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WELCOME TO HOW I Spend My Money, a series on TheJournal.ie that runs on Wednesdays and Sundays and looks at what people in Ireland really do with their cash.
We’ve asked readers to keep a record of how much they earn, how much they save, if anything, and what they spend their money on over the course of one week.
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.
Last time, a construction manager on €38,000 wrote about how he is spending less since the arrival of his first child. Today, a property surveyor on €45,000 records how he usually dips into his savings in order to provide for his family of five.
Occupation: Commercial property surveyor
Age: 35
Location: Dublin
Salary: €45,000
Monthly pay (net): €3,263
Children’s Allowance: €420
Transport: €270 (this is an average monthly cost and includes both diesel and M50 tolls)
Mortgage: €940.50
Insurance: Mortgage protection, life and home insurances €102.36
Bin charges: €20
Gas and Electricity: €163
TV and Broadband: €73.48
Phone bill: €25 (wife’s phone). Mine is covered by my employer
Car loan: €453.02
Loan repayment for a gas boiler replacement: €89.90
Credit card repayments: €100 – €150 depending on the month
Groceries: This can vary month to month but on average around €400
Netflix: €7.99
Savings: €500
Eldest child’s dance class: €32
7:30am: I get up, shower and shave, and put on a pot of porridge for the family’s breakfast. I grab my lunch (sandwich and fruit), drop my daughter to school and head to work.
11:00am: I buy a new rain cover online for the pram as the old one has ripped (€44.00).
12:00pm: My wife picks up some groceries (€15.89) and a birthday present for a friend (€32.40).
1:30pm: On the way to a meeting with a colleague, we stop for a coffee as we haven’t had lunch. I get these (€6.40).
2:45pm: I head back to the office and I finally have a chance to have my sandwich.
6pm: I leave work and go home for the evening.
Today’s total: €98.69
8:00am: I get up, shower, and get ready for work. I grab my lunch (sandwich and fruit), drop my daughter to school and head to work.
12:30pm: I’ve had a headache all morning – starting to feel a sinus pain. I go to a local pharmacy and get some decongestant tablets and a bottle of water for €7.55.
1pm: I have lunch at my desk as usual.
6:40pm: I leave work and go home.
7:15pm: I get home, have dinner (my wife made a stir-fry) and spend time with the kids before bedtime. There’s enough dinner leftover for tomorrow’s lunch – so that goes in a lunch box.
9pm: The kids are put to bed and I watch some TV with tea and biscuits.
11pm: I head to bed.
Today’s total: €7.55
7:00am: I get up, shower and shave, and put on a pot of porridge for the family’s breakfast.
8:50am: I grab my lunch (stir-fry and fruit), drop my daughter to school and head to work. I stop off for a coffee on the way for €3.25.
1pm: My wife goes to our local supermarket for some groceries (€26.77).
3pm: I have a formal event to attend tomorrow, and have hired a tuxedo so I pop out to pick it up. It costs €50.00.
6pm: I leave work and I head for the hospital to visit my mother who is recovering from surgery.
7:30pm: I leave the hospital, car parking is €2.40 per hour, go home and spend the rest of the evening at home with my family.
Today’s total: €82.42
8:20am: We’ve overslept so I get up in a hurry and take my daughter to school.
9:05am: I leave for work and I have a client meeting at 10.30am which I’m in plenty of time for. I stop off for a coffee and muffin as I haven’t had breakfast for €5.25.
1pm: I didn’t bring lunch today and I am going straight out after work tonight so get a roll and a packet of crisps for €5.50.
4:45pm: I go home and get ready for the formal dinner tonight. I shower, shave, put on the tux and have a lift arranged into town to meet up with colleagues.
7pm: I go to meet colleagues for a drink before dinner. I get there early so have a pint (€6.00).
7:45pm: I get a taxi to the hotel which costs €15.00.
10:30pm: Dinner is over and we hang around chatting and then head to the bar. I get a couple of rounds in for €36.00.
01:30am: I get a taxi home for €20.00.
Today’s total: €87.75
9:30am: I get up to find my good wife has breakfast ready for me – happy days!
11:00am: I head to work and work through lunch.
5:30pm: I finish work and head home. I stop on the way to get diesel (€60.00).
6:15pm: I arrive home and we order a pizza with sides, drinks and dessert for €38.85.
Today’s total: €98.85
09:00am: I get up and take the eldest child to dance class. I meet one of the other dads there so we head off for a coffee for half an hour (€6.80).
11:30am: We take a short family shopping trip to the supermarket. We pick up some groceries and ingredients for baking later as well as some goodies to give to a friend for their birthday (€58.20).
2pm: We arrive home for the day, have some lunch and do some cleaning. Later the kids are baking while the rugby is on. We stay home for the rest of the evening and have a home-made Indian.
Today’s total: €65.00
10:00am: I’m home with the kids while my wife goes out for brunch with friends (€20.00).
2:30pm: My wife brings me home a sandwich which is delicious but WAY overpriced when I see the €7.95 sticker on it!
3:30pm: I go to the hospital to visit my mother for a couple of hours. I buy a newspaper (€1.20), coffee (€2.50) and a bar of chocolate (€1.30).
6pm: I leave the hospital for home. Car parking – €7.20 and I decide to treat the family to some chips since it’s too late to start making a ‘Sunday Dinner’. I get the kids and go get some chicken nuggets, sausages and chips for them and some food for myself and my wife for €24.60
Today’s total: €64.75
Weekly subtotal: €505.01
What I’ve learned:
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Current national debt is circa €190B. Is Noonan giving up on getting the ECB to finance the Bank debt and get it deducted from the €190B. This was one of FG’s election promises. The real national debt figure is probably close to €500B if we were to accrue all PRSI pension liabilities. Yesterday’s article in the Sunday Times is frightening on this.
Why would they include future liabilities? At that rate you could bring future expected revenue into the equation!
Because as from 2017, we have to account for unfunded liabilities to give a true picture of national debt. Just as companies have had to do for years. There’s no real difference between a bond you have to repay and a pension you’re committed to paying, except in accounting terms.
Well said. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Where will the money to fund these early repayments come from ? I know it’s a stupid question but does anyone know the answer ?
Maurice the minister is doing lip service for the next election. Europe is in receivership and has told Noonan no to what you have noted. It would be nice but our politician didn’t talk hard they were the good boys in the class. So Europe expects them to keep paying.
They will be coming from 15 year loans/bond issues so the banks will be lending this money to repay them back early.
Wait ’til Ireland doesn’t get the retroactive bank recapitalization.
And when – not if – new international corporate tax rules take effect from 2016 (OECD), at least €50 billion, or half the annual value of services exports will be vapourized.
Plus, some multi-nationals have also said they will leave when that happens i.e. when they have to start paying a lot more corporation tax back home on top of high wages in Ireland.
Hold on to your tin hats.
Emily
Perhaps now the penny might drop when we consider the point John Bruton was making when discussing such liabilities recently.!
He was massively abused on this site when his opinion about defaulting by the State on pensions etc when the alternative was bankruptcy .
How quickly we shoot the messenger in Ireland rather than trying to deal with realities.
Still think that a debt deal will have to be done.
The EU live in a fantasy world where real economic reality is denied and put on long finger.
They blew their chance to resolve the Euro crisis.
That would apply to unfunded civil service pensions but not to PRSI pensions. That liability is subject to year by year legislation and, in theory, could be reduced or abolished by a new Finance Act. It won’t happen of course, but the possibilty means that it is not a reckonable long term debt.
What do you mean give up, they didn’t even ask for feck sake
ohhh I feel another seismic shift coming on….
Property tax
Water charges
USC
….any if these terms familiar to you????
No financial penalty for paying off loans early. Ha ha. We should be getting a discount for paying early.
Don’t get into finance. I can tell by this one comment that it’s not for you.
We should never have had them in the first place…ffs
Getting a bit annoyed with this sycophantic attitude the government has with Europe.
What, you feel no surge of patriotic pride when our minister begs the faceless financiers to kindly allow us to give us a big ball of cash?
* you a big ball of cash *
The Germans will never forgive us for the Hypo/DEPFA mess.
Peter.
What a brain and what a genius. Please tell us how yo can save the State a cool three hundred and seventy five million Euro a year as proposed by Minister Noonan so that we don’t have to politely ask our creditors for agreement to vary the terms of our Bailout.
You must be a whizz with figures and I envy the confidence with which you stride across these pages.
I showed your comments to a colleague and I could see straight away that he misunderstands you. In tact what he said about you couldn’t be printed here but all great men Peter suffer from such slingshots!
@Rodgers as per usual your wisdom knows no bounds you and your comments are wasted on the journal.
Its time you took up your true vocation and that in my humble oppinion is that of chief Fine Gael ass wipe.
Paul
Thanks! Your opinion in your own words is indeed humble and it is quite clear that you never aspired beyond that though instinct probably told you that there was enough material in you to heft a Sinn Fein shovel but you would need to be told what to do after that.
The world needs simple folk Paul and at least you have recognised that!
Well said Paul Mc. When Rodgers is in the company of Edna its like a scene from the film The Human Centipede.
hows life as the chief arse kisser and male cheer leader to enda and his brigade richard cos clearly you are one of them patriots big nose hogan was on about
So Richard hows that seismic shift of Enda the statesman performing these days?
Kerry
Whaaaaaaaaat?
When the cost of Noonan’s very generous minster’s pension to which he does not contribute a cent is added to the debt it could be the last straw that breaks the taxpayer’s back.
Wow, we are so lucky.
Looking at the returns, it is all rosy for Noonan – revenue’s new mantra is to suck every last penny of savings and profit out of small business and their employees and to present it as a gift to some unelected ex-politicians and expect a pat on his obnoxious head.
“Look what I brought you – someone else’s debt, maybe I’ve ruined a few small businesses and taxed earnings and savings from Irish people to the hilt, but as long as we’re all happy let’s make this look like good news to the ‘media’ – you’ll print it like that, you property funded news website”…
At the end of the 1st 1/4 2008 this country was heading towards a deficit of 22bn euros. In d last 5 yrs we have undertaken a huge social experimenr in how to balance d books without strikes/riots etc and we have nearly made it. There is huge credit due to fg and lab and enormous credit due to d dept of finance and public expenditure.
Why should lab and fg get any credit. Ff told them what to do before they got booted out.
How is it any credit to them, it’s a credit to the irish people not the politicians. The politicians didn’t stop riots they hid away in Leinster house and quietly stripped us of our pride and dignity and left most of us demoralised and close to bankruptcy. Suicides are through the roof, let’s see these magnificent politicians of yours deal with that elephant in the roof. Crime.? It’s bandit country in ireland again, those shower deserve no credit for anything.
The simple fact if the matter is that this country of 4.5million people withdrew over 16bn from circulation over the past 5 years. Politicans put their names forward as spokespeople for that. You didnt. You come on forums and talk abt how bad it is. Pokiticans arent stupid or even greedy anymore. They all know the suicide numbers, the high taxes, the unemployment but they still put their names forward. You didnt. it is easier spew vitriol from d sidelines
More bad news for the Shinners. Tax take up. Ahead of forecast.
Where are the Shinners anyway?
I suppose it’s hard for them to spin positives into negatives. Especially when there’s an election coming up. Just doesn’t appeal to voters.
But it’s all they have.
so anyone that has a different opinion to them muppets in power are shinners………explains the mental state of the cheerleaders for the likes of the FG/LB/FF crowd on hear…..deluded one trick ponies who believe anything that comes out of the lot in the dail
Election spew has started
” Noonan ” and ” charm ” in the same sentence !! . It is just so wrong, Jack Horgan-Jones. Just so, so wrong.
Will Mr Noonan be dancing suggestively for Mario Draghi et al as well?
Charm?? God help Europe…
Jam?………………………………..
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NEVER!
Why was my two comments deleted?
Just in time for the general election!
have your say