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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 part-time adult educator in Leinster, this time a senior financial services manager living in Dublin.
I’m 33, working in financial services and currently saving for a house deposit with my girlfriend of nearly four years. We both reside on the outskirts of the city centre, close to Phoenix Park.
We are looking to purchase a home somewhere between where we currently live and as far out as Maynooth. We travelled a fair bit the first few years of our relationship and committed to aggressively saving this year in order to (hopefully!) buy our first home together in 2025.
The figures below represent my exact wage. In order to save as much cash as possible this year I am putting zero into my pension and not taking private healthcare from my company.
I live a fairly boring life as you will see below, my main loves in life are the people in it, sports, the gym, reading and even though I don’t have them very often – a pint. I am very good when it comes to money and hopefully, you will find some of the things I do below helpful in your own approach to it.
Occupation: Senior Manager in Financial Services
Age: 33
Location: Dublin
Salary: €105K
Monthly pay (net): €5,500
Transport: €25 – Leap card
Rent: €950
Part of Mam & Dads mortgage - €415
Mobile phone bill: €50
Broadband: €67
Electricity: €125
Groceries: €150
Gym: €45
Subscriptions: €25
Car (all related costs, tax, service, insurance, petrol): €200
Monthly personal savings: €1750/2000
Monthly spending: €500
8.00 am: I have a ritual that I do every Monday morning with a black coffee and my notebook that I have done for as long as I can remember. I write my to-do list for the week, combining both work life and personal. Each week is slightly different but the first two things to do on Mondays entry will always be “To do list” and “Work List”. I write out my To Do list for the week first and then update last week’s Work List. Other items which go on there are what my gym session is going to be on each of the four days that I train and if it is less than two weeks to payday, I ensure I have my “Payday list” done as I like to know ahead of time, down to pretty much the euro, what I am going to spend / anything outside the ordinary in terms of expenses, as ill pay those on payday and have a clear a picture as possible of what’s left for the month / what I am going to be able to save. The goal is €2,000 euro each month which happens probably 50% of the time. I usually end up saving around €17/1800 and have to transfer money out of my savings for my last week prior to payday. We have a large friend group who are all in their early – mid-thirties so it seems like we have a wedding every couple of months which really eats into our ability to meet our savings targets.
8.30 am: Once my list is done, it’s time for black coffee number two and I’ll work for the next three to four hours.
11.30 am: My girlfriend’s mam is a sensational baker, we had her down this weekend as well as my girlfriend’s grandparents who I absolutely adore. I lost all of my grandparents when I was young and have only one or two memories of each of them. My remaining one passed when I was a teenager so since my girlfriend and I have been together it has been wonderful having grandparents in my life. My girlfriend is extremely fortunate to be in her early 30s and have them still healthy and in her life so we try and see them every other weekend. Like I said, my girlfriend’s mam is a fantastic baker and she brought homemade banana bread with her, so I have a slice of that toasted and another black coffee and get back to work.
2.30 pm: Make a protein shake, shovel down a handful of blueberries and get back to work. I don’t really eat lunch or at least a proper lunch when I am working from home especially on Mondays as I have so much stuff to get done and zero appetite. I will train later after work and then have a large dinner.
5.30 pm: Finish work and head to the gym. Train upper body (push) and then head home. I put some music on prep dinner (one of the few things in life I find genuinely relaxing) – we keep it extremely simple through the week when it comes to food, so 99% of the time, it will be chicken with veg and either rice or noodles. Once a week we will try and have red meat.
7.30 pm: Plan for the rest of the night is to chill after dinner and watch Modern Family. My girlfriend had seen it all before and I had seen bits and pieces, but we are watching it from the start and are up to season 5. Very very good TV.
9.30 pm: My girlfriend isn’t the best of sleepers and is an early riser, so she’s usually busted and ready for bed by 9.30. I make sure my work bag is packed for the office in the morning and head to bed with her.
Today’s Total: €0.00 Euro
I try and do at least 1 day a week where I spend no money. Mondays are usually the easiest as I work from home, and we will have done a food shop on Saturday or Sunday. If you can do this every week it means for nearly 15% of the year you will be spending zero money.
7.20 am: I go into the office every Tuesday, Wednesday and occasionally Thursday. I am up and on the bus for 7.38 into the city. Realise my Leap card needs to be topped up while I am in the queue for the bus, so I top it up (€20).
8.15 am: I shower in the office and am changed and at my desk usually by around this time. Tuesdays are usually the day of the week I try and bang out as much work as possible, making use of the quiet office (most people are in on Wed) and two screens which makes a big difference compared to using the laptop at home. We have a decent coffee machine in the office so it will be black coffee and water until lunchtime.
12.30 pm: I had a really productive morning and got a load of stuff off my desk / moved along. I go out and grab a sandwich from the Deli counter underneath Dunnes as it’s a nice distance of a walk and I really like their stuff (€4.50) and the company is nice enough to always have Coke Zero in the fridge, so I grab one of those to have with my sandwich.
5.45 pm: Out the door to head to the Luas which is about a 12-minute walk and drops me right at my gym. I train legs and my girlfriend is also there training, so she drives us both home. I get started on dinner while she showers – chicken, veg and noodles with a bueno each for dessert and more Modern Family.
9.45 pm: Head to bed and watch a bit of YouTube as my girlfriend is out cold as soon as her head hits the pillow (a talent I envy as I really struggle to fall asleep)
Today’s total: €24.50
7.20 pm: Rinse and repeat of yesterday with the 7.39 bus into the city. Plan for today is to try and squeeze in as much work as I possibly can be due to it being one of those days where I have between 4-5 hours of meetings scheduled.
1.00 pm: Back to Dunnes for another walk to get a sandwich (€4.50) Coke Zero from the fridge, browse all sports related news at my desk while eating it and then back to work before a 2pm meeting.
5.45 pm: Same as yesterday with Luas to the gym, train back and biceps and head home with my girlfriend who arrived about halfway into my session. She’s abs busted so does about 25 minutes and then we both head home.
7.00 pm: For dinner, I make a red Thai chicken curry which we have with rice and half a flatbread each. More Modern Family on the docket and another Bueno each before heading to bed at 9.35 pm.
Today’s total: €4.50
8.00 am: Not going into the office today so it’s up, read some news on BBC and get rolling with work. Two black coffees and water until lunchtime.
12.45 pm: I didn’t get as much work done as I wanted this morning due to getting pulled onto two unexpected different calls. My body is in bits from three days of heavy training so no gym today, I take a 15-minute walk each way to Supervalu to pick up some chicken as we put more than we needed intentionally into the curry last night (€4.99).
1.15 pm: I have last night’s curry for lunch and a can of the Coke Gold (one with no caffeine).
5.45 pm: On the days when I am not in the office and especially on those I am not training, I make sure and read. I adore books, but with work, gym and spending time with my girlfriend watching stuff together, the number of books I have been reading has been steadily decreasing. I am currently reading Dune Book 2 after seeing the movie and consuming the original book in like 4/5 days. The second book isn’t as good and is taking me a bit longer to get through, but I read until my girlfriend arrives home and we chew the fat for a bit about work and she goes off to shower and I get dinner prepped and she cooks it – chicken, veg and noodles.
9.30 pm: We are both exhausted so it’s some Modern Family and then straight to bed.
Today’s total: €4.99
8.00 am: It’s payday today so I treat myself to a morning cappuccino from a very good coffee shop up the road and a croissant (€8 euros) and start working. I adore coffee but it’s such an unnecessary expense which adds up over the month, so I try to limit myself to buying one or two a week. I have managed to get through a load of work this week and thankfully have no calls in the diary for today. I pay all the bills which I pay manually on Payday – Broadband (€67) Mum and Dads mortgage (€415) Mobile (€50) (Rent €950) (Savings €2,000).
12.45 pm: I spend my lunchtime reading to try and finish my book before a call which has been put in my diary for 2 pm.
5.30 pm: My girlfriend and I have a Friday night routine whenever we are in Dublin and not home visiting family, that we walk five minutes up the hill to our local after work for a drink and a conversation. We don’t have children and a lot of the time stresses and commitments that come with that etc. but I would recommend to anyone who is in a serious relationship to try and schedule in time to have a genuine conversation with your partner. We don’t manage to do it every week, but I think it’s extremely useful. I heard someone say that they did it with their wife every Sunday and I thought it was a great idea, so Friday night works best for us so that’s when we do it. Topics range from wedding, house moves, work, good or bad weeks gym wise, anything else that’s going on in our life that we want to talk about. Order is always the same – pint for me Margherita for her. Depending on how long we are there it might be x2, which this week it is – (€39.00).
7.15 pm: We always leave the pub and pick up our Chinese order from a few doors down at a sensational local Chinese. One of my favourite meals in the world. The deal is I buy the drinks and my girlfriend buys the Chinese so it’s always a free meal for me after 1 or 2 pints.
7.40 pm: Home to stick a movie on with our Chinese and go to bed shortly after it’s over.
Today’s Total: €1,490 Euro (€2000 put into savings) – €3,490.
9.30 pm: Lie in for me, my girlfriend is an early riser who always wakes up early regardless of how tired she is and no alarm set. We are going out for breakfast which we do on the Saturday of payday weekends (she gets paid on the tenth and I on the 28th) We go to a place called Wuff in Smithfield which I couldn’t recommend enough. Poached eggs on toast with sausages and 2 cappuccinos for me and two poached eggs on toast for herself (€32.00).
1.30 pm: We like to do our food shop on Saturdays and be generally quite active so that we can be ok with doing absolutely nothing on a Sunday. It’s summer and there are usually a lot of sports I want to watch on, especially on Sundays, so we go to the gym and both train (full body for me) and then head to Tesco for our weekly food shop.
2.45 pm: We take it in turns to buy the food shop, this week it’s my turn and it comes in at (€75.00). My girlfriend said she would love spag bol and garlic bread for dinner which I love making so I spend the rest of the afternoon when we get home watching sports and checking on my spag bol which I want to have in the pot for at least four hours.
7.30 pm: My spag bol is ready and goes down an absolute treat but as usual we both eat too much of it and are zombies on the sofa for the remainder of the evening.
9.30 – 10 pm: Drag ourselves to bed somewhere in this region and hit the hay.
Today’s Total: €107.00
9.00 am: Sunday mornings are very rarely anything other than a few coffees in bed and read sports news and catch up on highlights from games on Friday and Sat. 99% of the content I consume is sports-related or people talking about sports, I am in no way interested in politics, celebrities or current affairs.
11.00 am: We haven’t cleaned this week so we both split the responsibilities and up and bang out a few hours of cleaning before the Formula 1 kicks off at 2 pm.
6.00 pm: When we are in Dublin on a Sunday and not back home my girlfriend makes us both steak sandwiches which I absolutely adore. She is fantastic at making them and they always go down a treat. I like to have dessert on a Sunday so we have cookies done in the oven and ice cream.
10.00 pm: My girlfriend is falling asleep on the sofa so I make her go get ready for bed and we hit the hay after a productive weekend yet with the right amount of chill time for the two of us. When we stay in Dublin instead of going up home we spend it all with each other juxtaposed to when we go back home and will make a point of spending a lot of time with friends and family.
Today’s total: €0.00
What I learned:
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Congratulations and a fantastic idea.
I only wish this was around when I was in school.
I spent years typing in basic code from computer weekly for simple games, and there was nobody else doing it at the time and I dropped it after school. Would have taken a different path if this had been around.
Well done, hobby today, career tomorrow.
perhaps something like this could be done for adults too? i know id be interested
@Abi, I just did a crash course in scratch programming, you can download it free from scratch.mit.edu, check out a few videos on how to do it and you can look at what others have made and how they made it, and you can copy and evolve their code, ideas etc.. works a bit like Lego, the more you play with it the better you get. It’s quite basic at the start but you can do some cool stuff once you get good
Fair f*cks to him. Also, there’s Enda Kenny, as usual embarrassing everyone like your cheesy Dad at Christmas dinner.
Well done James. I’ll be bringing my young fella along to the cork dojo in September. he’s only 7 but already made a simple game and a calculator in Python :)
Well done, I’m firmly convinced everyone has their ‘speciality’, be that an academic thing, a caring thing, or an arty thing, etc…all should be applauded in equal measure, all are of equal importance, in the greater scheme of things. This is a superb idea, fair fu.ks to you, you’ll go far and so you should’
A simple solution to a complex problem. Brilliant. Pity this couldn’t be encompassed in the schools curriculum and genuinely teach this stuff to the kids a few times a week, not for an hour a week by someone who’s a few years from retirement and afraid of computers. He’s right, he and others like him are filling a void in our educational system that has been there for years. The trouble is now that he’s doing it, the void will still be left there.
Great idea, we’ll done James.
Great success story congratulations James . Great to see someone who enjoys teaching and passing on a skill that could be life changing for some of the children .maybe the next bill gates is out there amongst them. Continued success for the future
That picture was taken at a special sitting of the CoderDojo which took place in the Dail. We are the first country to hold a “class” in their parliament buildings as far as I gather. CoderDojo is amazing and it’s scary how much some the kids know at them. God help the lecturers in third level when the kids eventually meet them.
Would love to be able to attend something like this. Shame I’m well out of school :(
absolutely brilliant idea and badly needed in Ireland. got to say the pic of cash-in-kenny made me sick because this stuff should be part of the everyday curriculum imo. govt are totally dragging their feet on this to the detriment of Ireland.
I think dojo came from the Japanese meaning of “place to learn” and then coder as in they are training to become “Ninja” Coders. I would imagine it was an interesting process picking that name.
I agree this is a great idea. I think it should be kept outside the education system and sponsored/funded like a charity. This will allow the people running it full freedom to let it develop in any direction it wants. I love the idea that google has given it a facility to use. The kick a kid must get out of walking into that building like that. It gives it a real buzz feeling.
I never thought of it that way, I guess you have a point there Robert, I still think if these folks are giving up their time to fill a void in our education system, the least the state can do is help them, maybe with equipment or premises.
I have to ask, where did you get the name CoderDojo from?
I cannot understand why you got a single down vote, why would people be against such an overwhelmingly positive idea? Does anybody stand to lose anything?
people scrolling down on mobile devices tapping the thumbs up/down by accident, I suspect as much as 50% of the ups and down’s here are unintentional.
Such an uplifting story. Well done and may you continue to grow.
This is a great idea, and it has really taken off. Well done James!
Well done. A brilliant idea.
Would work for all ages
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