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 a trainee construction manager who loves to travel...
"I am a 20-year-old self-confessed Selfridges addict, avid Avios points collector, lover of designer handbags, holidays and living outside of my means.
I started my first 'real job' as a trainee construction site manager a year ago, and now live away from home Monday-Friday, all over the country. Living alone as the only female at work gets me down at times so I tend to eat my feelings in an attempt to feel better. I am the only one out of my friendship group to not be at uni, so in April I decided to stop saving heavily and spend, as I feel like I’m missing out on being young and having fun. Since then, I have bought myself a new car which I pay for monthly, been on five holidays, splurged on business class flights, drunk too many Jägerbombs and pretty much maxed out my credit card, but I have no regrets (sorry Mum).
From my next paycheque I plan on being sensible. My expenses claims at work were regularly high so I have just been given a company card to pay for my breakfast and evening meals while away, and I have also received an unexpected but fabulous £1,500 pay rise which should make saving easier. I have a savings account to pay for my boyfriend and I to go to Vegas for my 21st next April, which I have added small amounts to for the past couple of months; I have also opened a savings account which you can pay in up to £250 a month for extra interest. I plan on buying a house to develop in a nearby cheaper town to hopefully make some profit. I also have an ISA that I put most of my savings into and this acts as an 'F Off' fund for travelling around the world."
Industry: Construction
Age: 20
Location: Lancashire at weekends and currently Edinburgh during the week.
Salary: £21,500 plus a £3k (after tax) car allowance and topped up with £260 a month from my mum for bits of work I do for her business.
Paycheque amount: Roughly £1,800 (not including Mum's business). It changes slightly every month due to expenses. This is with my increased pension contributions taken out, money taken out monthly to pay for a £1,000 travel voucher I got through work, private healthcare costs, and a monthly flex fund payment I get. Honestly I don’t understand my paycheque as so many things are listed after my basic pay.
Number of housemates: I live with my parents and my two adorable dogs.
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: £0, work pay for my serviced apartment costs during the week and I live at home at weekends. I did attempt to move out and paid around £400 a month for a double room in a houseshare with friends but I was only ever there a couple of days a month.
Loan payments: £245 a month for my car. £25 a month for my credit card, it’s £40 off being maxed out and I really should overpay this but it's 0% interest so I’m ignoring that for now. £150 standing order to my mum to repay her for when she’s helped me out.
Utilities: £0
Transportation: Work pay for my train tickets to Scotland and back. I buy petrol if and when I need it and if I am ever driving for work I can claim the fuel back as expenses.
Phone bill: £55 a month, this is with friends and family discount for iPhone 8+! I think this includes £5 a month insurance but I’m honestly not sure. When my contract ends next year I plan on moving to a sim-only contract.
Savings? Hmm, this honestly changes every month depending on how reckless and extravagant I’m feeling. This month: £200 into my house fund as I bought a new Mulberry handbag for winter in Heathrow last week. I got 10,850 Heathrow rewards points from this purchase which I will convert into British Airways air miles, saving me money on next year’s holidays, so technically I have still saved! Next month I’m aiming to save around £7/800.
Other: £35 finance payment for my Apple iPad. I bought this in February on Currys' 'buy now pay later', with the plan of paying it off in full in the six months where there would be no interest but guess who didn’t manage that... so now I’m just going to pay monthly for it, maybe it will boost my credit score?
Total: £710
Day One
7am: Snooooooze.
7.10am: Finally roll out of bed and fall into the shower, I’m going to be late for work but you know when you’re just not feeling it? I love my job, just not early mornings, and my sleeping schedule is a mess after getting back from America last week; the jet lag is (still) real.
7.50am: Run to work – well, hobble, my heels are covered in blisters from borrowing my mum's shoes to dog walk at the weekend. Buy plasters in Tesco en route as I’ll die on my 8-minute commute without them. £4.10! Talk about daylight robbery.
10.15am: It’s freezing on site, I’m not appropriately dressed and admiring the view of Edinburgh Castle isn’t going to make this experience any nicer. Get called down by the site manager to do a Greggs run. Get sandwiches, drinks, fruit and crisps for 10 people, comes to £41.45, get it on my boss' company card. While I’m there I get myself a sausage and bacon baguette and Oasis to make the walk worthwhile. £3, paid for on my company card. Get back to the site office and find my sausage and bacon baguette is just a sausage baguette and is as dry as the Sahara, cry.
12.50pm: Off to Co-op rather than the fancy expensive Italian sandwich place that has my heart and a third of my income. Get some snacks and decide I will eat my salad in the work fridge later. Spend £4.09 on a pack of chicken satay sticks, a tub of strawberries and grapes, a bag of choc chip cookies and a mini chocolate chaos pot that was reduced from £1 to 60p (paid on the work card). I have been trying to get healthy but I have days (weeks) where I completely fall off the bandwagon and don’t care. I’m going home today; this is the first time in about 3/4 months I’ll be home during the week so I’m in a good mood and just want to be all carefree.
1.15pm: The meeting that I bought sandwiches for earlier has finished and loads of food is left over; steal myself half a tuna roll and a packet of Kettle Chips for later. There is no better food than free food, if only it was like this every day.
4pm: Nearly home time eeeek I can’t bloody wait. Catch up with emails. Look at train times and dream about sleeping in my own bed for once. Ooh first class is reduced, £33 – I slip, trip and fall onto the buy button. Thank you 16-25 railcard for the discount, I love you.
7.20pm: I complete some online surveys on the train home to kill the three long hours! +£2
8.30pm: Finally home and walk in the door to lasagne. Hallelujah for parents and free food.
9.20pm: Off to the boyf's to stay the night. Stop off at Tesco on the way for shampoo and deodorant. End up spending £19.85! The shampoo and conditioner were nearly £3 a bottle, I saw it earlier on a Facebook offers group I’m part of for 49p in Asda, this is so not okay! *think of the Avios points, think of the Avios points* Overall, a disaster of a shop – the super cute Tesco shop assistant who I haven’t seen in months was in there while I looked like pure death with mascara running everywhere! I had to phone my mum at one point to ask if I could Febreze my car and which Febreze to buy – he found this hilarious, didn’t he. FYI a banana had died in my boot, guesstimate it had been there for a good two months, and now my car smells like rotting corpses. Go past Savers, which still looks open and where I could’ve got everything for a fiver. Cry.
11.45pm: My car smells better now. Eat my chocolate bar in secret while the boyf is in the shower, this was part of my overpriced Tesco shop earlier. Go to bed.
Total: £61.04
Day Two
6.15am: Do my usual alarm snooze for my 46,936 alarms that I need every morning. Get all ready for work, I am at the local office. I say local; it’s a 110-mile round trip to attend an environmental training course, I am excited for this as I love trying to save the planet.
8am: Update: My car smells worse! Febreze hasn’t masked the smell and it now smells like rotten vinegar. I have to put my heated seat on 'full' in the car and go down the motorway with the window down. Cry, again. I am about an hour early for the course; you just can’t predict how the M6 will be. Go to Starbucks to get a hot choc with soy milk, a bottle of water and eat my overpriced fruit pot from Tesco. £4.85
12.05pm: Lunch break. Food is provided with the course but it's sandwiches, crisps and weird spicy chicken things on a stick. I’m trying to eat better and as plant-based as possible (lol sounds good in theory) as I have some acid reflux issues and don’t want to take tablets so I am attempting to change my lifestyle instead. I grab my trusty co-worker and go to the on-site canteen, get a salad with a tuna pot and a protein pot with spinach and an egg in, also a flapjack. £7.75
1.30pm: The afternoon session drags. Stuff myself with the remaining crisps left on the table.
4.30pm: Passed my course yaaaas queen, celebrate on the way home by eating my flapjack I bought earlier. Car still stinks.
7.25pm: Reunited with boo (the boyf) and hungry again. He’s already eaten but agrees to get food with me as that is what relationships are all about. Go to Morrisons – I drive – to get dinner and pick up some bits for lunch tomorrow, manage to get a full chicken reduced, yoghurts reduced, rice reduced. Feel like a shopping queen. The boyf pays. I don’t fancy a salad and the boyf says a cheat meal from my diet would be okay, off to KFC it is. Try to order from the cheap menu but the guy won’t let me swap spicy wings for popcorn chicken. End up buying a boneless banquet that’s triple the price. £6.19, so worth it.
Total: £18.79
Day Three
7am: I wake up without that Friyay feeling; I think this is because I am normally excited to go home but I am home and I’m working in the local office again today. Take my packed lunch with me and grab my breakfast bought yesterday in Morrisons to eat when I get to the office.
11.15am: Slightly bored, it’s a slow day putting documents together and I have eaten my breakfast already. Feeling poor so look online for more paid survey apps/companies to join. My work bestie says that this is the ultimate rock bottom desperado attempt to get some extra pennies.
12.30pm: Lunchtime finally, I have been counting down the minutes for the past hour because guess what I am hungry again. My banana went weird in my handbag (pray for the Mulberry) so I just have two kids’ strawberry fromage frais. Go over to the canteen to buy a flapjack, the one yesterday was incred and I just can’t help myself. £1.30
1.30pm: Leave work and head to my grandparents’ house. I don’t see them as often as I would like to but as they only live 20 minutes from the office I am going to pop in and see them. Get sent home with a bag full of biscuits to enjoy.
3.30pm: Meet the boyf during his break at work, go to the local rotisserie and grab a chicken salad, no dressing, a bottle of water and pay for the boyf's salad too. £11.68
6.30pm: Get a text from my bestie about going out tonight, she said she isn’t drinking due to being on antibiotics so I’m hoping this means it will be a cheap night. I can’t afford to keep spending silly money on nights out.
10pm: Mum gives me a lift to the bar where I meet my friend, get myself a double gin and lemonade and get her a Coke. £10
2am: Bought myself three more drinks during the night, £25. The boyf takes me home, refuses to go through the Maccies drive thru.
Total: £47.98
Day Four
10.30am: Enjoy a nice lie-in for once. Didn’t drink much last night so I feel fresh this morning; hop in the shower and throw on some of my boyfriend’s clothes to go home in, I look a state!
12pm: My mum, boyf and I head out for brunch and some shopping. I get steak, scrambled eggs with hash browns and share pancakes with strawberries and blueberries with Mum, boyf gets some chorizo and egg pan thing. Mum pays for it all, we get discount as the boyf manages the place.
1.30pm: Walk down to the new café that a friend of mine and the boyf's works at. I get a fresh juice, boyf gets a milkshake, Mum gets a latte and we share a piece of marble cake. £13.92, I pay.
2.15pm: Leave the café to pop into some shops, pick up a new house key as I have lost mine again. Mum gets a spare and it's three for £10 but I want the key shaped like a wine glass so comes to £12. Go into a couple of the clothes shops, and buy a dreamy amazing super cosy wonderful luxurious new winter coat. It's long and green with buttons down the centre and two large pockets, £175. Also purchase a new mustard jumpsuit from a shop across the road, £35. Pick up a brochure on Las Vegas holidays from the travel shop, I am saving to go with the boyf for my 21st next year. Mum pops into some other shops, then I drive us both home.
6pm: Mum and I head to the cinema and get food there. I get nachos with cheese, a mixed Tango Ice Blast and we share a bag of chocolate. Mum paid – I dread to think how much it was, cinemas are ridiculously overpriced these days!
9pm: My friend invites me out for drinks again, it would be rude to say no. I plan on leaving earlyish and hopefully not spending much.
1.30am: I have had two vodka orange juices (£10), a gin and lemonade (£7) and a couple of cocktails – it's the boyf's bar so I don’t pay for those. Wait behind for him to finish up and take my sorry ass home to bed as I am knackered!
Total: £252.92
Day Five
11.30am: Another amazing lie-in, the joys. The boyf doesn’t work Sundays so this is the one day a week we actually see each other. I am forever jealous of those couples with each other 24/7, you don’t realise how lucky you are! Lounge about then head back to mine so I can pack for the week ahead.
1.15pm: Stop off at the rotisserie for salads on the way, I get my usual chicken salad no dressing and a bottle of water. The boyf pays.
5.20pm: Off to the spa for two hours of relaxation and pure bliss in the spa facilities and a free glass of prosecco, just me living my best life. The boyf has paid as a sorry for not making it up to see me in Scotland.
8pm: Go to Gusto for dinner on the way home, we both eat so much! Sharing starter with calamari, meatballs and breaded olives. For mains I get fillet steak (obvs medium rare) with fries, salad and peppercorn sauce, the boyf has lamb from the specials, he then orders a cheese garlic bread! I get a choc mousse for pudding and he gets some chocolate pancake-looking thing. We get discount as the boyf is friends with the manager. Bill ends up only being around £60 with drinks, the boyf pays.
11pm: Back at the boyf's and collapse into bed and fall asleep watching TV after a magical day. The boyf is amazing to me, I couldn’t ask for anything better.
Total: £0
Day Six
6.30am: Wake up and get ready for work. The boyf takes me to the train station.
8.30am: The train has broken down at a station in the Lakes, talk about absolute disaster! We have no power and both my phones are going to die any minute. I text one of the guys from Wigan, thankfully he is on the train so comes and sits with me as it doesn’t look like we’ll be moving any time soon.
9am: We’re still stranded, there’s no update and I’m hungry. To make matters worse I have left my bankcard at my boyf's. Couldn’t feed myself even if the train shop was open.
10am: We get moving, then break down AGAIN. An announcement says we are just going to coast to the next station and hope we make it – this is not good for my anxiety. Next thing we get told the train will be terminating at the next station, another hour away from Edinburgh!
11am: Kicked off the train, head to Costa to get a hot choc and panini, get my work pal a latte, use my mum's card on my Apple Pay after my card disaster this morning! £7. Talk about the Mondayest Monday ever. We finally manage to squeeze onto the next train headed for Scotland; it only has four carriages and the one we have all been thrown off had 11 so you can just picture the madness.
12.15pm: I stood up on the train for over an hour, life isn’t fun today. Finally get to Scotland, walk into work and hope for the best.
5pm: The rest of my day was quite stress-free. Thank god. Head home from work in the sunshine to check into my apartment for the week.
7.45pm: Had a much-needed, stress-reducing nap; I can’t get through a working day without one. Wake up and order a Papa John's on my work card. Pizza and choc brownie is my idea of heaven; this is deserved after it taking five hours to get to work this morning! £21.75
Total: £0 (thank you Mum, thank you work, love you both)
Day Seven
7.30am: Last day of my Money Diary and it's making me quite emosh. I've loved tracking my spend and it's shocked me to realise how much I spend without the need to be spending it. On that note I pop into Tesco (typical) and get some breakfast. £4.50 for a croissant, orange juice and strawberries. Pay on my work card.
11.30am: Been soooo busy at work again today, finally stop to breathe and get my favourite thing, food! Pop over to the Italian place across the road, I get a chicken salad, a water and something called a piadina – it’s a bread thing with ham and mozzarella inside and then toasted, let me tell you, it is incredible. £7.85 on Mum's card using my Apple Pay again. All hail technology.
4.30pm: It has been a boring day money-wise; I haven’t spent anything really and I have been too busy at work to do anything else. Finally time to head home and relax (nap).
7pm: I end up ordering Papa John's again. I know, I know – I should not be doing this but I feel so down today and I am just going to give into my food cravings because I am normal and it’s what normal people do after a long tiring day. I used to suffer a lot from depression and panic disorder; I was on tablets for it but I find I now turn to food for comfort if needed. Obviously this isn’t ideal and I don’t recommend it but now and again, it’s just needed; today is one of those days. I will get back to trying to eat healthy again tomorrow, for today it's pizza and wedges. £17.33 on my work card.
Total: £0 (what a boring last two days, hey)
The Breakdown
Food/Drink: £101.78
Entertainment: £0
Clothes/Beauty: £229.85
Travel: £33
Other: £14.10
Total: £378.73
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