Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
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 –
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Should be 50 thousand euro fine.
@Gerard Carey: And the undocumented person sent straight to a detention centre until deportation to wherever the plane came from!
@Dave Callaghan: Afghanistan doesn’t issue passports to citizens anymore. So, what happens people trying to flee the taliban? Deport them back again?
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Well, they won’t get a direct flight to Ireland, so maybe they should seek asylum in the first safe country they land in, as per the rules of asylum seeking.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: yes
@Mike Carson: No such rule exists Mike. Whatever concerns you might have about immigration are completely undermined by telling lies such as this. Try coming up an honest argument and you might get a bit more traction.
@Kevin Collins:EU law provides four safe country concepts which can be applied: ‘First country of asylum: Asylum seekers and refugees may be returned to a country where they have, or could have, sought international protection and where their safety would not be jeopardised, whether in that country or through a return from the first country to the country of origin.’ (European Union Agency for Asylum). Don’t make stuff up Kevin.. or perhaps educate yourself before commenting in future..
@Brian: https://gript.ie/refugees-having-to-stop-at-first-safe-country-is-a-far-right-myth-varadkar/
@Brian: This does not mean that an asylum seeker is required to apply in that first country though, it just means that if an application is refused in e.g. Ireland, then it is possible for Ireland to deport them to that first country. It’s not a grounds for refusal in Ireland either.
There was literally an article about this a few months ago which explains the regime. Like I said, there is a lot of misunderstanding (and outright lies) surrounding the topic so please follow your own advice and educate yourself before commenting further.
https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-regulation-asylum-seekers-first-safe-country-6269603-Jan2024/
@Kevin Collins: So your Journal article trumps the written word of EU law as quoted back to you.. and our own government and national and international media are guilty of lying to us.. Id say put a bit more thought into this Kevin… and not solely rely on a Journal article ..
@Brian: The fact that you don’t understand the EU law in this area doesn’t actually change the law Brian nor does it mean our government or media are lying to you. The journal article does a good job of explaining the situation without the legalese, which is that there is NO obligation to claim asylum in the first safe country. This is a fact, whether you agree with it or not. Feel free to take a case challenging this if you like. Or just continue believing and spouting falsehoods, which is not going to achieve anything.
@Kevin Collins:Well let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right.. I have at the very least ably demonstrated,within the EUs own regulations and said belief being held and repeated by multiple government sources and national and international media. For you to turn around and call someone a liar for repeating what they have been informed to be the truth by all these so called trusted sources.. is despicable. And you seem to think you understand EU law because you read a Journal article.. I suggest you broaden the scope in terms of sources..
@Brian: as I have stated above, and as explained in the journal article, the provision of EU law you cited is relevant in the context of a decision to refuse asylum but does not itself create an obligation to apply for asylum in a first country. I’ll give you some credit and say you are not intentionally lying, but you are simply misinformed and/or do not understand the legal text. Have a read of the full Directive there (or more accurately, the transposing statutory instrument) and you won’t see it stated anywhere that an asylum applicant needs to apply in a first country. I appreciate that may not necessarily approve of this situation, but that is how the asylum mechanism operates across the EU.
@Kevin Collins:’ That followed calls by Greece, Italy and Malta last month to overhaul the Dublin Regulation, whereby refugees must seek asylum in the first country they enter. ’ The Journal ie ’23
@Brian: we haven’t signed up to this and not yet implemented, so Kevin is right,
@Kevin Collins: window shopping
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: If they have no passport, please explain how they end up on a commercial airline? Stop virtuesignalling for fake asylum seekers, dude. You are not helping anyone, especially genuine asylum seekers who are in real trouble. Everybody can see this sham for what it is now. Stop making yourself look foolish with this bs rhetoric.
@YKwkSIqW: the example that Sean gave is exactly that of a genuine refugee. So he/she travels on falsified docs and destroys them on arrival. So cut the virtue signalling accusation nonsense and go learn something about the subject
How many fines have been issued prior to today, I would wager that the figure is Nil. Helen Mc Entre flat out proposing things now, pure electioneering, proposing things that should have been done years ago. Bit late now, they have lost the people, who no longer have any trust or faith in the Establishment.
@SV3tN8M4: Quite a few actually, and not difficult to find this information – https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41316454.html. Seems a bit unfair to me though as passengers are destroying their travel docs on arrival.
@SYaxJ2Ts: then they don’t have docs to enter- simple really. And therein
Lies the first criminal offence – destruction of a legal document
@You’re Not Serious: so why fine the airline?
New procedure for all airports for passengers boarding a plane should be a scan of the passport and then saved and kept at the point of departure.
Immigration can then check with airport of departure for a copy of the scanned document that disappeared “mysteriously” while the person was in flight.
There is no way in hell that one will be allowed to board a flight from the UK, for example, without a valid travel document.
@George Vladisavljevic: The discarded documents have to be on the plane somewhere . You can’t flush them down the toilet. Would such documents not be handed to immigration authorities when found?
@Patrick MC Dermott: Might be easier to find on a memory stick, for example than trying to find the physical one on a plane somewhere.
@George Vladisavljevic:
Excellent idea.
I thought the papers had to be shown,on arrival too.
No papers ,no entry.
@Patrick MC Dermott:
Of course a passport could be flushed if it was torn into small pieces. Easier to flush on an airplane toilet than any other one.
@Patrick MC Dermott: The People Trafficker travels with the migrants and collects the passports from them before disembarking and takes the passports with him out of the airport, presumably for re-use!
@Patrick MC Dermott: You show your documents at passport control. When you get of the plane just flush them down the toilet or even throw them in the bin before you reach passport control.
It should be the person breaking the law that should be arrested fined and removed from the state
Noone should ever be on a flight without a passport scan.
If they destroy the passport on board the airline must produce the scan of the passport they used when boarding.
Failure to do this €80,000 fine to the airline and the passenger is jailed until his/her identity is established
How can you even board a plane to Ireland without a travel document? It’s not a domestic flight from Europe, we’re not in the Schengen area
And if the passport is destroyed during the flight it can hardly be the airline’s fault can it?
@Jerry LeFrog:
Agreed, but it should be simple to verify what documents were used to book the flight and get through security at the departing airport. Either way they should be sent packing back to wherever they came from.
That’s pennies for an airline
Not before time!
Try going through pre-screening in Dublin or Shannon for the US, without a passport.
@George Vladisavljevic:
Yes, It can be hard enough to get into the US even with a valid passport !
Helen said may be fined, not very positive. Can they can collect their free travel pass in Belfast?
@Criostoir Mac Raghnaill: Yeah, because we have laws and due process.
How much have the Govt. collected so far? Journal please check!
@Patrick MC Dermott: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41316454.html
How many instances has the current €3,000 fine been issued?
The way it works is this: person gets on plane with someone who has already made an application or already has status in yhe country etc. When the plane lands at airport person A hands passport etc to person B. Person B goes through immigration and person A seeks asylum. When Person A is out and about they meet Person B and get their documents back.
Sometimes in the past there used to be a solicitor waiting for them airtime.
I know a guy who went to China, had a visa. Lost his passport boarding the plane and was put on the next plane back to where he came from.
@Washpenrebel:
I would imagine that happens in most countries. Here we give them accommodation, 3 meals a day, a medical card and pocket money ! Like winning the lotto when you’ve come from a mud hut in west Africa. We’re being taken for mugs.
@Regular John: It’s called humanity.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: It’s called gullibility!
@Regular John: a mud hut in West Africa?
5000 euro fine pathetic they should be made pay to support the illegals if they bring them in not the Irish tax payers ,support them and pay to deport them .
1. What if one is travelling from the UK to Belfast? No passport required.
2. At what point is missing documentation a cause for fining the airline? Stands to reason if flying from Europe or UK directly to Ireland one cannot board a plane without I.D, but what of no such I.D on arrival from either origin.
This law does not sound water tight. I’m thinking Revenue should start making, and most certainly enforcing the law.
@Keth Tgi: Very debatable point coming (tin hat on), and it will inflame many but legally UK to Belfast is UK to UK, same as UK to Manchester etc. I only see 2 options – 1) stick up a border at Newry and Ireland either join Schengen or enforce their own system, or 2) create a common travel area system with UK with harmonised controls / visa etc and share data (similar to Schengen). Both have massive issues and will inflame many.
Using EU influence to pressure the French to tackle the small boats leaving for the UK (and eventually Ireland) would probably have more effect.
If this isn’t sorted out soon… and government don’t start listening then we have serious problems coming our way… but this government continues to ignore its own ppl
If a passenger tears up their passport and flushes it down the toilet how is the airline going to stop that? However the passenger does have to give their passport details to the airline in order to fly. Why isn’t there an arrangement that if the passenger then has no passport when arriving at their destination then the airline simply hands the details over? Am I missing something? Is it not that simple?
Make it €50,000 . That’ll ensure they’re checked thoroughly .
It’s time fg ff start listening to us.. ppl being called racists, we are worried bout our country.. they plan to double our population in a few yrs… we can’t look after the ppl living here already.
It’s not jus planes it’s either… they’re coming in storage containers boats trucks throw the ports aswel… these ppl smugglers have been doing this for yrs it’s not new… ffs ppl need wake up the amount of sheep protecting these ppl is crazy… they have no right to come here from safe countries telling lies to stay here…
If you look at the news you will see they are using smugglers who travel on said flight… who takes passports off them on the plane… when they arrive in Dublin they claim asylum… and have the right to stay here until their claim is processed… a guy from south Korea was caught recently with two womans passports who were in the same flight… they had tryed claim asylum when they landed
They are coming from moldova Albania Pakistan, Tunisia algeria Georgia… and most coming from Nigeria… some are saying they are lgbti and can’t return to Nigeria due to persecution?? Most of them are liars… I’ve seen interviews online one Nigerian woman says she escaped a prostitution ring in England and came here… more lies they don’t wanna go to Rwanda
Simon Harris seems to think ppl love, running round like a complete bellend ignoring the irish the irish the ppl he works for and pay his wages he’ll find out the hard way
The airline’s I use always check, there being put down the loo because they know Ireland will house them, so please gov stop talking rubbish,there must be an election coming.we Irish are so dimwitted at times.
I don’t understand this, can somebody help me out? When I travel I can only get through customs having presented my travel documents, I do not believe anybody is legally req’d to present their travel documents at a boarding gate (unless a customs officer or Law enforcement official is requesting) – so how can the 5k fine be legally enforced?
I really think the airlines might fight this one.
have your say