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WELCOME TO HOW I Spend My Money, a series on The Journal that looks at how people in Ireland really handle their finances.
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.
Are you a spender, a saver or a splurger? We’re looking for readers who will keep a money diary for a 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 data analyst on €61K living in Co Laois. This week, a manager in a tech company near Dublin earning €86K.
I am a 35-year-old manager working for a large tech company and living just outside Dublin with my wife, daughter and our dog. I am fully remote and lucky enough to have space for an office at home. We are an outdoors family, so most weekends are spent hiking, walking and swimming.
Occupation: Customer Success Manager
Age: 35
Location: Dublin
Salary: €86,000
Monthly pay (net): €4,311
Transport: €200 petrol
Mortgage: €1,133
Household bills: €520
Phone bill: €91 (me and wife)
Health insurance: Paid for by employer
Groceries: €600
Subscriptions: €62 (Disney/Prime/Netflix/Spotify/Apple TV)
Gym memberships: €110
Monthly living budget: €450 (coffee, kids classes, dinners etc…)
Childcare: €140
Loan: €330
Prize bonds: €50
Savings: €500
Christmas club: €100
Dental: Paid for by Employer
Pension: 2% of gross, employer adds 8%
***
6.10 am: Up and straight to the gym. I’m a morning person, and I find getting the gym out of the way first thing gives me a lot of time back throughout the week. Forget my towel, rent one (€1).
8.00 am: Home. Make a coffee and back out with the dog for 30 minutes (she’s a large dog and spends all day in the office with me, so two walks a day are crucial for both our sanity).
8.30 am: Hang out with the kiddo before she heads off to school.
9.00 am: Laptop on, meetings, spreadsheets etc… Two to three coffees to keep me going (I got a Nespresso Machine and it keeps me going throughout the day). Other than a protein shake and coffee, I don’t eat during the day (more of an energy level habit than a diet thing, eating lunch kills my productivity).
12.00 pm: Check in with the wife. We need a smoke alarm and to get the fireplace fixed so she sorts that (€180).
12.30 pm: Kiddo is home, says hi then earphones in. Back outside with the dog for a stroll (same route, same time, every day — I’m a creature of habit).
5.30 pm: Laptop shut, office door closed. Hang out in the kitchen with the family. Dinner is ready. Myself and my wife both love cooking, so we tend to split this throughout the week. We don’t seem to split the cleaning up the same way, though…
6.00 pm: Wife heads off for a swim and I get the little one into the bath.
7.00 pm: Bedtime routine. Stories, songs, etc. She was an awful sleeper when she was younger but thankfully she’s better now.
7.30 pm: Clean up a bit and hit the couch.
7.35 pm: Remember it’s bin day tomorrow and go put the bins out (€2.00).
8.30 pm: Wife gets home. We watch some TV and are in bed by 11 pm.
Today’s total: €183.00
6.10 am: Up, same routine as yesterday.
5.30 pm: Finished for the day. Wife is gone for a spin class, so I get dinner ready and me and kiddo tuck in and then play with some Legos.
7.00 pm: Bedtime routine again.
7.30 pm: Wife gets home. She put up some new family pictures in the kitchen, so we admire them and chat for an hour or so before migrating to the couch for the evening.
11.00 pm: Bed.
Today’s total: €0.00
6.10 am: Up and at em! Gym, dog walk, work.
12.30 pm: Out with the dog and I stop in to get a latte in the local coffee shop. Not something I do very often, but for €3.75, it’s not hard to see why.
1.00 pm: Back to work.
6.00 pm: Few issues in work so 30 mins over, not the worst! Wife has dinner ready so we all sit down to eat and catch up about the day’s events.
7.00 pm: I play basketball on Wednesday evenings so my wife puts the kid to bed. I chill out for an hour before starting to warm up a bit at home (I’ve had a few injuries this year and I think it’s just age and lack of warm-up).
8.30 pm: Off to basketball: under-talented, over-competitive middle-aged men, same group for 10+ years and I look forward to it every week! (€5.00)
10.00 pm: Throw some petrol into the car on the way home (€50.00). Chill out for an hour and head to bed.
11.30 pm: Lights out.
Today’s total: €58.75
7.30 am: Later start this morning. I skip the gym on Thursdays as I’m generally in bits from the night before. Rudely awoken by the little one, sneak her downstairs for breakfast to let my wife get an extra 30 minutes of sleep.
8.00 am: Walk the dog.
8.30 am: Disrupt the school preparations and cause general havoc for 30 minutes before starting work.
9.00 am: Into the office and open the laptop. I have back-to-back meetings for the day today.
12.30 pm: My mother-in-law takes the little one after school today (Montessori) so we jump out to the local café for lunch. (€38)
1.15 pm: Back to it.
2.00 pm: My wife picks up the shopping (click and collect is brilliant!). (€148)
5.30 pm: Finish up for the day. It’s leftovers from last night for dinner so nice and easy. My wife is off for an indoor climb with her mother, so we make beans on toast and then bath time.
7.30 pm: Bedtime. A bit later than usual as we had important drawings to finish off.
8.00 pm: Netflix time. Thursday is always a long day.
9.00 pm: The good woman gets home so I get the dog out a little later than I would have liked.
10.30 pm: Call it a night.
Today’s total: €186.00
6.10 am: Up and straight to the gym.
8.00 am: Home, make a coffee, back out with the dog for 30 mins.
8.30 am: Hang out with the Kiddo before she heads off to school.
9.00 am: Into the office!
12.30 pm: Walk the dog.
1.00 pm: Back to work.
2.00 pm: Surprise attack from the girls, but they made cookies, so happy days!
5.30 pm: Laptop shut, office door closed. Weekend time!
6.00 pm: Grab some beer and bits in the shop. (€20.00)
6.10 pm: Parents-in-law stop in. They stay for dinner and some wine (baby gets put to bed at some stage). We chat and catch up about recent trips away by us and them. Nice evening.
10.30 pm: Head to bed.
Today’s total: €20.00
7.30 am: A tiny hand slaps my face. Guess it’s time to get up. Make pancakes, listen to frozen, usual Saturday morning.
9.00 am: Kids GAA has been moved to an earlier time slot as it’s indoors for the foreseeable, so I grab a coffee on the way in (€3.75) and let the kid run wild (she loves it!). It’s an annual fee so no charge today.
10.30 am: Get home and get the kid ready. Her grandmother is taking her overnight, wife is at the gym and we’re off for a hike when she gets back.
11.00 am: Child free, and in the car. Heading to Carlingford lakes for a hike.
12.00 pm: Set off on the Slieve Foye Loop. Weather looks better than forecast!
2.30 pm: Back to the car, soaking wet!!! Great to be out, though. We change in the boot and head in for some lunch.
4.00 pm: A nice meal and some good chats later, we head back to the car. (€58)
5.30 pm: Home and get the dog out.
6.00 pm: Arrive back and find out “we” made plans to go and see my parents, so back in the car! Get some Ben & Jerry’s on the way so we don’t arrive with one arm longer than the other. (€12.00)
10.00 pm: Home at last. Watch half an hour of Netflix and pass out.
Today’s total: €73.75
10.00 am: Bit of a lie-in this morning before my daughter arrives home and a dance party starts in the kitchen. Get the dog out and then hang around the house for the morning.
11.00 am: Bring the kid swimming and we stop for ice cream on the way home. (€6.40)
2.00 pm: Girls settle in for a movie. I start on a Sunday roast and potter around the house for the afternoon.
5.00 pm: Dinner.
5.30 pm: Out for an extended walk with the dog.
7.00 pm: Home and get the kid to bed.
7.30 pm: Hit the couch hard with the good woman to watch Harry Potter 1 and 2.
11.30 pm: Bedtime.
Today’s total: €6.40
***
What I learned –
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Time to allow people to register and comment on here without needing a twitter/Facebook account.
How then could you identify trolls?
I Agree, its time thejournal switch to the Disqus system instead. (http://disqus.com/websites/)
@paul think he means people would have to register on the journal instead so trolls would still be identified. I think as people are forced more & more to have social network accounts just to interact on the web it will cause vast numbers to go to the “deep” web forums where they can still be anonymous & post.
twitter=contributors, facebook=trolls tom! , great balls of fire alway come in circles?just look at the sun muse!- on second thoughts dont do that!, i think facebook cud take off again!- a second wind!- just change a poke to a slap…they say it will lose the young…but being young is a fault that diminishes daily ! Cheer up tom! -Muse! Remember the less facebook friends you have, the more there is to get! try to snip the wind between logins tom
what’s a troll
A supernatural being in Scandinavian folklore
AnnMarie! A troll is an idealist! – someone who wants to change the world..to spread peace , justice and.to ensure the survival and the success of liberty.
examples are – mary robinson, bono, clare daly , luke ming flanagin
Facebook: a dreadful waste of internet space and time.
Facebook: the best spying machine every invented for NSA to track everything on you. family, friends, commutations, etc. all stored in the US and accessible to US intelligence. you make it so easy for them!
You ok hun pm me xxxxxx
Yeah we freely give the spies everything on us. I agree, wont drop off a huge pile. They have expanded to mobiles now. Be like saying text messages including whatapp dead in a year. Wont happen. My space was not innovative. Bebo was just pure scutter. Facebook not bad.i keep in touch with overseas family but by and large id not use it never really did
I use Facebook a lot less now. I feel embarrassed putting up what I think on it. I only use it to post cool pics to show off to people. Very pathetic I know
To an extent, I agree with them. Facebook is kingpin only until something better comes along. The problem is they are trying to say that social networks have a lifespan and not that they were killed by a competitor. Myspace died when Bebo came along. Bebo was seen off by Facebook. They would want to be especially prescient to know who is going to invent the Facebook killer and when.
We see similar in the Search Engine world. First there was AltaVista. Then everyone moved to Yahoo. Then Google came along. Looking at the history of the first two, we might have expected Google to last three years. A decade later, it’s still around.
Complicating the picture further, both Facebook and Google have now evolved into something so rich in functionality that it becomes increasingly expensive for anyone to create an alternative.
Imo Facebook doesn’t come close to Google in terms of functionality and diversity. Google has soaked itself right into the every aspect of the world wide Web. Google have also been working on endless technology that has nothing to even do with their website.
If I see one more “look how cute my baby is” photo, I’ll nut someone!
It still amazes me that you cannot actually comment on so called journalistic websites like thejournal.ie and irishtimes.ie without a twitter or facebook a/c. These corporate websites are not services – they are companies. At least the disqus comment system lets you comment with other options or the guardian.com lets you create a guardian login.
By giving no other option thejournal.ie are just slaves to the facebook system of profile advertising aimed at individuals and their privacy. Forcing web users to use their real identities is what has created so many problems for kids being stalked and internet bullying.
@marko its an internet ID by the back door forcing people to log in using social networks.
I read an article recently that said teenagers are already leaving Facebook in favour if twitter and snapchat as there is too much potential for parental spying on Facebook lol. So I would say the decline has begun already. Sooner the better, then we won’t gave to be hearing about the best boyfriend/ girlfriend. Hubby/wife child dog life job and so on. If only everyone’s life was as good and interesting as their Facebook life then there would be no need for Facebook at all lol
Catherine you’ve said it! Facebook in the long run will only serve to make people sad.
Catherine, I never understand why facebook are so focused on teenagers. They all go to school and see their friends everyday. Why do they need to go on facebook? They are too busy with school, actitivies and homework. If I was in school, I would have no interest in facebook.
The problem with facebook is they are so focusing on the younger market rather than everyone. I am about to leave facebook if they change AGAIN. It is quite irritating as they are not suiting us and changing the privacy settings all the time. They are only making us more exposed when most of us want to be private on facebook with friends only.
“If only everyone’s life was as good and interesting as their Facebook life then there would be no need for Facebook at all ” – Very true indeed. I find facebook has stopped people ringing you up to see how you are, how was your day, etc as well. It is actually anti-social as well. Not sure if everyone finds the same.
A pure blight.
bebo went out of fashion quicker than a leper. FB will be the same I’d say. It’s awkward and not as user friendly as it could be. Nor is it moving with the times. Makes sense it’ll go into decline. The sooner the better imo.
“Works at ” full time mammy to my beautiful princess………………………………DIE
I can’t argue with their comments
“but not yet peer-reviewed”
That’s as far as I need to read.
Need or are able?
A self filled spreadsheet for marketing companies, I found out guy I knew passed away on fb hours after it happened, what about family & friends?
I don’t have a Facebook account and when people find out that I’m not on it, they are shocked. But to tell the truth, it really is a waste of time.
How do you know?
80% in 3 years…
Doubtful.
There is a strong school of thought that sees FB as a tool created for the sole reason of spying on the public
If it wasn’t it was utilised in that way
The NSA/CIAs wet dream.
Well I hate the way they read my statuses but never like any of them
Ah will you read the research!!! It’s totally flawed when you actually read it see where Princeton got their data from!!! (Also, this was news yesterday and debunked already today)
It’s dropping off with the younger generation, because their parents are on it,. but it’s still getting more subscribers every day…
Agreed – their research was taken from Google link stats. However over 40% of FB’s traffic is now driven from mobile devices. Apps that don’t require browser click-through. They are honest in their research but their conclusions are questionable. Facebook will decline over time, but nowhere near that level that quickly. Critical mass has been met in the older generation.
Possibly the best and worst creation ever !
I’ll answer this question with a question… Is anything in life permanent?…… Facebook will go the way of Bebo and the Dodo…..its just a matter of time
So will you
Tis great for finding out how hot it is in Australia though
shareholders = running for the hills now !
Facebook dead by 2017? Microsoft to buy it next year then.
Clearly didn’t factor in funny cat pictures coefficient in the model so doesn’t reflect reality. You can debate whether facebook is good or a time waster. It’s here to stay. Not up for debate.
I’m sure Bebo said the same at some point…
Consider that few grannies or parents were on Bebo. Schools didn’t have Bebo sites. Don’t remember many companies putting its logo on their vans. Can we even continue to compare them now that Facebook has such a reach as it does?
Agree Winston. Facebook is a phenomenon. I had a myspace, very few of my friends did, never mind my parents, aunties, uncles…etc. Then I had a Bebo, that caught on with most of my friends, but my parents, aunties, uncles…etc had no interest.
Then Facebook came along. Everyone is on it, people learn to use computers just to be on it. It’s just part of life now, just like Google or YouTube or smartphones.
Its more hassle than its worth really,
Dear journal.ie.
Please have a little backbone and step back from the corporate monster.
Your agenda is obviously in tune with it but I just thought I’d ask.
Allow the readers here to post their thoughts without jumping through their hoops just to contribute to your fine paper.
Go on. Surprise everybody.
It does seem to be dying away a bit very rarwly post just looking for jokes
Got board of FB ages ago. Still have to use it but twitter all the way
Nonsense. Try comparing Facebook to Google, rather than MySpace. Facebook is evolving all the time, it won’t fade like MySpace.
can i ask what a troll is ??
See above
I thought that there was only five people left using it and they are the ones who spend a day coming up with naff philosophical graphics about how good life is and how you should be true to yourself and stop the seal slaughter and love your daughter etc ad infinitum et nauseum. Everyone else just hits the share button with a silly comment if they can manage it while driving.
Facebook is the single biggest most waste of time ever. Young people don’t know how to socialise anymore because of it . People use social networks to behave in a way that is not acceptable in normal life. So many idiots now online. The world’s productivity must have dropped when it was released it should be banned.
have your say