Welcome to Money Diaries, where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking a cross-section of women how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period – and we're tracking every last penny.
This week we're with an HR manager who really doesn't love her job and wants to change course but isn't sure what to do next. She has taken a few weeks' holiday in the run-up to her fast-approaching wedding. She says that while she isn't sure about her career, she "has never been so sure of what I stand for and the people and things I love." She adds: "Full disclosure: I have anxiety and depression and have had food issues in the past."
Industry: Human resources in technology
Age: 30
Location: London
Salary: £65,000 + shares
Paycheque amount: £3,240
Number of housemates: 1 fiancé (M) and 2 fluffy cats
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: £1,340 mortgage combined (I pay half)
Loan payments: £1,991 credit card
Utilities: Netflix £7.99; Amazon Prime £6.60; Council tax £97; Home insurance £25; Cat insurance £72.29; Water £20; TV licence £12.07; House ground rent £65; Gas and electric £61.90; Wi-Fi £36.47 (I pay half of all these)
Transportation: £70
Phone bill: £18
Savings? £1,000
Other: Critical health insurance £44.68; Moneybox savings £40 (sometimes up to £100); Health insurance £31.42; Members club £54.16; Pension £218.33
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Day One
11am: Woke up at least two hours ago but it’s difficult getting out of bed. The weather is glorious but I numbingly scroll through my phone (emails, Instagram, WhatsApp…) and later open the bedroom door to invite the cats in for a snuggle – they always oblige. I get out of bed.
11.30am: Make a killa smoothie with my newly acquired Nutribullet. Loving this thing. Recipe: Fresh watermelon and cantaloupe mixed with some frozen strawberries and raspberries, passion fruit purée, homemade kefir yoghurt, homegrown mint, organic moringa powder, chia seeds and bee pollen. Giddy up!
1pm: M calls during his lunch break and I say the weather is too good not to be doing something (read: I want to get drunk). So we make a plan to do something after work but a chilled evening only, he asks.
3pm: I pass a Co-op and get a croissant and picnic supplies: two bottles of prosecco, a bottle of San Pellegrino, plastic champagne cups (I spent about five minutes deciding whether to buy these, as I do have some normal cups at home. Superfluous me won), Italian deli olives mix, ricotta stuffed sweet peppers, hummus and sourdough crispbread. Damage: £52. This is way too much for a picnic and M would tell me off. One more day until payday. Fuck it, it’s summer.
Arrive home and finish the sauvignon blanc in the fridge and give my cats some fresh catnip. It’s entertaining and totally harmless – google it if you’ve never seen a cat high on catnip.
5.15pm: M calls and says he’s leaving work a bit earlier than anticipated. Start prepping things for picnic.
5.40pm: Panic! It’ll take me 45 minutes to get to Peckham and M will be there around 6pm. I'm always late. Decide on an Uber. Uber arrives at 5.48pm and I get to my destination at 6.08pm. Worth the £7.98. When will I understand time?
6.15pm: M arrives and is pleasantly surprised to see the picnic. I tuck into the snacks.
Organised me pre-rolled two joints at home so I take one out and we smoke it. Conversation is flowing and we're talking about my depression. It's a blissful moment, sitting on the grass with M under the sun, hearing people around us having fun, drinking a glass of bubbles.
8-10pm: We each have a slice of Voodoo Ray’s, preceded and followed by four frozen margaritas. £37
Take a bus home at 10pm. £1.50
Total: £98.48
Day Two
10am: PAYDAY! I pay £1,400 to our joint bank account for mortgage, bills and spending money, transfer £1,000 to my savings account and pay £1,300 of my credit card from cash I withdrew from investments. Ufff.
11am: I make a smoothie (different recipe) and soft-boil seven eggs. I eat one and put the rest in the fridge.
12pm: Walk to my weekly therapy session. Feel awful afterwards… So many unresolved childhood and teenage problems that have shaped – and continue to shape – my adulthood, let alone my current situation. I want to hug my 13-year-old self.
1pm: Stop at Co-op and get two croissants (£1.56) and go home to eat them with French salted butter and Tiptree strawberry and champagne jam, a gift from Mum. I call my best friend, we speak for 20 minutes and make a plan to go to the pool on Saturday.
5pm: Get ready to take a train to Shoreditch High Street (£2.80) and meet M and our friend L to watch the England World Cup game. Try a few different outfits and end up going for a black sleeveless bodysuit, my trusted vintage high-waisted Levi’s shorts in faded black, Jeffrey Campbell combat boots in burgundy, Mum’s vintage Giorgio Armani sunnies and a Gucci Ophidia bag (which I felt extremely guilty about buying and proceeded to keep in my cupboard, unused, for four months). I look like Lara Croft, except much shorter and with tiny boobs. I start to feel good about myself. I read The Virgin Suicides on the train.
7.30pm: Pint of Pilsner and put in a call for a gram of coke (£50). My guy says he too is watching the England game so will meet me afterwards. M and I go to Flat Iron for some dinner. £41.26 – I pick up the tab, my treat.
11.30pm: We catch the train home (£2.80) and open a bottle of prosecco once we arrive, followed by two beers.
Total: £98.42
Day Three
9am: M took the day off and I am so happy I get to spend time with him. My thoughts are so loud in my head that being alone during the day is sometimes uneasy. Go to the Co-op and get four croissants, smoked cheese, German salami, a bottle of Coca-Cola and some Bugles. I make us breakfast. £10
12pm: It’s a lovely day so we stretch some towels in the garden. We drink Coca-Cola and I read, alternating between The Virgin Suicides and Roadside Picnic. We have a delicious afternoon nap in the shade.
4.30pm: Receive a call from work: I didn’t get the job I interviewed for internally. In all honesty, I didn’t want the job but I wanted to get out of my current one. A lesser evil. Once again this year, choices are made for me and I feel I have no control. I start to wobble again but M reminds me of my conviction just two days earlier. I cry.
5pm: I need to pull my shit together but feel all over the place and like I might faint. I’m at the pub (£20) and feel overwhelmed; I go to the bathroom to splash some water on my neck and face.
6pm: M and I go for a little walk and decide to go for some pasta at our local Italian (£23). This helps. Off home for quiet night. We start watching 27: Gone Too Soon on Netflix but we both fall asleep on the sofa.
Total: £53
Day Four
10am: I had a solid 10.32 hours sleep, rejoice! I suffer from hyperhidrosis, which sees me sweating during the night, thoroughly wetting the sheets and whatever I have on or near me. It's exacerbated by severe anxiety and I read it is also a very common side-effect of the antidepressant I take. This happens at least 3-4 times per week. Take a guess at how many pyjama shirts I get through.
11.50am: Leave the house to take the train to Shoreditch to spend the day by the pool with my friend (£2.80). We drink rosé all afternoon, followed by some triple cooked fries (£43). I put in a call and get a gram of coke (£50).
9.09pm: Buy some vodka sodas with fresh lime (£12) and talk to my friends about being worried and disappointed with my oldest friend from back home. I decide to text her and she calls me straightaway. She’s not well and breaks down crying. Why hasn’t teleportation been invented already? Words can’t describe how much I want to hug her and tell her it’s going to be okay.
1.30am: I take the night train and get off close to home and Uber from there (£10.73). I am starving, so make some pappardelle pasta with butter and parmigiano. I don't clean up after myself.
Total: £118.53
Day Five
7am: Wake up but I don’t feel ready yet, so roll over and go back to sleep. Wake up again at 10.30am, get up at 11.30am. Mornings are so difficult, they’ve always been.
M prepares a great breakfast and I shove it all in.
2pm: M and I go to Blythe Hill festival – very community and children-focused but chilled. I have a Pimm’s and M has an IPA (£9), and we sit on a grassy hill. I can see the Shard, Canary Wharf and the roofs of houses all in alignment. On a sunny day London is nice, but it is not a beautiful city. All those roofs in dark colours, so depressing.
4pm: We go to our local pub and I have two glasses of prosecco and M has one pint (£20). Arriving home, we play with our cats in the garden. Then we have sex; good sex.
7pm: Eat a sandwich for dinner and watch I Feel Pretty. What. A. Waste. Of. Time. Could’ve just spent that 1.30 hours on Instagram looking at funny cat videos and would’ve had a better time.
Total: £29
Day Six
8.30am: Speak with my best friend to check if we’re still going to take our laptops and work by the pool. She’s not feeling well so no, maybe later. I get up at 9.30am and start doing house chores. I finally sort out the wedding bouquets for myself and bridesmaids, and a corsage for M, paying the 50% deposit. £128
12.42pm: I nab my extremely sought-after Naomi skirt by Réalisation Par in leopard print. The whole world (okay, hyperbolising) is going crazy for this skirt, selling out within hours every time it’s restocked. They don’t ship to the UK without paying crazy costs so I make a plan and get it shipped to a friend of mine in my home country. £161.76
I open two bottles of homemade kombucha and they have so much gas inside that they explode everywhere, making such a mess. There is kombucha with bits of cayenne pepper all over the walls and kitchen gadgets.
1.30pm: Instead of pool day, my friend comes over to my house and we work in the garden. I make us a smoothie and we eat strawberries. I haven’t stopped all day and am doing lots of wedding preparation. Feeling overwhelmed, so I take a beta-blocker.
I look back at the skirt I bought earlier and it’s sold out, girls crying over it on Instagram. Feel smug.
8pm: I am still working on the laptop, planning and buying things for the wedding at Amazon (£108.92). M said he’d cook but he arrives and sits to watch the rest of a football game. We get into a fight and I let it all out, saying how stressful it has been to plan the wedding and I need more help and no, I don’t want to cook! I am losing the plot. I lock myself in the bedroom, get into bed and cry. I'm not feeling well. Take some pills to alleviate.
10pm: Get out of the room and we say sorry and make peace. I have some food and immediately get the shits. Go to bed and read Roadside Picnic before sleep.
Total: £398.68
Day Seven
8.30am: I am woken up by the mum who lives two doors down, screaming at her son. I get up and make a smoothie for myself and M who is working from home today. I look at some recipes and get a shopping list together for my trip to Sainsbury’s.
10am: I put in my headphones and listen to a new podcast, Sandra. I go past Co-op and pick up a croissant (£0.78). I love croissants. Walk to Sainsbury’s and get some supplies (£32.95). The podcast is still running but I have to rewind it so many times (a usual occurrence) because I get so distracted in my thoughts. I have trouble concentrating.
11.30pm: I’m home and I turn the podcast on. I make a new batch of kefir yoghurt and will bottle five litres of kombucha today. I make five different flavours: strawberry + ginger + mint; passion fruit + chia seeds; ginger + mint; lemon juice + rosemary + ginger + organic honey + lemon zest; cucumber + mint. I am stoked!
1.30pm: I make some garlic bread and eat a leftover salad. Podcast is finished, all seven episodes.
2pm: Doing more wedding work and feel restless. I keep walking back and forth during the afternoon, so I take a beta-blocker to soothe. Messages pour in on WhatsApp from friends and family and I cannot take it.
One of our cats starts limping again. She got herself stuck on a fence the previous week and after two visits to the vet, they said she was fine. I worry now but she resumes her usual antics within 20 mins. Poor baby.
6pm: I drink two delicious sour craft beers and smoke a joint. I’m paralysed.
7pm: I make dinner and get super creative. This is going to be so good! The kitchen looks as if Salvador Dalí dropped by. Result: terrible. I feel for M, he’s being nice but I know the food is shit when he accidentally bites half a garlic clove (Nutribullet, how could you?!) and puts the food down. The rest of the night is based on jokes about the garlic mishap.
10pm: M goes to bed and tells me to come with him, but I stay on the sofa. Fall asleep looking at Rixo London’s wonderful dresses on my iPhone and wake up at 2.49am. Brush my teeth and off to bed.
Total: £33.73
The Breakdown
Food/Drink: £302.55
Entertainment: £0
Clothes/Beauty: £161.76
Travel: £28.61
Other: £336.92
Total: £829.84
Money Diaries are meant to reflect individual women’s experiences and do not necessarily reflect Refinery29’s point of view. Refinery29 in no way encourages illegal activity or harmful behaviour.
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