This week: “I’m a 34-year-old arts administrator living and working in Glasgow. I am also a single mum to an 8-year-old daughter (G) and a 4-year-old son (B). I separated from their dad two and a half years ago and our relationship now consists of co-parenting via WhatsApp (definitely not how I saw things panning out when we got together at the tender age of 19). I’ve since bought him out of the flat we owned together, he’s moved in with his girlfriend and they have the kids one or two nights a week, depending on his shift patterns.
The separation completely wiped out my savings. After a few months of financial woe, I realised I was entitled to tax credits (my claim predated universal credit, which would entitle me to less), which have been an absolute lifeline. I’m no longer in my overdraft at the end of each month and I’ve slowly been able to start rebuilding my savings. I’m constantly aware that if I were to lose my job there would be no-one else to pay the bills so I save as much as I can and tend to be pretty thrifty with my earnings. I keep a fierce eye on my direct debits, cancelling anything that’s not being used and switching my utilities to the best deals as often as I can. This has saved me over £200 a month over the past few years. I use this saving as justification for the occasional homeware splurge (my main weakness).”
Occupation: Part-time administrator (currently WFH)
Industry: Arts
Age: 34
Location: Glasgow
Salary: £16k (25 hours per week)
Paycheque amount: £1,185 after tax, NI and pension.
Additional income: Child/working tax credits £114, child benefit £35, child maintenance £20 x2
Number of housemates: Two: my 8-year-old daughter (G) and 4-year-old son (B). As housemates go, they’re pretty ace!
Monthly Expenses
Housing costs: £300 mortgage on a two-bedroom tenement flat, £140 council tax, factor fees (including building insurance) £85.
Loan payments: £0
Savings? ISA £1,800, Loyalty Saver £2,200, Help to Save Scheme £900, kids’ ISAs £3,500 each. I’ve always been an avid saver (being the daughter of a financial advisor will do that to a girl) but my savings were wiped out six years ago when we bought our flat and again two years ago when I had to buy my ex out of the mortgage (two of my grandparents passed away at the same time as us separating so I was able to put £15k inheritance towards buying him out. I’m eternally thankful to my late grandparents for essentially enabling me to keep hold of the family home, though I do often wonder how we could have used that money had we not separated).
Utilities: £6 gas/electric (this should be £55 but I sweet-talked multiple friends and family into switching to Bulb with my referral code so currently enjoying the benefit of all the £50 credits), £22 broadband, £6 SIM only with Giffgaff.
Other: £3.99 Audible (usually £7.99 but I ‘cancel’ every few months to get the offer), £10 donation to Refuweegee (a Glasgow-based charity supporting refugees), £5.79 life insurance, £10 contents insurance (the irony that the contents of my flat are apparently worth more than my life is not lost on me). Standing orders into savings: ISA £100, Help to Save £50, kids ISAs £100 each (from child maintenance/child benefit). This locks away £350 pcm. If I have anything left at the end of the month I move this into an easy access savings account for future holidays/flat improvements – the monthly amount can vary between £0-250.
Monthly expenses currently paused due to lockdown: £45 monthly bus pass, £9.99 Spotify, 2 x £25 kids swimming lessons, 1 x £20 kids gymnastics.
4.47am: B pads through and crawls into my bed. Spend the next two hours being kicked in the back #mumlife.
7am: Up and out of bed. Set the kids up with all the Lego and squeeze in a quick bath.
7.30am: Log on. I usually condense my hours into three days but since working from home I’ve tried to stick to working four or five mornings to keep the afternoons free. Most of the team were furloughed (on full pay) in March but I was brought back on a month ago to assist with finalising the 2019/20 accounts. Our audit’s taking place (remotely) this week so I’m hopeful I’ll be furloughed again by the end of the week (please please please). I’m aware that I could easily earn more as an administrator if I left the arts but what my employer lacks in decent wages, they more than make up for in flexibility. I also really enjoy my job and feel like I’ve finally achieved the perfect work/life balance.
8.15am: Breakfast. Whizz up three banana, peanut butter and oat milk smoothies. We’ve reached our peak with banana bread so smoothies have become the latest way to stay on top of the browning banana situation.
9am: Give G the iPad to make a start on home learning (my dad very kindly dropped off an old iPad loaded up with kids’ games at the start of lockdown — grandparents are the best!). The iPad’s too old to be fully compatible with the school app so she usually needs to jump onto the Mac when I log off work to finish things off. This hasn’t been ideal but it’s been much better than only having one screen between us!
9.15am: B requests his first snack of the day, “I’m hungry Mum” is his most used phase of lockdown, the kid’s a machine (though in fairness he only had a smoothie for breakfast). Give them both an apple and a handful of almonds.
10.30am: Have a conference call with the auditors. B chooses this exact moment to announce he needs a poo – the joys!
12.30pm: Lunch. Scrambled eggs for them, scrambled tofu for me. Use up the last of the bread for Marmite toast.
1.15pm: Log off work and log G into home learning to finish her tasks for the day. Learn a thing or two about shapes in the process – heptagon anyone?
2.15pm: Realise the end of term is next week and we haven’t got anything for her teacher. Log into Tesco account to add a bottle of gin to tomorrow’s delivery (£16.50). I’ve been adding to the basket all week so the total cost has slowly crept up from £50 to £100 – oops. It’s all the cupboard essentials and fruit/veg so should hopefully last a minimum of two weeks with a top-up of fresh fruit/veg in between (food total not including gin £83.22).
2.30pm: Head to the local woods so the kids can work on their tree-climbing skills. Friend calls to say she’s in the area so we direct her to the woods. Kids play while we discuss dating in times of COVID (I’d been on a few dates with a guy before lockdown but it’s slowly fizzled out – a bit sad that it ended this way but lockdown has also confirmed just how much I’d rather be on my own right now). My friend confirms that Tinder is still very much active with men keen to meet despite, to the best of her knowledge, the average penis coming in way below 2m. Oh how we laugh.
4pm: Stare into an empty fridge and wonder what I can make with a few carrots and a questionable potato. Close fridge and suggest a takeaway. The kids vote pizza (obvs). Hunt out a 40% discount code and order Papa John’s: vegan pizza for me and a pineapple pizza for them (19.59). This is only our second takeaway in three months so I try not to feel too guilty. Snack on some carrot sticks as we wait.
4.45pm: Eat our pizza on the sofa while rewatching Tangled on Disney+. My dad’s given us his login, since the kids haven’t been able to go there to watch it. We basically completed it in the first two months of lockdown (oops) so are now working our way back through our favourites.
7.10pm: Bedtime, endure the nightly battle to get B into his jammies and brush his teeth. All squeeze into his bed to read a story. It’s B’s choice so we read Jon Klassen’s This Is Not My Hat for the millionth time.
8pm: B’s still fighting sleep so sneak my headphones in and finish an audiobook (Cows by Dawn O’Porter) as he demands a foot rub. I had really hoped he’d drop this habit by the time he was 4 but here we are. I can only apologise to his future wife/husband…
8.55pm: B’s finally dozed off. Sneak out and quickly log into work to make sure the auditors had everything they needed today. No further requests so log out and into my sister’s Netflix account (cheers sis!) to watch a few episodes of White Lines. It’s essentially Hollyoaks for 40-year-olds but I’m obsessed!
11.45pm: End up watching all three remaining episodes. Will regret this in the morning…
Total: £119.31 (ouch!)
5.55am: B’s up for the day. Yep, totally regret the Netflix binge. Pass B a few toy cars from my bedside and drift in and out of sleep as he crashes them into my pillow.
7.15am: Up and eating. We share a depressingly tiny amount of Blueberry Wheats between the three of us (today’s Tesco delivery can’t come quick enough!).
7.30am: Work, work, work / home learn, home learn, home learn.
10.15am: Tesco delivery arrives. Immediately crack open the Party Rings. Accidentally eat half the pack on the doorstep as we soak up a bit of vitamin D. Notice that some of our doorstep plants and window boxes are looking a bit sorry for themselves (i.e. dead) and wonder if it might be time to brave the garden centre? We live on the ground floor of a tenement so have a tiny patch of ‘garden’ to call our own. This has made the past few months so much more bearable. The kids spend hours playing at their mud kitchen and I spend many an hour lying in the sun with my headphones in.
12pm: Kids head to their dad’s. Grateful that they get a change of scenery each week. Also grateful to be able to pass over some of the home learning responsibilities…
12.05pm: Miss the kids.
12.45pm: Auditors seem happy for the day so take the opportunity to walk down to the garden centre. I haven’t set foot inside a shop in over three months so the whole queueing/mask-wearing scenario feels completely alien. Quickly grab some lavender and lobelia and get out of there as fast as I can (£22.98).
1.40pm: Turns out three bags for life filled with plants are much heavier than I anticipated. Arms are killing me by the time I get home. Worth it though, the doorstep looks much happier now that the dead plants situation has been rectified.
2.45pm: Realise I haven’t had lunch, finish off last night’s pizza. Why does Papa John’s always taste better straight from the fridge?
3pm: Friend comes round for garden hangs armed with a flask of frozen margarita. These are the kind of socially distanced get-togethers I can get behind. Despite living in the next street we haven’t seen each other since the beginning of March and it feels so good to have a proper catch up in the sunshine.
6.30pm: Friend heads home and I drag myself to the kitchen to make a lentil and sweet potato bolognese — one portion for me and three for the freezer. I try to batch cook at least one meal a week so that we always have emergency meals in the freezer, otherwise we’d end up eating pesto pasta (or Papa John’s) seven nights a week (not that the kids would complain). Cook and eat while listening to My Favourite Murder podcast. True crime is weirdly comforting in these strange strange times.
8.30pm: Crack open the non-dairy Ben & Jerry’s. I previously felt guilty whenever I spent £4.50 on a small tub of ice cream but since they issued their powerful “silence is NOT an option” statement following the murder of George Floyd, I’ve decided they’re always welcome in my freezer. Also, the peanut butter and cookies flavour is just too good, why deny myself that pleasure?
9.45pm: Have the world’s most luxurious bubble bath and listen to another MFM episode. These are the nights I dream of when B fights sleep. Diffuse a sleep blend and fall into a deep and heavenly sleep.
Total: £22.98
6.50am: My body clock just LOVES to wake me up before 7am. Desperately want to stay in bed but equally want to get work out of the way so I can have a few hours to myself before the kids come home. That said, I spend the first 20 minutes of ‘work’ queuing up albums on Spotify so maybe I should have had that lie-in…
9.20am: Ugh, another Spotify advert. I cancelled our family/premium account at the start of lockdown as it felt like an unnecessary expense when we didn’t need to download playlists but that was before I heard about “some guy called Peter” five million times a day. A banner pops up offering three months for £9.99, should I? I resist.
10.30am: Happy post day! My new Ferm Living plant box has arrived. I’ve been lusting after one of these for years but could never justify the £180 price tag. I stumbled across it online a few weeks ago reduced to £140 and with a further 20% off for new customers – a 40% saving! Figured I’d saved this on bus fares since WFH so how could I say no? My houseplants have also been going crazy making babies over the past few months, so I totally needed a new home for them, right? Homewares are my weakness and my taste has never matched my income, which can be problematic. I always hold out for a deal though and most of our furniture is ex-display or secondhand.
10.45am: Rustle up a breakfast wrap: scrambled tofu, hash browns, spinach and tomato. Breakfast of champions.
11.05am: Beck’s album Hyperspace starts playing. Sudden pang of sadness that his Edinburgh gig has been cancelled. That said, the lack of gigs and festivals this year is going to save me a fortune.
1.30pm: Log off and head to the doorstep with a cup of tea. A neighbour strolls past and compliments the window boxes. Cheers pal!
2pm: Recreate my favourite Pret lunch: avocado/sun-dried tomato/rocket/pine nut baguette and a dark chocolate and almond cookie (I’ve had a constant supply of this cookie dough in the freezer since Pret shared their recipe at the start of lockdown).
2.30pm: Walk round to see a friend — oh so grateful that a handful of close friends live within a five-minute walk. We end up going for a socially distanced walk round the block so she can vent about her boyfriend. Since becoming single I’ve become a bit of a soundboard for people moaning about their partners. I’m never sure if it’s deliberate or not…
5pm: Kids come home. Have our favourite tea: baked gnocchi pesto with broccoli, edamame, peas and toasted almonds and pine nuts. This is currently the only meal everyone eats without complaints so we have it at least once a week. Really need to find more quick and easy meals that please everyone.
6pm: Chuck the kids in the bath and put another Pret recipe cookie in the oven.
7.15pm: Bedtime, book and a 35-minute foot rub for B.
8.40pm: Friend messages to say season 4 of This Is Us is on Prime. How did I not know this?!? Re-sign up to Amazon Prime immediately (being sure to cancel it to stop it auto-renewing next month) and get stuck in (£7.99). I’ve never been as emotionally invested in a group of characters as I am in the Pearson family.
11.55pm: I’ve watched four episodes. No regrets.
Total: £7.99
6.55am: Wake up without a tiny person in my bed. Go to investigate and find them huddled together at my desk watching Disney+. G claims they’ve only been up for five minutes but they’re 20 minutes into an episode so who knows if this is true! They look cute though so I leave them to it, make a cup of tea and head back to bed for half an hour.
7.40am: Put together some yoghurt, granola and berries for breakfast then kick them off Disney+ so I can log into work. Stick on 6 Music to keep me company – sometimes it’s good to hear another adult’s voice!
8.30am: B’s hungry again so prep some snacks to see them through to lunch. Look out two apples, a pack of oatcakes and two treat bags of Iced Gems and suggest they set up a tuck shop. G immediately gets to work making a sign while B munches an apple.
10am: Final conference call with the auditors, who confirm they have everything they need from me. YAAASSS!
10.45am: Boss phones to confirm I will definitely be furloughed for the next three weeks. Best. News. Ever. Quickly check I have nothing outstanding in my inbox and make sure the accountants have everything they need until I return.
11.30am: Log off and do a happy dance around the living room (much to B’s amusement/G’s horror).
11.45am: Lunch: avocado toast for me and dippy egg and soldiers for them.
12.30pm: Pack a bag with snacks and head to G’s friend’s house for garden hangs. Realise almost immediately that it’s impossible to enforce social distancing between kids when they’re playing. Life was way less complicated when we just stayed home. Phase One feels a bit weird. But it feels insanely good to sit in the sun for an hour and have an actual adult conversation with M’s mum. Realise it’s time to head home when we all need a pee, fortunately we’re only round the corner. Agree to do it again soon with wine.
2.45pm: Drop teacher gift into school. No one deserves that bottle of gin more than Mrs T!
3.30pm: Nicola Sturgeon has just confirmed that Phase Two will kick in tomorrow, meaning anyone living on their own/single parents can form a support bubble with another household. Sister calls immediately to say she’ll be round in the morning for auntie cuddles!
4pm: G plays Minecraft on the Mac while B plays games on the iPad. We’ve struck a deal that they can have an hour of screen time each day if they’ve been good/done all their school/nursery tasks AND tidied their room. It’s basically win-win.
4.15pm: Take the opportunity to have a celebratory G&T on the doorstep. Furlough and support bubbles. What a time to be alive!
4.40pm: Catastrophe! B’s just dropped the iPad and the headphone jack snapped off inside it. Watch a few YouTube videos and faff about trying to get the broken bit out for about 20 minutes but to no avail. This can be a challenge for another day…
5.30pm: Teatime: udon noodles with lemon baked tofu, broccoli, edamame, peas and cashews (and a side of steamed frozen veg gyoza for me). Genuine amazement when both kids clear their plates.
6pm: Hear my friend and her two daughters outside so head out for a doorstep chat. They give G & B an invite to the eldest’s unicorn-themed Zoom birthday party (birthdays in lockdown are weird). Realise this means a present is required so make use of my renewed Prime membership and, in an attempt to stick to the theme, order a unicorn friendship bracelet-making set (£13.99 – I usually have a strict £10 limit for gifts but this appears to have gone out the window in lockdown).
6.45pm: Get into jammies and all snuggle up to watch one of Oliver Jeffers’ Stay at Home Story Times (the absolute highlight of lockdown – we missed a few of his live Instagram stories so we’re catching up via his website). Watch The Way Back Home, a personal fave. I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Oliver Jeffers (tall, bearded, snappy dresser) but this series has sent it through the roof. His accent! Swoon!
7.30pm: Bedtime. B falls asleep in less than 10 minutes – this NEVER happens! Have a second celebratory gin.
8.30pm: Desperately want to watch some more This Is Us but I’m already falling asleep and know I lack the self-control to only watch one. Instead I rewatch Oliver Jeffers’ recent TED talk which confirms that he is 100% my dream man (bar the married part).
9.15pm: Aaaaand sleep.
Total: £13.99
6.55am: Wake up with B in my bed and absolutely no memory of him coming through. Feel like I’ve had the longest and deepest sleep in weeks.
7.15am: Kids take advantage of me not needing the Mac and log themselves into Netflix for a few hours. I take advantage of them being occupied and sneak back to bed to scroll through Instagram.
9.15am: G can no longer use the iPad for home learning due to the lack of sound. Log her in on the Mac and she watches a video from her new teacher for P4. Mrs K seems lovely and we like her immediately. Feel a pang of sadness that G never got to finish P3 properly. These are also going to be the weirdest summer holidays ever…
10.45am: Sister calls to say she’s passing Asda on the way to ours and checks if we need anything. Put in a fruit/veg order to see us through the weekend: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes and asparagus. (£9.74)
11.15am: Hoover, it’s been a while! Still hoovering as my sister arrives. She tells me this is the messiest she’s ever seen the flat, I tell her it’s the tidiest it’s been in weeks. It’s not quite the emotional reunion we’d all been expecting – despite lots of reassurance before she arrived, the kids are struggling to get their heads around being able to hug someone after spending so long purposefully keeping their distance. I’ve always given them the option of hug or high-five if they don’t seem comfortable but they succumb eventually and B gives her a particularly epic koala hug.
12.30pm: Eat lunch on the doorstep — cheese sandwiches and carrot sticks for them, vegan cheese and pickle sandwich for me — before walking up to say hi to my parents. We sit in the garden as they bring the kids toys and ice lollies and wonder how long it will be before we’re allowed in each other’s houses for anything other than a pee.
2.30pm: Friday night is homemade pizza night so prep the dough as the kids play Minecraft and (silent) games on the iPad.
5.30pm: Pizza time! Cheese and tomato for them / wild garlic pesto, courgette and asparagus and vegan sausage for me – bit random but so tasty. Eat our pizza on the sofa while watching Aladdin (definitely up there in our top five Disney films of all time).
7.30pm: It’s Friday night so let them watch a few Disney/Pixar shorts before bed if they promise to go straight to sleep (spoiler: they don’t).
8.45pm: Settle down for a few episodes of This Is Us, watch four, sigh.
11.40pm: And sleep.
Total: £9.74
4.35am: B appears to wake with the sun. Summer solstice and I’ve still not invested in blackout blinds, maybe next year? Snuggle up and go back to sleep.
8am: Breakfast: yoghurt and granola with all the berries my sister picked up yesterday. Fruit never lasts long enough in this house.
10am: Meet B’s friend from nursery for a walk round the park. His mum suggests a coffee en route so we stop at a café for an oat latte and hot chocolate/babyccino for the kids (£5.45). Drink our coffee (my first in three months!) while discussing nursery arrangements for next year. Due to social distancing, nursery is only able to offer each child two mornings or afternoons a week (previously B had three full days). I worry about how we’re going to make this work. Fortunately I’ll likely be working from home until at least October but would have been totally screwed if this wasn’t an option. G’s school has confirmed she’ll only be in on a Thursday and Friday so my main concern at the moment is that nursery won’t be able to accommodate B on the same days, they said they’ll confirm by mid July. To be honest it’s almost been easier just having the kids at home full time. I’ve not missed the school run at all — getting all three of us up and out the house by 8.10am is zero fun.
12pm: Home for lunch, beans on toast all round. G in charge of the music so we eat our lunch to the sounds of Taylor Swift. No complaints.
12.20pm: Calendar notification pops up to remind me I should have been getting a tattoo in 10 minutes, sob. Remind myself that I still need to pay a further £75 on top of the deposit when the appointment’s finally rescheduled. Remember that I recently received a £75 cashback cheque for changing my broadband, tell myself this means it’s basically a free tattoo. Note to self: must pay in cheque!
12.30pm: Fill the afternoon with Lego (B), Minecraft (G) and copious amounts of tea (me). Get an email from a school uniform supplier to say that they currently have 20% off embroidered items so order G three polo shirts and a sweatshirt (£25.46). I’ll order the skirt/cardigan in a few weeks when M&S does its 20% off promo and wait until the end of summer to get her some new shoes.
4pm: Kids head to their dad’s (an extra night this week due to Father’s Day). Once they leave I sit on the sofa and stare into space for a solid hour, then stare at my phone for a further hour. Oh so tired.
6pm: Make a batch of tadka dal (the BBC Good Food recipe is so good), one portion for me/three for the freezer. Realise I’m technically no longer confined to my flat and phone sister to see if she fancies company/dal. She lives a few miles away though and I don’t have a car so rely on her picking me up and dropping me home. She suggests I just stay over. It’s been so long since I slept anywhere other than home that I can’t remember what to pack. Throw a toothbrush, T-shirt and pants into a bag and hope for the best.
7.30pm: Eat dal and naan bread while watching Clueless. Rollin’ with the homies…
9.30pm: Follow up with an episode of Buffy and a face mask, apparently this is how my sister’s filled her time over the past 13 weeks. Buffy’s not as scary as we remember it being in the ’90s but how are we now closer to Giles’ age than Buffy’s? That’s where the real fear lies.
Total: £30.91
7.25am: Wake to the sound of someone banging on the door. Turns out it’s the police — my sister left her handbrake off and her car has rolled out onto the pavement. Classic!
8am: Sister goes for a run so I curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a sneaky episode of This Is Us on her telly. Feels weird to see them all on a big screen, we got rid of our TV and cancelled our TV licence a few years ago so 21 inches on the Mac is as big as it gets.
8.55am: Sister returns and makes us both a smoothie (banana, peanut butter, cacao, oats and almond milk). Realise this is the first time anyone’s made me anything in three months.
10.15am: It’s Father’s Day so we’ve organised a picnic in our parents’ garden. Stop off at Asda on the way back to mine to pick up supplies, my first trip to a supermarket since March (my sister kindly did a weekly shop for me/parents for the first 10 weeks as an excuse to see the kids from the doorstep, for the past few weeks I’ve managed to get fortnightly deliveries). Surprised that there’s no queue but also feel slightly unnerved that no one’s wearing a mask. Grab a card, Toblerone and some beer for Dad (£10.49) and some vegan sausages/pastry to make sausage rolls for the picnic (£3.20). Also get the kids some much-needed new pants (£10) and a Lego mini figure each (£7.18).
11.15am: Head home and make a batch of sausage rolls. Consider making an effort and changing into a dress but this would involve dusting off a bra and I’m holding off on that for as long as possible. Stay in my boilersuit, which has become my unofficial uniform of lockdown.
3pm: Head up to parents’ for our Father’s Day picnic, immediately greeted with a glass of fizz (and some rain). Eat our way through all the sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes. Dad enjoys one of his beers and reminds me that I still owe him a brewery tour from Fathers’ Day two years ago. Oops.
6pm: Kids get dropped off at my parents’ so they can say hi before we head home. They eat their way through the remaining cake so bedtime’s going to be FUN!
9.15pm: Bedtime was not fun. Treat myself to another luxurious bubble bath, another sleep blend-filled diffuser and another early night. It’s the little things.
Total: £30.87
Food/Drink: £121.20
Entertainment: £7.99
Clothes/Beauty: £0
Travel: £0
Other: £106.60
Total: £235.79
Conclusion
“I’m quite happy with my total spend this week, considering it included the fortnightly ‘big shop’ (I’ll probably only spend £20 on food next week), nearly £45 went towards gifts for G’s teacher, G’s friend and Father’s Day and another £25 went on school uniform. I would probably have struggled more with these extra costs in the real world but lockdown means we’ve saved loads with the kids’ classes/clubs being cancelled and no commuting/sneaky Pret costs. It also helps that my (minimal) social life is currently nonexistent.
This felt like the first week that life has slowly started to return to normal. We’ve now formed a bubble with my sister and have spent more time meeting friends outdoors. Although we didn’t really ‘do’ anything I felt a bit exhausted reading this back. It’s been an intense few months so I’m looking forward to being furloughed for the next few weeks and to six weeks free from the home learning app. It’s going to be a weird summer…”
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Money Diary: Unemployed 23-Year-Old In Gloucester