SeriesHow I Spend My Money
This week, our reader is trying to balance enjoying life with planning for the future and balancing the books.
WELCOME TO HOW I Spend My Money, a series on The Journal that looks at how people in Ireland really handle their finances.
Are you a spender, a saver or a splurger? We’re asking readers to keep a record of how much they earn, what they save if anything, and what they’re spending their money on over the course of one week. If you’re interested, send a mail to money@thejournal.ie. We would love to hear from you.
Each money diary is submitted by readers just like you. When reading and commenting, bear in mind that their situation will not be relatable for everyone, it is simply an account of a week in their shoes, so let’s be kind.
Last time around, we heard from a secondary school teacher on €68K living in the east of the country. This week, a technical program manager on €85K living in Dublin.
I live in Dublin with my partner in a one-bed apartment. We’re currently renting while saving for a house and a family. We would love to buy in Dublin, but right now, it just seems way too overpriced for what you get compared to other countries. I’m from Munster and my partner is Mexican so we sometimes wonder about moving out of Dublin or even out of Ireland. I’d love to have kids, but I feel we need a more stable foundation first.
We both have good jobs so we’ve decided to enjoy our lives while we decide what we want to do next. I put €1,650 into a savings account each month, but occasionally I dip into it for specific occasions like holidays. Right now I’m trying to find the balance between saving money and living a nice life.
Occupation: Technical program manager
Age: 32
Location: Dublin
Salary: €85,000
Monthly pay (net): €4,500
Monthly expenses
Rent: €1,200 – this is my half of the rent that I split evenly with my partner
Transport: €75 for a full tank of petrol once a month
Parking: €75
Household bills: €120
Phone bill: €20
Health insurance: €0 – paid for by work
Groceries: €500
Subscriptions: €20 – Netflix and Spotify (subsidised by my old job)
Pension: €356
Gym: €99
***
Monday
8.00am: I wake up and shower. I’m feeling very tired this morning because we drove back to Dublin from Munster late last night. That also means that we have no food in the house. I decide to run to Tesco to grab some food for breakfast. I get a banana, some milk and a pack of protein bars. (€6.75)
9.00am: I eat my breakfast and cycle to work. It’s only a 10-minute commute door-to-door and it’s free, so I can’t really complain. We also have nice coffee for free in the office so that’s my first port of call when I get there.
12.00am: It’s time for lunch. I already know this is one of my biggest expenses each week. I have the option to work from home most days but since the office is so close, I prefer to go there. That means I spend a lot of money on lunches. Today I go to Tang with my colleagues. It’s one of the few places you can get a healthy lunch that fills you for less than €10. I get a lamb wrap which is delicious. (€9.50)
3.00pm: I don’t have too many meetings today, so it’s a good chance to catch up on a lot of work. A few of my colleagues from other European offices are in Dublin for the week too, so the office is busier than usual. I get another coffee with the team.
5.15pm: It’s not that busy so I can leave the office pretty early. I cycle home and start cleaning the house and doing the laundry before my partner gets home.
6.00pm: It’s time to do the weekly shop. Dunnes, our closest supermarket, is a five-minute walk away so it’s an easy trip each week. We get enough food for the week which comes to €176. Split evenly it costs €88 each, which is not too bad.
7.00pm: After we’ve put the groceries away, I cycle to a gym 10 minutes away. We have a gym in our apartment complex that is free. It’s a great amenity, but the machines are somewhat limited and I prefer to get out of the house. I pay €99 a month for the bigger gym which seems crazy when I have the free option, but this one also has free classes and a sauna. Tonight I do a workout and use the sauna.
9.30pm: I get home and make some dinner and watch some TV with my partner.
11.30pm: I’m still hungry, so I have a bowl of cereal before bed.
Today’s total: €104.13
Tuesday
8.15am: I’m tired again and this time I sleep through my alarm. I get up, shower and make a chicken and egg bagel for breakfast.
9.15am: I arrive a little bit late to work and with a full day of meetings ahead, I skip the coffee and go straight to a phone booth.
11.00am: I take a quick break to grab a coffee and a free snack from our snack bar in the office. We don’t have as many benefits as other tech companies where I work, but there are some free food options like bread, snacks and fruit which is nice.
12.00am: I go back to the same lunch spot as yesterday and get the same meal. (€9.50)
6.20pm: Apart from a quick coffee break, I’m in a phone booth for most of the day and get back home close to 6.30pm. I grab a banana with the intention of heading straight to the gym.
7.00pm: I’m actually still hungry, so I make food and lie on the couch scrolling on my phone for too long.
8.00pm: I get to the gym and have a good workout, but skip the sauna this time.
9.30pm: I’m back home to watch the finale of The Traitors with the rest of Ireland.
Today’s total: €9.50
Wednesday
7.45am: I got up and made some yoghurt with fruit, granola and protein powder for breakfast.
9.00am: I cycle to the office again and go straight for a coffee.
12.30pm: I go with my colleagues to Sprout for a salad for lunch. I’m feeling hungry, so I add extra chicken which is a huge mistake if you’re trying to save money. I end up paying €15.59 for a wrap. We walk back to the office and eat together.
6.00pm: Since a lot of people are over from other offices, we decide to have some social drinks together after work. We go to a pub nearby and get some pints and pizza while catching up and spending a bit too much time complaining about the company we work for. It’s nice to spend some quality time with people I usually only see on video calls, though. I have two pints of Guinness and a pizza and then cycle home. The company covers the bill so it’s free for me.
9.30pm: I get back home early enough and spend some time playing video games with my partner before heading to bed.
Today’s total: €15.59
Thursday
8.00am: Like most mornings, I get up, shower, have a chicken bagel and cycle to work.
9.00am: Everyone is gathered around the coffee machine, so I stay there for a while catching up with everyone again.
10.00am: It’s a busy morning preparing for other meetings that I have today and tomorrow. A lot of my job is supporting other people with their work on various programs. I wouldn’t describe it as the toughest job I’ve ever had, but it can be quite difficult to manage my time between a lot of different teams. Going for drinks on a Wednesday has also tricked my brain into thinking today is Friday.
12.00pm: On Thursdays we get a subsidised lunch. I guess it used to cover the whole cost of the lunch, but not anymore. It’s €12 off though, which is still good. I get a salad from Carved for €13.95, but I only pay €1.95 for it.
4.30pm: I badly need to get a haircut, so I leave the office early and cycle to a place near my apartment. I’m lucky because the best barber is here and there’s no queue. It costs €24 and I decide to leave a €3 tip. I hate tipping culture in general, but I feel like barbers deserve it. It can be a physically demanding job that doesn’t pay the skilled ones well enough (despite how expensive it is now). (€27)
5.30pm: I work a little bit more from home and make some pasta and chicken for dinner.
6.30pm: I’m feeling a bit tired, but I’m trying to stay fit, so I decide to go to the gym in our apartment block. I just do a 5km run on the treadmill. I broke my toe over the summer so I’m slowly trying to build back up my speed.
8.00pm: After the gym, I’m just scrolling on my phone when I see a social Hyrox class in October. I love these types of fitness classes and I’m always trying to be more sociable, so I buy a ticket. (€20 including fees)
9.00pm: I’m still hungry and the food from the weekly shop is dwindling, so I head out to Tesco to get some cereal and milk. This will always be my weakness. (€7.85)
Today’s total: €56.80
Friday
7.30am: I have to catch up on some things in work, so I get up early and start to work from home.
9.00am: I make a bagel for breakfast with some coffee.
11.00am: Even though I had good intentions, I’m struggling to focus today. I stop early to have some soup for lunch.
12.30pm: I stop work again for a coffee break. I see we’ve got the heating bill, so I pay it from our joint account. We never turn on the heating in our apartment because it’s well insulated but somehow our heating bill is still quite expensive. We’re mostly paying for hot water and a standing charge for the privilege of having an account with the company. It’s crazy to me. That’s €136.80 split evenly for two months – €68.40 each.
2.00pm: I’m still hungry, so I go back to Tesco and grab some protein bars. (€4)
5.00pm: I finish work and head to the gym in our apartment for an hour.
6.00pm: A friend calls over to our apartment and we spend the evening chatting.
8.30pm: After they leave, we decide to order a takeaway. We get some chicken, rice and hummus from a Lebanese restaurant (Shaku Maku). The food is so good. Somehow I crave this more than spice bags. (€21.22 each)
11.00pm: Afterwards we watch some Netflix and play some video games before heading to bed
Today’s total: €93.62
Saturday
10.00am: I slept in today and stayed in bed until 11am. I guess this luxury is a benefit of not having a family yet, but I would happily trade it in for some kids.
11.00am: I get up and have some yoghurt and a coffee for breakfast
1.00pm: I cycle into town to meet a friend. We have a few weddings coming up so we need to do some suit shopping. I think if you put rent and holidays aside, weddings are easily the biggest expense for someone my age now. Me and my partner have decided that we’d prefer to prioritise buying a house, starting a family or owning our own business over planning a wedding, so I’m thankful right now I’m just attending and not organising.
2.00pm: I like some of the suits I’ve tried on but at €450, I feel I have to be sure. I decide to sleep on it and don’t buy one today. My friend wants to grab lunch, but I’ve just eaten, so I go with him and just get a bottle of water. (€2.75)
3.00pm: We get a coffee to go and walk around St Stephen’s Green. I got an iced coffee with a syrup which cost €6. It was nice, but it’s hard to justify the price.
4.00pm: As we’re heading home, we stop into a small art gallery. There’s not too much on display right now, but it’s free, so it’s nice to walk around. After this I cycle home and make some lunch.
5.00pm: I go for a quick run at the gym.
6.00pm: We’re heading to an event that a friend is hosting in his house. I pick up some alcohol in Tesco to bring with us. (€20)
7.00pm: We decide to take the Luas and the bus to the event instead of a taxi. It’s obviously much cheaper to do this, but I have to top up my Leap card first. (€10)
8.00pm: We have a really nice evening listening to some live music in an old living room. There are three different singers. The event is free, but you can choose to donate to support the acts. I feel like we need more of this in Ireland. I donate €30.
1.00am: We leave the house and get a taxi back across the city. It costs €15 each.
Today’s total: €83.75
Sunday
10.00am: I woke up at 10am, but stayed in bed for a while with my partner. We chat a lot about the music from the night before, which artists we liked the most and the people that we met. My partner gets up to go and meet a friend for breakfast, so I stay in bed a bit longer listening to a podcast.
12.00am: I still need food, so I go to Tesco (again) and buy some yoghurt, milk and rashers (€13.89). I go back home and make eggs and rashers for breakfast. I also eat the yoghurt I just bought and have a coffee.
2.00pm: I have a bit of life admin to do, so I clean the house and do some laundry. One big task on my to-do list is to switch my bank. My current bank emailed me last week telling me that they were going to start charging me a fee every month. Up until now, I had been on the graduate account somehow. The problem is that they also offer a very low interest rate on savings. This is pushing me to move all of my money to either Revolut or Monzo. My partner recently moved his money and now gets paid interest every day rather than waiting a year to get a tiny percentage from one of the big banks. I did some research and decided I’ll visit a branch to close my account tomorrow and move my savings.
3.00pm: We’re going to Mexico for two weeks in January to visit my partner’s family so it’s time to book some flights. The flights cost €679.55, which is cheaper than the last time I went. It’s a lot of money when we’re saving, but at least we don’t have to pay for accommodation over there. I had dipped into my savings to take out money for this last week. I try not to do this too often, but I also dipped in for my brother’s wedding earlier in the year. I’m happy with my decision because when I think about all the Mexican food I’ll be eating, it feels worth it!
4.00pm: I spend an hour reading a book that I got as a gift two weeks ago.
6.00pm: I go back to the gym and use the sauna.
8.30pm: We still have no food, so I stop into Aldi on the way back from the gym and pick up a steak and some other items to get me through breakfast tomorrow. (€15)
9.00pm: I make dinner and finish off writing this diary from the couch. It’s been a useful experiment for me. It’s good to track these things and reflect on the places you might want to cut back vs where you feel it’s worth spending extra.
11.00pm: I head to bed and get ready to do it all again next week.
Today’s total: €708.44
Weekly subtotal: €1,071.83
***
What I learned –
- I learned that I visit the local Tesco too often (€52.50 on top of the weekly shop and €15 in Aldi). It opened earlier this year and is a whole one-minute walk from my house. Before it opened, I was more inclined to wait for the bigger shop. I should try to cut back on this.
- I also spend a lot on eating out. This week I spent €66.51 on food with €36.50 of that just being on lunch in the office. If I prepared my lunches, I could easily save more than €1,000 per year.
- I also have some expenses that might seem crazy to other people, like the €99 fee for the gym or the €75 fee for parking. This is where I could save more money by making lifestyle changes like selling my car or making better use of the amenities I already pay for. These are all things I would consider if I got serious about saving.
- At the end of the day, though, everything pales next to the big pile of cash I light on fire every month for rent. We do have enough savings in place that we could buy a house now if we wanted. However, I’ve calculated in the past that we would ultimately save money by continuing to pay rent and saving as long as we can to decrease the total amount we need to take out on a mortgage. It’s counterintuitive, but I’m hoping prices eventually stabilise long enough for it to be worth it. Right now, it feels like a lose-lose situation for people my age who want to build a life in Dublin, so in the end, I’ve just decided to make the most of it and see what happens.