This week: “I’m a 29-year-old living in London. When I was 19 I ran away from an arranged marriage and I feel like I’ve just been trying to survive since then. Equally I have been playing catch-up on lost teenage years and socialising and travelling fully in my 20s. It’s safe to say that I am a spender. I LOVE spending money. If I’ve bought something and don’t use it, I simply see it as money spent. I sometimes compare my salary to my peers but I also remind myself that I went through a lot and I am basically playing catch-up, meaning my spending is justified.”
Occupation: Candidate services advisor
Industry: Education
Age: 29
Location: London
Salary: £27k
Paycheque amount: £1,760
Number of housemates: One (my partner, O)
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: £585 (pretty cheap for my share in north London).
Loan payments: £0 (still not earning enough to pay back my student loans).
Savings? I suck at saving. I have £1,400 in personal savings and £40 in a joint account with O (we just paid for a holiday in Italy).
Pension? I’m not sure how much I have collectively over the years from past employers but currently the total deducted from pay is about £112 and my employer tops up 3%.
Utilities: Council tax £120, water £28, gas £40, electricity £40, Wi-Fi £26. All of these bills are split 50/50 with O.
All other monthly payments: Phone £60, charity £10, Oyster £85. Subscriptions: Spotify £9.99.
Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
I did a year at an Open University for Higher Education a couple of years after I left home and applied for tuition and student loans. I also received a bursary every three months of around £100. The university I went to offered accommodation and food during the week for free (sweet deal). I enjoyed the year and studied English literature and language but felt that wasn’t going to do much for me in life and I don’t like being in debt so I left it at that.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?
My parents are immigrants and we grew up in a two-bed council house with my three younger brothers. Only my dad worked but we never had conversations about money. Growing up I didn’t feel ‘poor’ – we always received gifts for Eid, ate good food and managed to visit my parents’ home country every few years.
If you have, when did you move out of your parents’/guardians’ house?
I ‘abruptly’ left home at 19 and never looked back.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?
19 and what a shock that was. NOTHING IS FREE.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was at 16 as an Arabic teacher’s assistant at Saturday school. When I left home, it was difficult to find a job in my hometown with little experience so I moved to London and worked as a live-in au pair.
Do you worry about money now?
I do when I compare myself to others (which is happening a lot at the moment as I approach 30). I lost my job in the pandemic and made it work with the savings that I had. I do wish I saved better in the first lockdown but I don’t dwell on it much. I’m content at the moment and I’ll earn more when I earn more.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?
Nope and probably never will.
6.30am: First alarm goes off and I say a big fat no to that and snooze. I have a second alarm at 6.45am so decide to do a lesson on Duolingo and wait for the alarm to set off. O and I both do shift work ranging between 8am and 6pm, today I’m on the ‘early’ (8-4.30pm).
6.45am: Get up and get ready. I go to change and work on my annoyingly massive, curly hair.
7.31am: It’s a 19-minute walk to the Tube but I do it in 15 and tap in (pre-paid on my Oyster card).
7.45am: Head into Tesco quickly to see what plants they have to offer. I’m going to my mate’s new house this evening. I have £8 to my name until payday so decide on a foliage thing, £2.50. I never saw any plants in his old house so I hope he knows nothing about them and is absolutely gassed with this gift.
7.51am: Get into the office, fill up my water bottle and down 500ml. I’m intermittent fasting at the moment and water is my best friend to ward off that hunger. Fill it up and my hot water bottle (forever cold), make a black coffee and head to my desk.
12.30pm: Go on my lunch break and heat up a massive portion of vegan curry. O is the cook of the house and he batch cooked too much so that’s a win for me. I eat it with two poppadums while watching Atlanta.
1pm: After I finish eating, I read my book (Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). It’s gorgeously written but I’m zoning out a bit. Food doesn’t give me energy, it makes me want to nap. Power through and manage to read 10 pages.
1.30pm: Back from break and continue to reply to emails. It is quiet at the moment, which is great, because from next week it will be super busy with exam openings.
4.30pm: Log off and go sort my hair out and top up my lipstick.
5.34pm: Meet my friend and we head to Londis to pick up some wine. He buys a bottle and loo roll for his house, and I buy a Côte du Rhône for £9.99. Yes, I am in minus. I don’t have an overdraft and hope I don’t get a text to pay it back until payday on Monday.
6.14pm: Decide we want a cig. My mate has quit but accepts the fact that, socially, he’ll want to smoke and ponces off me. I only smoke when I drink so don’t care anyway and smoke out the window.
10.10pm: Text O I’m leaving and share my location. There’s a bus but it’s not due for 26 mins so I walk the 15 mins to the bus that takes me straight to my door.
10.42pm: Arrive home, change into PJs, brush my teeth, put something on in the background and pass out.
Total: £12.49
6.29am: Wake up just before my alarm and stay in bed and scroll Instagram until my second alarm goes off. Not feeling so rough as I built up a high tolerance from all the drinking in lockdown, oops.
6.45am: Do my usual morning routine of brushing teeth, washing and moisturising face and getting changed. I don’t know what to wear today so put on a repeat/lazy outfit. Polka dot trousers, stripy turtleneck and a bold blue jumper. When you’re forced into wearing a burka in your last teen years you kinda want to go all out/experiment with clothes in your freedom. This is in no way the same for all the other Muslim women. Unfortunately I was oppressed but that doesn’t mean others are.
7.40am: Walk to the station and leave O at my stop. I feel quite hungry after not having had any dinner last night. Pop into Tesco and get a very bland-looking boiled egg pack. £1
8am: Log in at work but remember I didn’t do a Duolingo lesson so quickly bosh that out (on a 127 streak, whoop). I started off with learning German as I have family out there but it got too difficult so switched to French. My Muttersprache is Arabic so I feel it’s easy for me to pick up a third language.
11.39am: My manager asks if we “wanna do food”. Every Friday my manager generously orders us food and we decide on Bird.
1.01pm: Food arrives. Demolish the wrap and still feel hungry but down some water and wait a bit.
1.19pm: I want to book a villa somewhere for my 30th but one of my friends can’t pay at the moment as they’ve gone to Brazil. I message her in the group to say that I’d be happy to pay for her or her boyfriend’s ticket but can’t do both. My other friend offers to pay the other’s ticket. As it’s over a bank holiday, the tickets are already spenny and I don’t want her to miss out!
1.30pm: My friend kindly declines our offer to pay in the meantime, which I don’t get but also understand.
4.30pm: EOD and I can’t get out of the office fast enough.
5.20pm: Get into workout gear, do 30 mins of HIIT and feel so good about it.
5.25pm: Shower after a cool-down. O asks if I want to meet him at the pub but I’ve put on PJs and taken my lenses out aka I ain’t going nowhere.
6pm: Have some food and watch Too Hot To Handle together.
10pm: Start to feel myself drifting off so go brush my teeth and we head to bed.
Total: £1
7.32am: Body clock is against me and I wake up early. O comes to kiss me goodbye and I do a bit of Duo before getting up to start my day.
9.10am: Having cleaned the bathroom I move on to hoovering. I never hoover, I get O to do it. It is my least favourite cleaning to do but I go ahead and do it anyway. It’s super powerful so I decide this adds as a workout. I also sweep the kitchen.
9.49am: Done. The weather looks absolutely gorgeous and I decide to head out for a run. I’ve learned to enjoy running and usually go before work but with this recent weather it has been impossible so I try to get one or two in on the weekend.
10.15am: Follow a guided 3k run, then call my mum back (she rang as soon as I hit ‘start’ on my tracker). It’s so windy (felt slower running) and I cut the call short as we can’t hear each other. Run back home, which is about 800m.
10.30am: Body feels quite sore so decide to do 25 mins of restorative yoga, which feels suuuuper nice.
12.02pm: Start to feel hungry so I make brunch of grated sweet potato, grated courgette, pan-fried with leftover red onion (basically, cupboard leftovers). Take pictures of my food and sit in the garden as the weather is still so lovely and actually quite warm.
12.30pm: Finish and wash up the dishes. Then go to the living room to chill out, in hopes of getting an afternoon nap in. Then watch Little Birds.
1.30pm: Start to feel hungry again so heat up the leftover sweet potato hash.
2pm: No sleep is coming to me so cut up a kiwi and have a mango and continue watching Little Birds.
2.38pm: O texts to see if I want to grab one later after he finishes work. I tell him no but we can have a drink here so I ask him to pick me up a bottle of blush on the way home.
6.33pm: O is back and we get our drink on. Sit outside for a bit and have a nice chat. We head in when it starts getting cold and crank up the tunes. Have a little dance sesh in the kitchen.
9.01pm: O goes to pass out on the sofa and have some food with the telly. I get ready for bed and pass out.
Total: £0
7.32am: Awake at stupid o’clock again.
8.02am: Hair wash day. I love Sundays for the silly little self-care things. I use SACHAJUAN scalp shampoo and conditioner, a body scrub, hair mask, face scrub (£1 from Wilko and I swear by it) and the best thing ever: Le Labo shower gel.
9am: Put some makeup on and get dressed, then plait my hair to wrap over my head in milkmaid braids.
10am: Head out to grab a coffee but decide I need a Diet Coke instead because I’m feeling a little fragile this morning. O gets himself a flat white and a sausage roll and pays as he has cash.
10.59am: On the bus to go to Columbia Road flower market. We want to buy ourselves a vase for our new coffee table and some dried flowers. Also need to get something for my friend so decide to find something cute there.
11.50am: SO PACKED! I suppose it’s the Sunday after payday and the weather is gorge. I keep my mask on the whole way through as I need to get to the other end to a shop we want to get our vase from.
12.30pm: Find our vase and decide to pick up a small one for my friend’s birthday. The total comes to £41.41 (??!!), which we split on the joint account.
1.15pm: Purchase a bunch of dried and dyed flowers, £27.50. Split this on the joint again.
2pm: Walk around the park and head to Hackney City Farm for a little wander, then start to feel hungry so go scout out some food. I want a massive burger.
2.45pm: Find a hidden pub that isn’t as packed as the ones we saw, and order. We get a smash burger and fried chicken burger, fries and jerk wings to share. O has a couple of pints and I get a Diet Coke. O pays.
4.15pm: Get home and take my lenses and hair out. I get into comfies, pull out the sofa bed for extra comfort and put on Queer Eye.
6pm: Start to feel peckish. I remember I have an Uber Eats discount code and we decide on sushi. We order a sushi and sashimi bento box to share, seaweed salad for me and a Fanta for O. £12.37 for my share.
6.21pm: Food arrives and we scoff most of it down quite quickly with the telly on. I leave two California rolls for ‘later’ and O leaves two nigiri.
8.30pm: Drifting in and out of sleep so we decide to call it a day. This two days off, five days on is an absolute scam. It’s going to be a long and busy day tomorrow so the early sleep will be good.
8.53pm: Teeth brushed and hot water bottle ready, I pass out.
Total: £46.82
6.30am: These earlies are killing me. Usual quick morning routine but slap on bright red lipstick to match my bright red, cropped jumper. Fit.
7.01am: I got paid! Such a long month, jeez. Sort out my finances/arrange my funds into pots and accounts etc. Do Duolingo until work time, keeping up my streak.
8am: Get to work and log on. I think it’ll be an easy day as not many correspondences from over the weekend.
10am: Spoke too soon. A couple of colleagues worked overtime on the weekend and there’s a queue of candidates calling.
1.42pm: Nonstop calls. Someone’s bought pizza so I quickly log out to grab a slice.
3.51pm: Jeez! I haven’t even looked at emails and won’t bother until tomorrow. Trying to find some time to breathe, this was mad.
4.45pm: Log off and leg it out. My friend’s cancelled on us tonight, which is a blessing tbf, but I still want a drink. Text O to meet me at our local.
5.15pm: Forgot our local is closed on Mondays so I power walk home to catch O and tell him.
5.45pm: Sit outside for a bit then head in to arrange our gorge flowers!
7.40pm: What a beautiful activity to do together. We decide we’ll make candle light holders with the clay I got from O’s mum together too. We dot the vases and wine bottles (I buy wine with cute labels and slick shapes for this reason and this reason only) around the living room and admire our creation. Our living room will be complete when we finally receive our orange sofa delivery that was ordered in September…
9pm: We continue to chat and hang out. I make a light dinner (more like snack plate for me: jalapeño hummus on rice cakes and the California rolls that were not as gorge as last night’s but don’t care).
9.33pm: Bed, check alarm for yet another early tomorrow and pass out.
Total: £0
6.45am: Second alarm goes off and I get ready. Same hair in plaits since Sunday and cba to do anything about it so pile it on top of my head again. Could be the start of a signature look, who knows.
7.01am: Duolingo and head out to work.
8am: So many emails to catch up on but hoping for a quieter day on the phones so I can power through.
11.47am: My manager mentions ordering food but it’s Tuesday. The excuse is yesterday made it feel like we already worked a week so eff it. We order from the same place as Friday, I get the same wrap but with chips this time. Manager pays (I feel like I haven’t paid for any of my food recently, lol).
12.40pm: Food has arrived and I make sure I take my lunch break this time. Eat while watching Atlanta.
1.40pm: Alarm goes off to let me know it’s time to go back to work but I’m so sleepy. Can’t believe I have to work out this evening. Text O to see if he’ll join me. “We’ll see.” That’s a fat no.
4.30pm: Emails done and leave bang on time.
5pm: Home and find O in the garden. Sit with him for a bit and let him know I will not be working out tonight and will probably spend this evening alone. He says it’s fine as he needs to do music anyway.
5.30pm: Chill out in the living room and decide I’d like to do some knitting. End up losing a needle in a crack I never knew we had. Call for O to help and he spends ages, using all the tricks, to get it out. I tell him it’s only a needle, I’ll order another, but he’s in it now and determined.
5.55pm: Hurrah! Needle found and go back to the living room to chill.
6.30pm: O starts cooking us dinner. Something lighter and healthier due to the lunch I had earlier.
7.18pm: Food ready, looks gorgeous and tastes amazing: half a fishcake, beetroot, salad leaves, onion, dill, grilled courgette, peppers and broccoli, with a yoghurt-based tzatziki and dill. Eat while watching Euphoria.
7.40pm: Scoff that and go straight to brush my teeth and say night to O.
8.30pm: Drifting away while Euphoria is playing but it’s actually getting interesting so switch to Netflix and go to sleep.
Total: £0
7.45am: Why is it on the weekend my body wakes me up at half seven but on a work day it wants to sleeeeeep until my alarm goes off? Rude. Get up and change into workout gear to do 30 mins of HIIT.
8.26am: Remember I had a dream about my dad, who I haven’t seen/spoken to since the night I left. It was a wholesome dream where we reconnected and we shared photos. When I first left I would have dreams all the time that left me sad/hurt and angry. These days it doesn’t happen often and when it does I do feel a little sad but don’t let it linger. Trying to understand why I had this dream last night.
9am: Say bye to O who has the day off (hmph) and head into work.
9.28am: Get into work and get some water and log in. I caught up on my emails yesterday and can see a few have been assigned to me so get on with that.
1.22pm: As I’m on the late shift, my break isn’t until 2.30ish so I plate my food of leftover salad and fishcake from yesterday.
2.44pm: Colleague and I go on our lunch break and decide to do the same long walk around the block as last week.
3.55pm: Back and continue to respond to emails. There are treats on the snack table but I save myself as I’m heading out for some delish food later with a friend.
6pm: Log off and let my friend know I’m on my way. We were supposed to meet at this Korean place in central but we both cba and decide somewhere closer. As I went her way last time, she comes to me. We meet at a Turkish restaurant.
7.03pm: Forgot that they provide you with a lush salad, bread and tzatziki so we chat about work and her potentially moving to NYC while we wait for our mains. I order the lamb shish (comes with rice) and a sparkling water, and my friend orders the chicken doner and a glass of red.
7.30pm: Feeling full and happy, we order a Turkish tea while deciding on what to do next.
7.50pm: Settle up the bill, I pay for my share. £17
8pm: Walk over to a little bar for a small red wine. My friend pays (she’s feeling generous?) and we talk about mental health, more about New York and both of us turning 30.
9pm: Say our goodbyes and I decide to walk the 25 mins or so home. Share my location with O as a way to let him know.
9.15pm: Must have power walked, lol. Get in, change into PJs and brush my teeth. My friend mentioned a free gig for next month so she sends me the link to book. Chat to O a bit and fall asleep.
Total: £17
Food & Drink: £40.36
Entertainment: £0
Clothes & Beauty: £0
Home & Health: £36.95
Travel: £0
Other: £0
Total: £77.31
Conclusion
“I thought it’d be interesting to take notes the week before payday as I don’t hold myself back and go into minus, which makes me take money out from my savings. I think knowing I’m writing this to share made me cautious. I also recognise O has paid for a lot of things, although we take turns to pay for food etc. We also have Italy next week so I need to keep that in mind. Writing down my spending did help and I have my budget plan now so wish me luck for a better spending/saving balance!”
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