As every person’s financial situation is unique, going forward we’re asking diarists to complete a series of financial-based questions to provide readers with more context to their relationship with money. Please remember before commenting that the diarists are from a range of backgrounds and cultures and their experience, education and mental relationship with money might be very different from yours. Money Diaries are designed to provide readers with diverse experiences of spending, saving and asking for more in the hope that by learning from each other, we can build a more positive financial future together.
This week: “I’m 19 years old and currently working as a community healthcare assistant part-time before I start my paramedic training next year. This is the second job I’ve had. Previously, I worked for Waitrose which was actually really fun, however, I wanted to get some healthcare experience before starting my training so I decided to get a job with my local district nursing team at the start of this year. Working in the NHS during the pandemic has been eye-opening but I’m really enjoying it so far. I currently live at home with my parents (which I pay them rent for) but it’s a major goal of mine to own my own home. I’m definitely a saver not a spender and I’ve been putting money away since I started work at 16 for my house deposit. My boyfriend, J (who works in the fire service), and I would love to buy a place together as soon as I’m qualified, which will be about three years from now.”
Occupation: Community healthcare assistant
Industry: NHS
Age: 19
Location: Dorset
Salary: £11,842 (this is pro-rata as I’m contracted three days a week – the full salary at NHS band 3 is £19,737)
Paycheque amount: £986.85 for my basic monthly salary (although the actual amount is always a little more due to mileage expenses). If I’ve done any bank shifts these are paid at £80.09 per day.
Number of housemates: Three, including my two parents and sister. I also have a gorgeous cat who we’ve had since I was 8.
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: £120-£150 rent paid to my parents.
Loan payments: £0
Savings? At the moment I have £10,000 in a Lifetime ISA, £6,000 in a Help to Buy ISA, £1,000 in a normal savings account and £200 in a Moneybox Stocks and Shares ISA (which I opened at the start of the year because I was curious about investing). I also have £450 into my house deposit fund and £100 into a general savings account for larger purchases like holidays.
All other monthly expenses: £8 a month on a giffgaff goodybag. £80 on fuel (although some of that I get back through mileage expenses). Subscriptions: £4 a month College of Paramedics membership (I will be training as a paramedic starting next February). £4.49 shaving subscription (£9.95 every two months).
Pension? I pay 5.6% of my salary, which is £55.26 a month.
Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Next February I will be going to university to do my paramedic science degree, which I’ll be taking out a tuition and maintenance loan for. I’m also eligible for a £5,000 a year NHS training bursary.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?
We didn’t often talk about finances growing up, despite the fact both my parents used to work in financial services. They will answer questions if I go to them but I would say most of my education about money has come from my own research.
If you have, when did you move out of your parents’/guardians’ house?
I live at home but I’ve been saving hard since I started work at 16 and it’s a big goal of mine to own my own home. My boyfriend J and I are hoping to buy a place together as soon as I’ve qualified. He is a firefighter and also has another job in retail so he will be able to carry on working and saving while I’m studying. I’m also planning on having a part-time job to help with living costs and boost our savings.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? I’m definitely not 100% financially responsible for myself at the moment. However, I feel that I am quite independent for my age and definitely don’t expect to be given handouts by my parents. Sometimes I do get help with larger costs, which I’m very grateful for. Recently my car was due for its MOT and needed a new timing belt at the same time. Both cost around £300 so I paid for one and my parents for the other. I’m aiming to be completely independent financially by the time I finish my degree.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was working at Waitrose. I started when I was 16 and did two shifts a week which I fit around my sixth form classes. I left this January to start my career in the NHS.
Do you worry about money now?
Not really. I think this comes from being quite proactive about money and educating myself about things not taught in school like different types of savings accounts, credit scores, taxes, the process of getting a mortgage and buying a house. I think even though some of those things don’t affect me yet it’s still important to be educated and have a plan for where I’m heading financially. I also think I’m lucky to have enough savings to have a good level of security. If I get an unexpected cost I might begrudge taking it out of my savings account but I know at the end of the day I’ll still be able to afford it and be okay.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? No.
7am: Wake up for work and make breakfast, which is my usual oats and berries. I have to leave early today because my dad needs dropping off at the train station.
8.30am: Arrive at the office and log onto the computer and print off my list of patients for the day. My job involves visiting housebound patients with a variety of medical conditions. I could be doing wound care, venipuncture (taking blood) or performing various observations and assessments. A massive part of my job is also supporting people socially as being housebound can be very isolating, especially for older people. The variety is really great and most of the patients are lovely but it can sometimes be lonely and feel like a lot of responsibility working on my own, especially as this is my first role in healthcare. Today I have a pleasant surprise and find I only have six patients to see. We’ve been really busy recently and usually I have nine or 10 to get round in the morning.
9am: Say bye to the nurses who are still in the office and head out to see my first patient.
12pm: All patients visited and okay. One patient even gave me a box of chocolates to take back to the office, which is one of the lovely perks of the job. This is the earliest I’ve been done in a long time and I decide I deserve a lunch break so I message my boyfriend and ask if he’d like to meet me.
12.15pm: Meet J and we grab a few bits in Waitrose for lunch, which he pays for. We go sit in the car and eat as it’s chucking it down with rain. We have a good laugh while I tell him all about my morning.
1pm: Head home so I can join our virtual handover meeting and get on with writing up my patients’ notes. Handover is a good chance for everyone to catch up and stay in the loop, especially as some of our patients have quite complex needs. Usually this would be in person but because of social distancing in the office, some of us are having to work from home in the afternoon.
6pm: I was hoping to go for a walk after work to stretch my legs but the rain is relentless and I don’t fancy getting wet. I get changed into some comfy clothes and snuggle up on the sofa to watch a new episode of George Clarke’s Remarkable Renovations. I know that makes me sound very old but I would honestly love to buy a run-down cottage one day and completely renovate it so I really love watching things like this. I think me and J will probably opt for something a little smaller than the 19th-century police station that’s being transformed in this episode.
7.30pm: Neither I nor my twin sister could be bothered to cook anything fresh for dinner tonight so I defrost a vegan bolognese sauce that I made a couple of weeks ago and we have that with pasta and garlic bread. I often cook things in bulk and freeze some so I’m not caught short after a tiring day at work, which I find makes life a lot easier. There’s enough left tonight to take some for my lunch tomorrow so I pack that up in some Tupperware and put it in the fridge ready for the morning.
9pm: Watch some TV downstairs with Mum and then get ready for bed.
10pm: Decide to read for a bit before going to sleep for 11pm.
Total: £0
8.30am: Looks like my quiet morning yesterday was a lucky one-off. I arrive to find 12 patients on my list, the most I’ve ever had in one morning. There are two nurses off sick and two self-isolating so our numbers are down today. I don’t spend long in the office before I have to leave for my first visit. Despite my long list of patients I’m hoping that I’ll get to finish on time today as my boyfriend is supposed to be coming over for a relaxing evening and takeaway, which I think we both need.
3.30pm: I finally make it back to the office and I’m starving after nonstop visits for nearly seven hours. The nature of the district nursing service that I work for means we never know what we’re going to find when we enter a patient’s home so it’s often easy to get stuck with a patient and end up being quite late back. There’s been more than one occasion where I’ve gone in and found a patient seriously unwell or on the floor but luckily this doesn’t happen too often.
6pm: Finish work an hour and a half late but I think that was to be expected today. I quickly jump in the shower when I get home as I’ve been in a few houses that weren’t the cleanest today.
7pm: My boyfriend comes over and we have a lovely evening with my family, chatting and watching Gavin and Stacey repeats that have popped up on the TV. J and I order pizzas, which comes to £21.90.
11.30pm: I offer to let J stay but he’s up at 6am for work so decides to head home. I climb into an empty bed and fall asleep quickly after a busy day.
Total: £21.90
7am: I’m working the weekend shift this week so I wake up and get ready to leave. I only have five patients on my list today, however, this is on purpose to account for any extra callouts that come through during the morning as we only have skeleton staff working. Luckily all of my patients are okay and I only get one extra visit, which is a double-up visit with one of the nurses to visit a lady with a syringe driver. This is a small motorised device that continuously delivers medication under the skin at a constant rate over a 24h period. It’s usually used to manage symptoms of pain, nausea or agitation at the end of life; in this instance, it’s being used as part of an ongoing pain management plan. When we get there we say hello and go into the kitchen where all the controlled medication is stored. As an HCA I’m not allowed to draw up or administer medication but it’s interesting to watch the nurse as this is only the second time I’ve seen it done. I help to make sure everything has been counted up correctly before going next door to change the driver and administer the new drugs.
12.30pm: I get back to the office and see there’s a food market going on across the road from our building. I wander across and browse the stalls to find something for lunch. I end up buying a pesto, sun-dried tomato and olive focaccia costing £2.70, which I eat back at the office as I write up my notes.
4.30pm: I leave on time and get a message from my boyfriend asking if I want to come to B&Q to pick up a few bits for a project he’s working on. It’s not the most exciting activity but his shift patterns in the fire service mean we often have short windows of time where we are both free to see each other.
5pm: We walk around B&Q talking about how we’d decorate our own place in years to come. He also tells me about some jobs he’s been to in the past couple of days that we haven’t been able to catch up on yet, which includes a house fire not far from where I live. Luckily this time everyone was okay but we both know how valuable it is to talk about difficult things we’ve seen at work. Mental health is so important and I’m very lucky that when I go and do my training next year I’ll have someone who understands and vice versa.
7pm: For dinner I cook a vegan version of the viral roasted tomato and feta pasta that’s been going around on TikTok. To make it vegan you use a block of tofu blended with lemon, soy sauce, miso paste and nutritional yeast to make a ‘whipped feta’ and then add in the roasted tomatoes to make a delicious pasta sauce.
9pm: Spend the evening watching TV with Mum. We have a nice girly chat and eat some vegan ice cream together. My mum and I are very close and I honestly would say that I could tell her anything. As I’ve got older she’s more like a friend to me than a mum and I love her for that.
11pm: Head to bed.
Total: £2.70
7am: Wake up and have breakfast before getting ready to leave. It’s a beautiful clear morning so I manage to go for a short walk down to the river opposite where I live before going to work. I’ve been trying to make a habit of this when the weather’s nice as I find that 10-15 minutes of stretching my legs and listening to the sounds of the countryside gives me a bit of time to relax my mind and puts me in a much better mood for the rest of the day.
1pm: The nice weather doesn’t hold and I end up getting absolutely soaked on my visits (especially when one man takes nearly 15 minutes to answer the door to me).
2pm: I finish all my visits and head back to the office to dry off and have some lunch. I buy a vegan burrito from Tesco, £2.70, which I heat up and eat back at the office. Annoyingly it’s not very nice and I end up wishing I’d bought my own food like I normally do.
4.30pm: I leave work on time and head home. I desperately want to curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and some dark chocolate.
7pm: My lovely sister has cooked us both a vegan roast dinner with homemade roast potatoes, stuffing, roasted root vegetables and some leek and mushroom sausages instead of meat.
8pm: After dinner we go for a walk down the lane near our house and up into the hills to watch the sunset, which is beautiful.
9pm: Spend the rest of the evening talking to one of my close friends, I. We haven’t seen each other in a while so we make plans to meet up at a local festival in a couple of weeks, which will be lovely.
11pm: I get ready for bed and go to sleep.
Total: £2.70
7am: Finally a day off! I still wake up early as one of my goals this year was to have a consistent routine for getting up and going to bed as my sleep was all over the place. The biggest thing that has helped me do this is buying an old-fashioned alarm clock instead of my phone and putting it on the other side of my bedroom so it forces me to physically get out of bed and turn it off. This morning I also pay Mum £30 for my rent.
11.30am: I’m a little bored so I ask if anyone at home wants to go for a coffee on me. Only Dad says yes so we get in the car and I drive us five minutes up the road to a lovely little organic coffee shop in the middle of the countryside. I have a chai latte and he has a black coffee which comes to £5 exactly. We talk a bit about my university plans. I’m currently looking for accommodation but I’ve missed the deadline and they don’t have any rooms left. I’m a bit worried about moving into shared accommodation as I’m a very tidy person and I really value time to myself. I’m looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends but I don’t think I could cope with loud or messy flatmates, especially if I’ve been on a night shift or have to be up at 5am for placement.
2pm: I go to Tesco and do the weekly food shop for our family. I started doing this about six months ago just to help out a bit more and it means I can buy my extra vegan items at the same time. Mum gives me the money for the general shop and I pay for my bits separately. £15.64
5pm: J and I FaceTime for a bit in the afternoon. Unfortunately he’s on call so we can’t go out and do anything but it’s nice to still be able to chat and talk about our days together. He tells me that recruitment for full-time firefighters is starting again in our area at the end of the year. It would be a really big deal if he got this as it would mean he could quit his retail job to do what he loves full-time and we wouldn’t be limited to living within five minutes of the fire station he is currently on call at.
7pm: I make a big chilli non-carne for dinner with vegan mince, peppers and kidney beans. Half gets put in the freezer for another time and what’s left me and my sister eat with rice, guacamole and some vegan smoked cheese grated on the top.
11pm: I head to bed and read for a bit before falling asleep.
Total: £50.64
7am: I’ve got another day off today so I get up and go downstairs to make breakfast. Usually I’m the first one awake so I also feed our lovely cat and open all the blinds.
7.30am: I have breakfast and then do some of my own chores like putting a load of washing on and cleaning my room.
8.30am: Decide to go out in the garden with my yoga mat and do a workout in the sun, which is nice.
1pm: After spending most of the morning doing life admin, I start planning out the next week in my bullet journal. Mine is nowhere near as pretty as the ones you see on Pinterest but I find it so helpful to plan out my week including when I’m working, if I’ve got any social events, what workouts I’m doing on what days, when I’m going to fit in chores and what night I am doing the food shop.
3pm: My sister and I drive to Lulworth Cove, one of the prettiest places on the Jurassic coast. Unsurprisingly it’s absolutely packed. As we park up, two fire engines come racing up the hill on blue lights towards nearby Durdle Door and the coastguard helicopter flies overhead. I find out afterwards from J that two teenage boys were climbing up the cliffs and had to be rescued. Luckily they were all okay but lots of accidents have happened with tourists in the last year. It’s great that people come from all over the country to enjoy these amazing places but it’s so important to be careful and look after them.
3.30pm: My sister and I walk down to the beach and have a wander and a paddle before dipping into one of the pubs in the village. We sit in the gorgeous sunny pub garden to have a couple of soft drinks and some nibbles. My half of the bill comes to £5.95.
6pm: We pop into Tesco on the way home and I buy a few reduced bits that come to £2.37.
8pm: My sister and I have leftover chilli non-carne for dinner and then go for an evening walk near our house.
9pm: I do some knitting (supposedly I’m making a cardigan although it’s taking a very long time) and talk to J for a bit afterwards.
11pm: Fall asleep.
Total: £8.32
7am: Wake up and get ready for work. I have a nice surprise when I check my online banking app and find I’ve been paid for a few bank shifts I did last month, meaning I’m up £200 this morning. I transfer it all into my regular savings account. I hope to get home at a reasonable time today as J and I have booked dinner at a vegan restaurant and we have plans to go to a fireworks display on the beach afterwards.
8.30am: Get to work to print off my list and discover they’ve got rid of half the computers. I wait for one of the few remaining computers to become free and quickly print off my visits. I’ve got nine today but four of them are in a care home so I should be able to get around those fairly quickly with no travel time between.
11am: I make good time and arrive at eight when I stupidly catch the front tyre of my car on the jagged kerb outside their house and get a massive puncture. I get out to have a look and it’s well and truly gone. My poor little Polo won’t be going anywhere any time soon. I grab my PPE and the equipment I need for the visit and decide to see this patient and deal with my lack of transport afterwards. The visit goes smoothly and I call my dad to see if he’s free to help me change the tyre. I roughly know what to do but I’ve never actually done it before so decide I probably need some backup. Luckily he’s free and comes to help me with the tyre. Thirty minutes later, both of us are covered in black grease and we can’t get the bloody wheel off! We decide to give in and call the breakdown cover but they won’t be here for around two hours.
1.30pm: The recovery man finally arrives and typically makes us both look stupid by getting a massive hammer out of his van and knocking the wheel off in one swift blow. The tyre gets changed and I can now go home and begin writing up my notes. Thankfully one of the other nurses saw my last patient for me while we were waiting.
4.30pm: Finish work at home and start getting ready for the evening. I do a quick workout in the garden and then jump in the shower to wash my hair and generally make myself presentable to go out. I also phone up a local tyre place and get a quote for the new tyre I’m going to need which is £64.80. I transfer the money across from my savings account ready for the morning.
6.30pm: J comes to pick me up and he drives us to the restaurant, which is about 45 minutes away (oh the joys of living in the middle of nowhere).
8.30pm: The food at the restaurant was amazing and it felt so good to look at the menu and know I can eat everything on it. Also hilarious to watch J, who is very much a carnivore, eat a whole vegan meal and actually admit at the end it was nice. We paid half each and my share was £31.07 including the tip. I also paid for parking as J drove, which was £3.50.
9pm: After the meal we walk down to the beach and make it just in time for the fireworks display, which is beautiful.
10pm: J then drives us home and I fall straight to sleep as soon as my head touches the pillow.
Total: £99.37
Food & Drink: £87.33
Clothes & Beauty: £0
Home & Health: £0
Entertainment: £0
Travel: £3.50
Other: £94.80
Total: £185.63
Conclusion
“I think I did okay this week, although I probably ate out a bit more than I normally would. I think this is probably down to the recent easing of restrictions and having my sister home from uni. Like most weeks, I didn’t spend anything on things for myself like clothes or makeup, but I think that’s mainly because I just prefer to spend on going out and doing nice things with people rather than physical objects. Going forward I have put a little money aside from my savings to treat myself to some new clothes and other bits I’ve had my eye on for a long time because sometimes I think I do get a little too focused on trying to put away as much money as possible. Obviously it would’ve been nice not to have to shell out for a new tyre but what can I say – shit happens!”
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