 minutes’ browsing and end up buying a vintage gold mesh clutch. It says “new” on the charity shop tag but the label inside says “Made in the USA” so I think not. I don’t need it per se but it’s gorgeous and I know when I do end up needing one for an event, I won’t find such a nice one so cheaply. A pre-emptive purchase if you will, £3.
12:50 p.m. — Sadly it’s now raining and I can’t eat outside so I walk back to have lunch. I spend my time googling the brand and find the same clutch in worse condition from the 1940s/50s for $95 on Poshmark!
4:25 p.m. — Leave work after my last meeting, grabbing two packets of fancy biscuits from the meeting room on the way out. With that and the three bananas in my bag, I do quite like this office!
5:45 p.m. — Get home and show off my charity shop purchase to my lodger, K. She was going to join me at running training for the first time tonight, but feels under the weather. I’m injured with glute pain that multiple physios can’t figure out the cause of, but I plan to go for the first time in over a month for the social aspect and just take it easy. I’m out of meal-prepped work lunches so I speed-cook my typical massive (we’re talking 20 portions) pot of vegetable, bean and tofu ragù.
6:45 p.m. — I open the window to check the temperature, only to see it’s absolutely chucking it down. All enthusiasm flees my body. I munch on some salt and vinegar rice crackers, cottage cheese, walnuts and a carrot while having an internal debate on going to the gym instead, but decide I’ll just meet my 10,000 steps by going on a walk if the rain eases off.
8:15 p.m. — Last 3,000 steps done. I have homemade soup in the fridge but don’t feel like eating it, so decide to stew some apples I got free from a local lady last week (I asked on my local Facebook group and she replied!). Stew the apples with cinnamon, sugar, raisins and walnuts while K makes some flapjacks.
8:40 p.m. — Have the apples with some Greek yoghurt, granola, dates and maple syrup. Follow it with the meeting room biscuits.
9 p.m. — K’s burned the flapjacks beyond all belief. We are now heavily familiar with what burned pecan, oats and maple syrup smells like. The kitchen and dining room windows stay wide open overnight.
10 p.m. — Bedtime.
Total: £3
5:33 a.m. — Wake up to pouring rain again. Think I came straight out of REM. I really, really don’t want to get out of bed and give myself a 10 minute snooze.
5:45 a.m. — Drag myself out of bed, heat my lunch and grab my work backpack and gym bag I packed last night.
7:30 a.m. — Post-gym I get a Greggs coffee using O2 Priority. Until recently I got two free coffees a week from them, then they decided to “mix it up” (aka make it worse) and change it to one £1 coffee a month. Get it for the road, £1.
9:20 a.m. — Arrive late. Go straight into back-to-back meetings, grabbing a coffee as I go.
11 a.m. — Finally out of the meetings with our contractor. Head upstairs and coo over my coworker’s 4-month-old dachshund she’s brought in. Despite my best efforts she’s far too wriggly to stay on my lap long.
12:20 p.m. — Don my waterproof and walk to Sainsbury’s as I need more cinnamon for the rest of the apples I’ll be stewing. Also get oat milk as it’s on offer. I pay using a Sainsbury’s gift card I got from a cashback website. I usually take my cashback as a supermarket gift card as they add 2% to the total.
1 p.m. — Into my afternoon meetings with sweets from the jar, biscuits and a cup of tea.
3:45 p.m. — All done and I get on the road home.
5:25 p.m. — Finally made it back after part of the motorway was shut due to flooding. Decaf coffee, rice cakes and cottage cheese. A quick rest and a chat with K, who has tried microwaving a bowl of lemons in water to try to abate the burned smell still hanging in the air. A valiant but sadly futile effort as now it just smells like burned pecans mixed with lemon.
6:25 p.m. — Head to my club’s strength and conditioning session at the gym. I love any opportunity to chat with my best friend, N, who leads the session, though we never get the chance to talk too much at the gym as he’s too busy making sure everyone knows what they’re doing.
8:20 p.m. — Back from S&C. Take the bin out for collection tomorrow, wiping up the grim bin juice. A quick shower followed by homemade sweet potato and chickpea soup with seeds and grated cheese on top, plus a slice of bread and butter. I mix three big spoonfuls of Skyr 0% into the soup for more creaminess and extra protein. Dessert is Greek yoghurt with microwaved frozen peaches and banana plus some biscuits from work.
10:30 p.m. — Bedtime.
Total: £1
5:35 a.m. — Wake up and head downstairs to make lunch. Impressed that it still manages to smell of burned flapjack!
6:05 a.m. — Gym class. I love that all the classes are included in my membership and that due to it being a predominantly student gym, the early-morning classes are usually only a few people. Sometimes I even get a 1:1 session!
7 a.m. — Shower then head to Caffè Nero for coffee with my voucher that needs using. They’re valid for 18 months but I started saving them to use near expiry when inflation started rocketing as I figured I was getting better value out of the £4.65.
7:30 a.m. — On the road but remember I need to fill up my car. Make a short diversion to a garage with more reasonable prices before getting on the motorway. I will expense this through work as the car is hired through them until my company car arrives.
9:30 a.m. — Chase down our contractor’s project director who hasn’t replied to my emails and manage to get the answer I need. Reward with a cup of tea and a banana.
10 a.m. — A variety of meetings and ‘real work’. I’m still getting used to meetings getting in the way of tasks I actually need to complete — it’s a real change from working on site!
12 p.m. — Head out into the fresh sunshine for lunch at the graveyard. Stop by the charity shop but nothing catches my eye. The elderly lady volunteering sees me and tells me a “young person” has just dropped off some clothes and she isn’t sure if one item is a shirt or a dress so asks if I know. It turns out to be a dress, although not one for bending over in! I then sit on the bench eating my vegetable ragù and yoghurt, absorbing as much vitamin D as my bare ankles, hands and face will allow.
12:40 p.m. — Walk to Sainsbury’s for milk. I check my cashback apps on the off chance of a new deal and am delighted to see I can get a free salted caramel and ganache pot that usually costs £3.35.
4 p.m. — Back at work. My last meeting has biscuits and I have four.
5:20 p.m. — Arrive home, have a decaf coffee and chat to K about running training tonight. I’ve convinced her to run cross country for our club and she wants to join training for the first time tonight. It’s a race-type session designed to be used as a measure for progress, so not ideal for me to run it on my injury, but understandably she’s nervous to go alone so we head out together.
8 p.m. — Back home. I did my duty introducing K to everyone so she’d know people but my injury already hurts from the session so I know she’ll have to attend future ones without me. I’m in a bad mood from a sub-par run and have my soup in bed.
11:55 p.m. — In bed with a hot water bottle. My god, is it cold out there!
Total: £0
7:30 a.m. — Alarm goes off. Friday’s my rest day so no gym today. I stay in bed until 8 a.m., appreciating the cosiness.
8 a.m. — Grind some coffee beans with my hand grinder and make a coffee with my AeroPress. I head back to bed to enjoy it and browse on my phone. A notification pops up that £25.49 worth of dividends has come into my Freetrade account.
8:50 a.m. — Make a second coffee, put the laundry on and get online bang on 9 a.m. Glad I do as three minutes later I get a message from my line manager asking when I’m free for a meeting.
10 a.m. — Meeting with my line manager. He just has a few tasks for me and wants me to be a buddy for the new starter in a few weeks.
12:15 p.m. — Hang up my laundry and turn the dehumidifier on. It’s the handiest thing ever to avoid the eternal wet laundry display. I then head out for a walk into town.
12:40 p.m. — I go into Holland & Barrett for hemp seeds that my local zero waste shop doesn’t stock. I was only going to get one but it’s 3 for 2, so £5.98. I also head into Tesco to get some peanut butter cups that are free with cashback. I also get a pack of Lotus biscuits to take to my friend’s later, £1.20.
1:10 p.m. — Back and make a quick lunch of scrambled eggs with peas and feta on toast. I add egg whites for extra protein. Go on FB to find out that the cross country race on Sunday has been cancelled. Gutted as I live for XC season. Plod through some more work.
4:45 p.m. — Finish work and decide to go to the zero waste shop as I want to make more granola and need some ingredients for it. I fill up my jars with flaked almonds, raisins, dates, buckwheat, lentils, chickpeas, various spices including nutmeg, which I want to try in the stewed apple, and a big jar of locally roasted coffee beans, which makes up about 40% of the cost, £15.11.
6:30 p.m. — Make apple and yoghurt with granola and dates for dinner since I don’t feel like having my soup.
8 p.m. — I drive 10 minutes to my friend N’s and present him with the biscuits to go with our tea while we watch Arcane on Netflix. He’s seen it and I haven’t, and he wants me to watch it before they release the second season next month.
12 a.m. — Get back home after the evening flew by and head to bed.
Total: £22.29
8 a.m. — Get up, make coffee and go back to bed until 8:30 a.m. when I get up to go to parkrun and volunteer.
10:15 a.m. — Wow, that was a lot of runners today: 537 tokens handed out by yours truly! I am very aware of how many hands I’ve touched during flu season so touch nothing as I walk back to the sports centre to wash them.
10:45 a.m. — Get a latte from the sports centre. I wouldn’t normally get one here but I’m about to continue standing outside for a while, marshalling a race the uni students are holding. I thought it was £2.80 but after being charged £3.40 I’m told that’s because I didn’t bring a reusable cup. Considering I almost always have my reusable on me, it’s slightly annoying.
10:30 a.m. — Walk to meet N at the start. We’ll just marshal (and yap) in the same place while acting as first aiders. We’re by a fallen tree that you can either duck under or run around. I choose to marshal on top of the tree.
11:30 a.m. — Only a few women have run past, no idea where the rest are. N heads off to try and find where they’ve gone off course, while I stay waiting for the men to start. I direct a few of the lost women onwards once they make it to me, and then have a great time cheering the men on and telling them they can go under or around the tree I’m standing on. I get great entertainment from the ones that go under, with a few taller guys resorting to crawling underneath. I take some footage to send to the organisers later.
12:30 p.m. — Walk back along the route with N and some of the students who organised it. N and I then walk into town to Greggs. I want a sausage roll but they’ve run out of vegan ones so just a latte for me, £2.20. We have a lovely chat and then walk back in the sunshine.
2 p.m. — Back in the car I decide to go to Sainsbury’s for groceries, £10.85.
3 p.m. — Back home. Light the fire and have cottage cheese, rice cakes and a KIND protein bar. Then make a batch of homemade granola and stewed apple after K has finished baking her vegan apple cake in the kitchen. She says it’s all for me to apologise for the lingering burned smell and for the apples she’s been using. I refuse the whole thing as she doesn’t need to apologise and the apples were free anyway, but I’m not strong enough to not accept the offer of half.
7:30 p.m. — Dinner of the apples I stewed with yoghurt and granola. I’m in a self-pitying mood and glum that I have no recovery plan (since no one knows what’s wrong) so message my physio to ask if she can refer me for a private MRI since my other physio won’t refer me on the NHS. She says she’ll do it Monday. It’ll be £380 but I have the savings and if you can’t tell, not being able to run is really getting me down.
8 p.m. — K suggests we watch something on Netflix so we settle down on the sofa by the fire with her laptop to watch Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and The Heron. Her apple cake is so good we both have two slices.
10:30 p.m. — I head to bed.
Total: £16.45
8:30 a.m. — Wake up and scroll Instagram before tidying up downstairs and cleaning the kitchen. Make a coffee and head back to bed. K heads off on a run and I make up a little tub of my granola for her since apart from the local honey (which she’ll eat), it’s vegan.
10:30 a.m. — Still in bed. It’s Sunday and with XC cancelled, it’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to be right now. I message N to ask if he wants to come over this evening and lounge by the fire. He does and says he’ll bring his cat.
12:30 p.m. — Finally get out of bed. Sweep the front of the house of leaves, empty the ash and clean the fire and hearth.
1:30 p.m. — Walk 15 minutes to the gym. Do a warm-up, some strengthening exercises, some arms because I enjoy it, and the elliptical for an hour as it’s the closest thing I can get to running.
4:30 p.m. — Back home, quick shower and then make a big stack of protein pancakes topped with Greek yoghurt and frozen blueberries.
6:30 p.m. — Quick vacuum downstairs before a dinner of Marmite toast and stewed apple and yoghurt.
8:30 p.m. — N arrives but has sadly forgotten his cat. I make us tea, warm up some apple cake and we talk by the fire until 10:50 p.m.
11:30 p.m. — Bed. Slightly later than hoped but worth it for a lovely evening.
Total: £0
5:35 a.m. — Alarm goes off. A WFH day, so I can walk down to the gym.
6:05 a.m. — A fun bootcamp class with two others, taken by the gym owner who I have good craic with after three years. Showed them the race footage I had of the guys crawling under the tree while I stood on top, which gave them a laugh. Did some elliptical and stretching afterwards before walking home.
8 a.m. — Get inside and away from the light frost just as K is heading to work. The house feels lovely and warm after puffing up the hill. Hair wash, coffee and back to bed until 9 a.m.
9:30 a.m. — Chimney sweep arrives. Turns out his children go to my running club! He’s lovely and tells me where to stand so I can see the top of the brush coming out of my chimney since I’ve never had my chimney cleaned before and I’m curious. Forty-five minutes and he’s all done, £60.
12 p.m. — Weather is lovely and sunny so after sorting out traffic management issues all morning, I head out for a short walk to avoid my good weather FOMO.
12:20 p.m. — Make scrambled eggs, peas and feta on toast for lunch followed by an apple and walnuts.
3 p.m. — Peckish. I have two satsumas and some toast and jam.
4:45 p.m. — Done with work for the day. Still clear skies and sun so I decide to head out for a walk.
7:10 p.m. — I got a little distracted by how lovely the colours of the leaves are, went way too far and somehow ended up walking 11km. I’ve only just got back. It’s pitch black now and I’m freezing!
7:15 p.m. — I can’t be bothered cooking anything so pick up an Asian chicken noodle salad and tuna salad from the reduced section, £3.48.
7:30 p.m. — Light the fire, eat my salads, stewed apple and yoghurt, followed by more apple cake. Once K has finished her tutoring plans at the table, she joins me by the fire where we just chat.
9:30 p.m. — Bedtime.
Total: £63.48
“I think this is slightly on the low side for me this week. I’d already done my big food shop the day before, plus if I had this diary shifted back by three days, there would be a £380 bill for my MRI (not that it helped, sadly). Considering I record my daily spending normally, I’d say my average week is still probably no more than £120 though. Overall I’m happy with how I spend and although I do buy coffee too often, it brings me pleasure — especially when with a friend. I’m not really interested in non-exercise clothes and while it may be boring to some, most of my entertainment comes from being outdoors, running with friends or hanging out at each other’s houses, so I really don’t spend much on entertainment.”
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