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 public servant on €55K living in Co Westmeath. This week, an escalation manager earning €120K living in Dublin.
We moved to Ireland about eight years ago via my job with a large multinational, then I switched employers to another large multinational a few years later. It’s a large family: me, my wife and four kids – three girls and oldest boy are currently 8, 10, 12 and 14.
One in an Educate Together secondary school, and the other three at an Educate Together primary school. We also have a small farm’s worth of pets: one sausage dog, one Pomeranian, one collie and a cat. I’ve been a compulsive saver, trying to save half my income since starting work at aged 12; I consider saving to be my superpower.
When we moved to Ireland, we left a house in the States (since sold) and whatever money was in our US bank account. I took it as a personal challenge to speed run how quickly I could build some savings from scratch in a new country.
Braces, house extension, oral surgery, kids, school and travel over the last few years have not been great for the liquid bank savings, draining most of it. Right now, we are sitting at less than €5,000 in liquid savings, which stresses me out like crazy. €10,000 was always the minimum in checking for me.
Six months of wages in VTI (an exchange fund) with a rolling stop loss was my US setup. The only tax-incentivised Irish saving buckets that make sense to me are a pension or a house. With my savings focused on pension, we managed to break €200,000 this year from zero eight years ago.
The only money we imported to Ireland from the US was from the sale of a house in the States that we used as a down payment for our current house. Savings goals for me are about having enough to feel safe and secure, which means having options. No real goal to have X to buy Y other than be able to afford a few nice trips a year and to not have to stress for whatever comes with the kids and life in general.
Three years ago, we received the “I’m going to sell the house, you need to move out in six months” letter from our landlord. It took about seven months to buy and move into the house we’re in now. The month in the middle, we shared a house with friends and their three kids for a few weeks (they are amazing friends). We made the most of it and are grateful for the help and experience, but what a ball of stress moving turned out to be.
Having a house we own has been great for our sense of security and control over our budget. The other huge change in security for us: last June, we became Irish citizens. No more Stamp renewals and the need to have a job to stay here. Being on a stamp 1 at the time, between the jobs, we had to leave Ireland for six weeks while paperwork took place, which was so much stress.
We made the most of it and spent six weeks over New Year’s travelling around Italy, made possible by aggressive saving and learning to travel inexpensively. Another unexpected savings destroyer, but it was an epic adventure.
Occupation: Escalation manager at a large multinational
Age: 47
Location: Dublin
Salary: €120,000 + stock and bonus once a year
Monthly pay (net): €6,000 me, €700 wife, €580 child benefit
Transport: €20 to €40 – I work from home, we have an electric car and walk, bike, or LUAS most places
Rent: €1,600 (mortgage. We bought the house around three years ago, put half down)
Household bills: Power/gas are the big ones – €300 to €600 a month in winter, €200 to €300 per month in the summer
Phone bill: €65 (three SIMs: one each with Virgin, Vodafone, and 48). I’m working on changing them all to one provider and adding more SIMs once we can budget a few hours at mobile provider shop
Health insurance: Work pays
Pension: Between company match, bonus month AVC adjustment, and regular AVC, I put about €2,500 a month into pension at Mercer pre-tax
Groceries: €800 to €1,500
Subscriptions: €90 Internet, €20 Google, €18 Netflix, €5 Disney, €50 Revolut, €3 Apple, €20 Audible
***
5.30 am: I get up to walk the dog for an hour and listen to a book. Put my version of workday coffee in the freezer; one sugar-free green Monster energy drink. To me, it’s better nearly frozen so it goes in the top freezer drawer for two hours. Start the dishwasher and move clothes into the dryer. We’re on an SSE EV rate plan where power is cheaper before 8am, so we try to do as much as possible power-wise at night. We average over half of our Kwh consumed every month at night. Car is only changed between 2am-6am when power is ~0.09Kwh meaning a tank of electrons worth 200km is less than €3. Today, listening to book four of Dungeon Crawler Carl while walking around the estate with the dog. At the start of Covid, work converted to 100% working from home and never changed back to in-office. I missed the 45-minute bicycle commute time as personal mental cool down listen to a book time. Replaced the bicycle commute with a dog and twice daily dog walks.
7.00 am: First of the four kids come down for breakfast – I work short order cook in the mornings. Four Ikea waffles, sausage and egg burrito, bowl of cocoa rice krispies, bowl of multigrain Cheerios and scrambled eggs. Mom has to make her own coffee – me and coffee do not get along.
8.30 am: Kids are gone to school, and I’m at the desk in the bedroom working. For the home office, I replaced the bedroom chair you pile things on with a desk on wheels, and an Aeron chair I imported into Ireland from the States in a 24kg checked bag on the trip to the States to sell the house a few years back. Wheel the desk out to work and roll it into the corner when done, happy with the system and workspace.
10.36 am: After breakfast and lunch-making, we’re low on cheddar cheese and eggs. Head to Dunnes between Zoom calls for the messages. Had €5 and €10 off vouchers, so needed to spend €75. Spent €61.80.
3.03 pm: Spend €15.82 on Amazon to order more pool chemicals. Need to shock the pool as the filter is turning pink, indicating pink slime bacteria. Do not want to run out of shock treatment, so ordering more to keep plenty in stock. We have a 10,000-litre above ground pool in the back garden. It’s part of the summer kids entertainment programme and the power bill consumer. Costs about €110 a month to keep to pool above 25 °C. Totally worth it to us as our kids, plus many neighbours’ kids, spend hours a day in it over the summer break. Heat the pool at night with a 3 kW immersion-style heater when power is cheap and during the day with a 0.5 kW heat pump heater on cooler days. 0.05 kWh to run the pump 24 hours a day to keep the water clean and moving.
5.20 pm: Done with work, time to walk the dog. Wife and two oldest daughters are off to Dundrum shopping centre for the youngest daughter’s birthday on Monday next. They texted and are collecting food for dinner. Five Guys (€60.63). We do not do it often, it’s a treat. The hot dogs remind us of the States. Most tube-shaped meats in Ireland are smoked. Not a fan of smoked meats.
7.00 pm: Drive to Balally Luas stop for hot yoga. With the Revolut Ultra card (€50 a month) comes 20 Classpass credits. The credits turn into once-a-week hot yoga sessions for me. Parking is €2.50. Depending on the night, I’ll ride my bicycle and park for free or take the car and pay for parking. It’s raining tonight, so the car, it is.
8.40 pm: Run the immersion on the drive home for a bit via app on phone to have water for a shower; living in the future is rad. Shower, go say night to all the kids, then into bed to Netflix, phone and chill until sleepy time.
9.00 pm: Thanks, Laya – €521.25 reimbursement for an A&E visit at the Beacon last week that was €650 out of pocket.
Today’s total: €140.75 spent, 521.25 added to the account for a net daily positive of 380.50 if you ignore what we spent last week
Spare change: €7 – absolutely love the Revolut spare change feature adding as a daily tracking item.
5.30 am: Up for the dog walk. No dishes or laundry this morning.
7.00 am: Early riser child is down with her sausage dog. She is having pop tarts and cottage cheese for breakfast. Make mom her eggs for breakfast as she’s headed off to WeWork in the city centre today. Another Revolut Ultra benefit is three days a month at WeWork. Wife is a bit of an introvert and values her time away from the house and family to work and recharge. WeWork is a great option for her to go write away from all the life distractions contained in the house. For Christmas and her birthday every year, she gets a few nights in a hotel away from everyone as a “mom break”. WeWork is bonus break on top. She leaves by 7.30am, about when the kids are all down making breakfast requests. Eggs and sausage, pop tart and cereals for the rest.
3.55 pm: Ordered Romayo’s for dinner. Kids are walking their dogs there to collect it. Trapped on two Zoom calls, Mom is at WeWork, and kids are hungry. Had planned on making taco meat for dinner but work got away from me today. Comes to €45.54, but €50.14 comes out of the main account. Why? I have Revolut Spare change setup with x10 – 0.46 times ten means I add €4.60 to the savings account when spending €45.54. I love this feature as the savings add up quickly. Kids have spare change set to their Revolut savings account at 1x. Doing our best to build good savings and money habits into the kids early. Seeing it add up, and interest being added daily on the app has been a good eye opener for the kids.
5.30 pm: Walk the dog to Luas stop to meet wife when she is off the train home from WeWork. We do our best to go out nightly to walk the dog and have the chats. Meeting her at the Luas (12 minute walk away) when mom gets home means she is home and done leaving the house vs needing to go back out and walk the dog. Nightly husband and wife talking, and dog walking time, is guaranteed time for us to talk to each other with minimal distractions every night. With four kids, it’s a challenge to find dedicated time for the two of us every day. We try to go for 30-45 minutes every night. Good dog, forcing me to walk in the morning and the two of us walk and talk every night.
Today’s total: €45.54
Spare change: €7.40
5.30 am: Up for the dog walk. Rain, sick, snow, it does not matter: the dog must walk. Start the dishes running and no laundry this morning. It’s such a habit, I don’t even set the alarm.
7.02 am: The breakfast rush starts. Pop Tart and Avocado toast for the oldest girls. Mom and boy have eggs with sausage cooked – four sausages and six eggs. Plus two small and one Jumbo sausage for the dogs. Dogs get a sausage every morning after they go outside: dogs are meant to be spoiled. Youngest has a bowl of cereal and asks for a chocolate mini roll. I sneak the roll into her lunch box. While playing short order breakfast cook, I made about 2KG of taco meat. One pork, beef and onion mix, another onion and beef mix. One of the kids does not eat pork as pigs are too cute to eat. Having most of the cooking done should make dinner simpler tonight – I picked the meat up at Dunnes on Monday with this in mind.
8.14 am: Oldest daughter is off to have braces put on. She had an expander at the start of the year, retainer for a month or so, and now braces. €1,500 down, €250 a month for 12 months. Top level Decare Dental plan paid back €1,200. Total €4,500, minus the €1,200 is €3,300 for the braces over the year. Add in the 20% bax on taxes from Revenue too, but I don’t add that into math. Submit for it, but don’t calculate it.
9.01 am: Retail therapy after the pink braces went on. Wife and daughter head to Dundrum Dealz for birthday party supplies for the youngest next week (€42.80). They also spend €15 in Saint Vincent’s for a fancy tea set. We’re having a tea and pool party on Sunday.
3.35 pm: New braces girl needed some wax and fancy flossers in the pharmacy (€13). Somewhere between here and the dog walk, the wife and kids ate tacos for dinner. I skip dinner. Yesterday was my weekly weight loss shot, making it a comfortable choice to stop eating for the day before dinner. I prefer stopping eating mid-afternoon and skipping dinner unless it’s epic food, then I have a small plate. The jab makes meals optional vs a need; it’s brilliant. I gave up drinking soda when I started, plus with less food eating and nearly no snacking, it’s honestly about a wash jab cost vs cost of less consumed calories.
6.00 pm: Nightly husband and wife talking and dog walk time. Followed up with tuck-ins and eventually sleeping around 10 pm.
Today’s total: €70.80 and seven sausages
Spare change: €22
5.30 am: Up for the dog walk right on time. No dishes, swap a load of laundry into the dryer; need to have a clean yoga outfit for tonight’s hot yoga sesh.
7.10 am: Wife had planned on going to WeWork today to use her last pass of the month. Instead, she is spending the day on the couch with the dogs, TV remote, iPad and a fever. Thanks, kids, for being mobile biological weapon carriers, exchanging the latest plague every day at school to bring home and infect mom and dad. We have a deal: only one of us can be sick at a time. We’ve managed to keep this going about 98% of the time during our entire relationship. I’ll probably get something next week after everyone else is better. Something to look forward to!
8.52 am: Email and phone pop-up from Revolut notifying me of an automated payment to the dentist (€250). Fifth braces payment made – almost halfway there.
3.32 pm: Revolut pop-up – oldest daughter is at Dundrum with some mates and she appears to have spent €7.50 on food. Food is on us, not them, so I transfer €7.50 into her Revolut account from mine. Try to pay them back in real time when they are out to give them a bottomless food budget.
5.00 pm: Work is done, time to have dinner with the kids. Mom is sick. Short order cook for the kids tonight, followed by dog walk without wife as she is laid up on the couch.
6.00 pm: Drive to collect the oldest daughter and her mate. It’s lashing out, so figured I’d be nice and collect them to save them getting soaked walking to and from the Luas.
6.50 pm: Finish book 4 of Dungeon Crawler Carl on the morning dog walk. Somehow bought book 6 with the last Audible credit of the month and not book 5. Had to buy three more Audible credits to buy book 5. $36.99 for the credits. With credit, an audiobook is €12.33 (cost of one credit), while outright, the book is €34.96. Not sure why anyone would pay full price for a book when it costs more than a credit. I know I never have? My current Audible Library count is 1,381. I’ve been a subscriber and avid listener since before they were owned by Amazon. Do not count this as an expense because Audible is paid for by a credit card paid via QYLD. QYLD writes covered calls on Nasdaq and pays monthly dividends from profits with a dividend yield of about 11-13% annually. In my head, the Audible bill is about 250 QYLD shares or about 4,000$ worth of QYLD, at the current price, not a monthly billed amount of $25.
7.00 pm: Drive to another hot yoga. Normally only do one night a week, but I skipped a week at the start of the month for a London trip and have extra days’ worth of credit to use this month. Parking is €2.50.
Today’s total: €259.00
Spare change: 5
5.30 am: Up for the dog walk again. No dishes, swap a load of laundry into the dryer. My turn to be sick, so moving slow.
7.05 am: First kid is down for breakfast. Manage to feed most of them until the sick have caught up to me, and it is time to spend the day in bed, napping and watching random TV. On the plus side, wife is feeling much better today. Glad we managed to keep our “not sick at the same time” agreement.
11.15 am: €1.99 for a month of Disney+.
3.30 pm: Wife and three girls head to Stillorgan Village looking for Sylvanian family dolls, the girls’ latest obsession. While out, they visit Tesco for tortillas (€6.27), Lidl for something else (€2.37) and the chipper for chips and chicken (€17.20). Dinner is mostly sorted.
6.00 pm: Wife feeds the kids whatever they requested, plus this chipper earlier and walked the dog without me. I tried to help, but did not have it in me. What a waste of a day off work. Mutter.
11.30 pm: Could not sleep at all with stuffy nose and cough. Moved to the couch attempting sleep sitting up to use gravity to help drain the head. Managed a few hours of sleep.
Today’s total: €27.83
Spare change: €21.70
5.30 am: Already mostly up. Hardly slept overnight, so might as well dog walk. No dishes, swap laundry into the dryer. It’s a slow walk on flat ground with a few sits on a bench, but we made it. Getting better; happy days.
9.00 am: Youngest daughter and I drive to Lidl to collect sweets and treats for her Sunday Tea Party. I said yes to everything she asked for. (€95.49)
11.30 am: Wife and daughters go to Smyths. Hunting for those Sylvanian family dolls again (€57.98). Told the girls the day before that I’d give them €15 each if they washed the big dog. The two oldest took me up on the offer and spent the payment plus some at Smyths.
3.00 pm: After a show and nap, wife was browsing Adverts and found a huge Sylvanian family haul in Lucan and made an offer. Time for a road trip – €120 for two huge boxes full of dolls and houses and furniture and whatnots. The girls are crazy excited. When we got home, mom sets up a large folding table in the living room for the girls to build their new town on.
3.40 pm: We stop into a Centra for treats on the way back from the toy collecting. (€20.76)
5.00 pm: Husband and wife dog walking time. Tonight’s discussions: spoiling the kids, yes, let’s do it more often, they deserve it. Dad and youngest birthday ear piercing date in the city, Monday (we had not realised it’s a bank holiday and I’m off work) and working out how to budget wife’s pay next year. She’s going from monthly pay to twice-yearly pay. We’re going to stick in a joint Revolut savings account and transfera monthly amount to my wife’s personal account. Hope to end up with leftovers by the next annual payment.
6.00 pm: Tonight’s dinner is prepared by Mom and eldest from Gousto meal service. Cooked a few of the meals we did not get to over the week due to being sick. We did Hello Fresh for a month this year, which was brilliant to open the kids up to cooking and some new flavours. This week, we are giving Gousto a go. So far, the reviews have not been as high as Hello Fresh.
Today’s total: €294.20
Spare change: €7.70
1.18 am: €10 allowance for each child transferred into their Revolut accounts (€40). To help encourage the kids to have the same compulsive saving habit superpower, we have Revolut set to move half of their allowance (€5) to their personal saving accounts tomorrow night. Allowance is mostly for cleaning the house day and so they have a small income to be able to learn money habits.
5.30 am: Up for the dog walk. Slept much better last night and am ready to go. Had a good walk with Dungeon Crawler Carl book 5. Run the dishwasher.
7.00 am: Filled the oven with sausages for the dogs. Like to get the cooking done before 8am when power price goes up. 32 Jumbo sausages for big dog and 64 cocktail sausages for the small dogs. Should cover a few weeks’ worth of morning sausage if they don’t guilt me into too many bonus treats.
8.34 am: Running low on kibble for the dogs. Ordered a bag for each of them. (€55.66)
2.00 pm: The tea party begins.
5.00 pm: Work is done, time to look for leftovers. The usual work week is Sunday through Thursday for me. Friday during the school day, wife and I get time for each other. Saturday, we do things as a family, and Sunday is clean the house day while dad hides in the office. It works well for us and coworkers love that they only need to work a Saturday for weekend on call every few months vs a Saturday or Sunday more often.
Today’s total: €95.66
Spare change: €3.40
What I learned –
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say