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 public relations manager on €62K living in Dublin. This week, a graphic designer on €45K living in Dublin.
I’m a graphic designer from the south of the country based in Dublin City. I moved up here when I graduated about four years ago now. I got very lucky finding an apartment in the city centre which I share with my roommates who are a couple.
Before the pandemic, I had zero savings. Dublin is too expensive. Ask any designer and they’ll tell you this career doesn’t usually pay well. Studios and agencies never pay good wages and there were plenty of times I was finishing a month with less than 20/30 quid in the bank. I had to freelance on top of my day job to pay the bills. Up until last summer, I was earning €27,000 a year so I decided to find a new job. It took a year of bad decisions, freelancing and contracting gigs but now I’m in a stable corporate job that I’m really happy with and pays a good salary.
Now that I don’t have to freelance on top of my job to afford life in Dublin, I have more time for my passion – illustration. I’m currently just working on improving my skills and developing my style. It’s fun and rewarding.
Aside from drawing, I try to run twice a week but lately I’ve been faltering at that. I play a fair few video games, enjoy going out and socialising with my friends and spending time with my boyfriend. I try to go home for a few days a month to see my family.
Thanks to moving back in with the parents during the first lockdown I managed to save up to €10,000 and my only real financial goal is to keep around this amount in my account, but usually, it stays around €7,000. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be saving for. I’ll never be able to afford a house, so why pretend? I am very worried about the cost-of-living crisis, rising energy bills and a potential recession, but at the end of the day, what can I personally do about it?
Occupation: Graphic designer
Age: 27
Location: Dublin
Salary: €45,000
Monthly pay (net): €2,887
Transport: €50 Leap Card a month, a return train ticket home from Dublin is about €60-ish depending on when booked
Rent: €756 (€2,268 split three ways)
Household bills: Internet – €24 (each), electricity – last one was €261 (we split three ways so €87)
Phone bill: €35
Health insurance: I’m on my parents’ plan I think?
Groceries: €136
Subscriptions: Adobe Creative Cloud – €29, Squarespace – €19, Patreon – €15, Disney Plus – €8.99, Amazon Prime – €8.99, Playstation Plus – €12, Nintendo Online – €3.99 (My parents pay for Netflix and Spotify and I pay for Disney and Amazon)
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7.30 am: I wake up to one of my alarms. I’m truly not a morning person and I will never trust my sleeping self so I take away the ability to snooze. I’m out of bed by 8.30 am and get ready for the day. I’ll be working from home this week. My roommates are off on holiday until the end of the week so I’ve got the apartment to myself, which is pretty unusual!
9.30 am: I’d been warned about this particular week for months now and I think I’m beginning to understand why everyone seemed so stressed about it. Literally non-stop urgent messages for an event launch that gets missed. Thankfully it’s only content edits – not design changes so it’s not worrying to me, just a sign that this new project is going to be stressful enough. I make a cup of tea but end up leaving it in the kitchen as I hear the Teams messages going off.
11.45 am: I remake the cup of tea I’d forgotten about earlier. This day is hectic! So many edits and the email chains are getting so confusing.
1.35 pm: My internet disconnects mid-meeting and I take this as a sign that I need to eat and take a break. I devour a massive rasher sandwich and some fruit.
2.00 pm: Back at my desk and pretty much just working flat out getting all the deliverables out while also making constant amends and making sure the correct people have the updated files I’m making.
4.00 pm: I have a quick call with a more senior member of my team for a quick vent and to make sure the workload is doable by today.
6.45 pm: Last piece is a video and I get it done reasonably ok. It’s clearly a hurried job but honestly, I’ve been sitting at this table for nearly 10 hours! I’m done with it!!! Time to go outside!!
7.00 pm: I go for a run around my local area to the canal with my favourite podcast. I really regret not getting out during lunch, plus I’m acutely aware that I haven’t spoken to a human soul in real life all day. I loop back to Dunnes to pick up some extra bits to make lunch for tomorrow and an actual breakfast. It comes to €13.40.
8.15 pm: Still listening to my podcast, I make sweet chilli chicken noodles and veggies for tonight and tomorrow’s lunch.
9.00 pm: My boyfriend calls on Whatsapp and we play video games online together. It’s a nerdy habit, but it’s a really nice way for us to catch up and be goofy together even when we don’t see each other in person. We try to book badminton training for Sunday since it fills up quickly, but can’t get through the app. It’s a bit glitchy so we’ll try again tomorrow.
11.30 pm: After our call, I just sort of watch TikToks and then head to bed.
Today’s total: €13.40
7.30 am: My body is awake but the soul is not. I shower, brush my teeth and put on a bagel.
9.00 am: I am sitting at the kitchen table ready to start the day. My laptop has other plans and I spend 30 minutes trying to get connected to the server. This doesn’t bode well.
11.00 am: Busy day again! My laptop is really worrying me as the graphics card just stops working mid-Teams call and I have to do a hard reboot. Lots of video work on this project to get done but there’s a list and it’s easy to work through.
1.00 pm: The budget is announced in the news so I try to follow along with it, but to be honest I don’t pay a tap of attention. I’m not exactly confident that anything helpful will actually be announced. Paschal Donohoe has a nice voice, though. I could see him narrating audiobooks for kids, it’s very jolly.
1.30 pm: Lunchtime! I reheated the second portion of last night’s chilli chicken for lunch and have a cup of tea. I can hear the sound of emails coming from the laptop. Sounds like the Big Project has dropped and the first article is in for me to get going on, but I still have a large workload to get through first. I call my dad, who’s better at understanding the budget and money stuff but end up talking about the dog which is far more fun.
2.30 pm: Back to work.
6.00 pm: I get a lot done! I start the Big Project but don’t have as much time to prepare as I wanted. I message the printer and we’re hoping to get the file to them by 11 pm.
6.15 pm: My amazing boyfriend pops by to drop over some snacks to get me through the night. I love this human. He can’t stay but I am very, very grateful!
11.00 pm: This has been an absolute slog, there are so many contributors, edits and reviews. I’m still new to the company so I didn’t really have context for what this would be like, but man this is not fun. Content is being rewritten non-stop so it’s a juggle to make sure every change is integrated. My computer only crashes twice but the rendering out of the document and the connection to the server is keeping the anxiety levels high.
12.00 am: We’re still working on it. So many edits. My eyes after hours of staring at a screen are beginning to make the amends I’m being asked for more challenging. I let the printers know that we’re all in for a long night.
3.00 am: We’re so close but there are still rewrites. The connection to the server and my laptop are really struggling, we’re losing so much time to the fact that it takes eight minutes to export the document with the new edits for review. I underestimated what this would be like. I’ve worked late nights before but not after such a long day beforehand.
3.48 am: We have official sign off!! I’m so tired. I send it immediately to the printers before they change anything. I message my boss that it’s done and I’m going to have a late start tomorrow. By 4 am my brain has completely short-circuited and I fall asleep.
Today’s total: €0.00 – no spend but my god wtf was this day
11.00 am: I slept in. Yesterday was just bananas and I’m still tired from it. I log on to Teams and immediately get yelled (in a kind way) at to log off. I worked up some time in lieu from last night so I head back to bed after I let my boss know what went on.
1.00 pm: Never in all my life has my bed been this comfy. After a struggle to escape the covers, I have a shower, freshen up and go get an iced latte and a brownie bite from my favourite cafe which is just a short walk from my apartment. This comes to €5.70.
2.30 pm: The storm of work that was last night seems to have subsided and I’m able to finish off some smaller jobs I’d put off. I follow up with some teammates to check capacity and send off some video assets. During this time my boyfriend lets me know the badminton app’s working so we both book in. This is €6 per person.
5.30 pm: My sister calls after work and we catch up. She fills me in on all the local drama going on at home while I go for a walk to my friend’s apartment.
6.20 pm: It’s an arts and crafts night. This is just an excuse to get together and hang out. God love the gays but we do love a themed event so tonight we all bring some cheap art supplies. It’s silly, but everyone has fun. Eventually, we order food plus I buy some extra sushi rolls to share (€26.51). We make plans to have a movie night on Sunday and I make a mental note to redraw a doodle that I think would look really good on a t-shirt.
10.00 pm: I get home, sketch out the design on Photoshop with my drawing tablet, watch a few silly videos on YouTube while working on it and head to bed by about 11.45 pm.
Today’s total: €38.21
8.55 am: Got up late, brush my teeth and I’ll be working in comfy clothes today. So far it’s just basic edits. My friend reminds me that we have a meeting in the office at 2 pm that I completely forgot about. Well damn. I’m going to have to head in at lunch.
12.30 pm: Had a busy morning of edits but it’s a doable amount of work. I make a rasher bagel (food of the gods), grab a shower and make myself presentable to head into the office.
1.20 pm: I meet my coworkers in the canteen. One buys me a coffee so now I’ll owe her next time!
3.00 pm: The meeting was fine and now I’m working in the office till close of business. The workload is still high so I’m rushing to hit deadlines.
5.30 pm: I’m sent some last minute jobs but they’ll have to wait till tomorrow. There’s work drinks organised for a senior management person I’ve never met but hey free food and drink!
10.00 pm: According to my Whatsapp history, I left around 10pm. Five gin and tonics and two vodka cokes later, I’m surprised I made a sensible(ish) decision and I stay up drinking enough water to hopefully not be hungover. I try to concentrate intensely on an episode of Drag Race UK but my ears don’t seem to be working. I fall asleep at an unknown hour.
Today’s total: €0.00
7.30 am: Somehow drunk me managed to avoid a hangover. I go from feeling drunk to sober after a shower. My team all catch up to see who’s capable of working and who’s still suffering from last night. Surely if the whole office was out last night, there won’t be that much work today right? I’m so confident it’ll be an easy day. I even post some illustrations on my Instagram.
12.30 pm: There’s someone high up that doesn’t seem to understand that any edit asked for on their end means I have to redo days of work. This leads to another late lunch of just a bagel and tea at my kitchen table.
6.00 pm: I get everything sent. This was not a normal week! I’d only been working on one large project for about two months and then suddenly to have three all on the same scale and priority while also being expected to cover more minor tasks so I’m wrecked. My roommates arrive home but they smartly avoid the kitchen till I close the laptop down. I am READY for this weekend.
7.00 pm: I buy some razors for my beard (€16.80), get ready to go out and get the Luas to meet my boyfriend. It’s about a 30-minute journey so I call my parents for a goss sesh and to organise when’s best to visit next. I get to my bf’s stop and he drives us to his apartment.
9.00 pm: We did have tickets to go to a gay event with some of his friends, but I think we were both waiting for one of us to cave and suggest a night in. We’re both tired and the taxi would have been fierce expensive! Instead our date night consists of ordering some takeaway burgers (€30.14) playing video games online with some of my friends, watching the Lord of the Rings show, and making cookie dough before sleep at 1am.
Today’s total: €46.94
10.30 am: I’m out of bed later than my boyfriend but we don’t have any plans so it’s all good. The cookies turned out amazing and made the whole apartment smells delicious. Although he doesn’t drink dairy so there’s no chance of a good cup of tea or coffee while I’m here.
1.00 pm: He needs to renew his driving licence so we decide it’d be a nice walk to the Garda Station and also get food. Brunch for the two of us comes to €31.29… still trying to wrap my head around that one. It wasn’t even that good.
2.30 pm: The garda won’t share a pen due to Covid regulations, so we walk to mine to fill in the forms. I’m bricking it because my room’s in an absolute state. I didn’t think he’d be seeing it today!
5.00 pm: We get distracted reorganising my room and Marie Kondo-ing my life but eventually get back to the Garda station and get his licence sorted. We walk back to his place, enjoying the nice weather.
7.00 pm: It’s a night in at his again. We try making a cocktail but we’re not 100% sure we get it right. It’s pure lethal! We get some food delivered and since I covered brunch, he covers this.
9.00 pm: His roommate convinces us to watch a horror film on Netflix even though we’re all big chickens. From what I can tell from behind the pillow, it’s very good and I really did enjoy it! Some episodes of Friends are needed after or none of us will sleep. We head to bed around 11.45pm.
Today’s total: €31.29
10.00 am: My boyfriend wakes me up. We have a cosy morning followed by a breakfast of bagels and eggs.
12.00 pm: We’ve got badminton booked in today so I go home by the Luas to get my gear. I finally have a moment to catch up with the roommates and chat about their week. They made some really nice curry and they tell me I’m more than welcome to a bowl or two. It’s a perfect winter warmer meal.
1.30 pm: I walk to the sports centre and arrive at 2pm for a two and a half hour session of matches. It’s really fun and a different challenge to running. This is the first week I qualify for the need to pay the insurance of €14.
5.00 pm: We head back to mine to shower and eat some curry before going to my friend’s movie night. We’re watching Hocus Pocus 2 and it’s camp and silly but perfect for watching with a group.
9.00 pm: I walk my bf back to his car and we say goodbye. I pop into the Tesco close by to get some chicken, milk and some snacks and veggies for tomorrow’s lunch and dinner (€11.32).
10.30 pm: I plan out some more drawings on my computer and then fall asleep around midnight. Hopefully, I’ll have more time to draw next week.
Today’s total: €25.32
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What I learned –
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