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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 project manager on €86K living in Dublin and saving for a second house. This week, a 28-year-old consultant on €120K living and working in the United Arab Emirates.
I am 28 years old and as of three years ago, I live in the Gulf region. The cost of living and poor prospects in Ireland led me to seek employment abroad. I studied chemical engineering in college and spent about two years working in Ireland and wasn’t really able to save effectively without living the hermit lifestyle, so I made the move!
For the last three years, I’ve worked in consulting. I’m lucky that my area of consulting is quite technical and in demand in the Gulf region, so career prospects are high and I’m compensated well. I do miss Ireland a lot and when my finances are set, I plan to move home, but for now, I’m content to sell my soul to corporate life.
Due to the nature of my work, I travel every week to spend time on client sites. I work remotely for a few days every month to project plan. Work covers my accommodation and transport, breakfast is included in the hotel and lunch are covered by the client.
Occupation: Consultant
Age: 28
Location: United Arab Emirates
Salary: Base €120,000, Performance Bonus up to €40,000
Monthly pay (net): €10,000 (depends on what I expense and get credited back)
Rent: €1,125
Apartment bills: €100
Car insurance: €400 per year
Gym: €150
Phone bill: Work covers this
Health insurance: Work covers this
Public transport: n/a
Subscriptions: VPN – €9.99, Amazon Prime – €5.99, uTorrent- €0.00
Petrol: €80
5.00 am: I travel out by air today. My client is only a short flight away this month, which departs at 7 am. I’ve gotten very streamlined from when my alarm goes off to when I’m through security and ready to board. Everything’s packed and I’m checked in so I order a taxi, which is expensed through work.
6.00 am: Through security. I pick up a coffee on my way to the gate. I’ve tried the majority of coffee shops/stalls at the airport at this stage and have yet to find one that isn’t miserable, but alas we (French) press on. (€6.00)
9.30 am: Flights landed and I’ve taken another taxi to the client site – again, covered by work. We have a big deliverable due so the expectations are for a very long week. My workload varies drastically depending on the period of the project.
11.00 am: I grab another coffee for myself and press on with work. (€4.00)
12.30 pm: I grab a comped lunch. One thing I hate about eating on a client site is the feeling of being watched. On average I spend less than 15 minutes taking lunch every day on site. My boss thinks it looks poor from an optics point of view (I disagree but he’s paying me so I keep my mouth shut). Today was some chicken and rice with a juice – tasty!
12.45 pm: Head down for the rest of the day working on deliverables (i.e., PowerPoint slides) with the occasional meeting interruption.
6.00 pm: I have a 30-minute meeting at the client’s other site so I get a cab there and back. Meeting feels like an absolute waste of time, particularly since I couldn’t do it over the phone.
9.30 pm: A colleague orders us a taxi back to the hotel. Made good progress today, but still a lot to do by the end of the week. I order food from the taxi from a local sandwich place. Delivery takes an age in this region, so I know I’ll have time to check in and get changed before it arrives. My food costs €21.00.
10.30 pm: I go for a quick 25 minutes on the treadmill before I go to bed. I’ve found that after a long day, I struggle to sleep (over-tired?) so I always try to do some form of exercise at night when I travel. I spend the entire time watching the clock down.
11.00 pm: Shower, brush teeth, bed.
Today’s total: €31.00
6.10 am: Alarm off – get dressed and head down for breakfast. I get up early mid-week to give myself a leisurely pace to eat, supposedly much better for your digestion this way. Breakfast is usually fruit, coffee and eggs. Covered by hotel.
7.30 am: Taxi (comped) to the office, arrive on client site by 8 am.
8.00 am: Coffee on site. (€4.00)
12.30 pm: Same story as Monday – comped lunch (beef and rice to be wild, no juice). Progress has been OK today albeit people onsite are slow to respond and not used to the pace our company works at.
10.15 pm: Non-stop day today. Order the same lunch as I did yesterday to the hotel in the taxi on the way back (€21.00). No gym today.
11.00 pm: Bed – can’t believe it’s still only Tuesday…
Today’s total: €25.00
6.10 am: Alarm again. Mixed up breakfast today and went for some porridge and a smoothie – humpday vibes!
8.00 am: Coffee on site (€4.00). Deliverable is due tomorrow and have mostly meetings today so know it will be a late one to push through.
5.00 pm: Meetings done for the day – time to get the actual work done.
7.30 pm: Order food to the office – technically not supposed to be comped, but if we work late I’m allowed to expense a team dinner back every now and then. The bill is approximately €80.00 but I’ll get it back, so let’s call it €0.
11.00 pm: Still here,
2.30 am: Just about finished. Time to order a taxi and get out of here.
3.00 am: Bed. Wrecked.
Today’s total: €4.00
6.10 am: Alarm off. I fly out today at 4.30 pm, thank the Lord. Usual breakfast of eggs fruit and coffee – accompanied by a latte today though to spice it up.
8.00 am: Coffee (€4.00). Presenting at 9.00 am – do a dry run with the team.
11.00 am: Presentation went well. Have a few things to adjust before I share but no harm done.
3.30 pm: Taxi to the airport.
9.00 pm: Taxi back to the apartment. I order a salad on the way back (€15.00), which is delicious. Spend an hour chatting to my partner about their work week – sounds just as bad as mine was.
10.00 pm: Bed.
Today’s total: €19.00
7.45 am: Later wake up today. Stroll down to a local coffee shop in Abu Dhabi near my apartment and grab a flat white. (€5.00)
8.30 am: Arrive at the office and do a quick debrief with the team and my boss to discuss the week and what we need to tidy up today before planning next week’s work schedule.
12.30 pm: Grab a burrito for lunch. (€10.00)
5.30 pm: Time to head home, meeting my partner for a drink and then dinner to unwind for the evening.
10.30 pm: We go to a lounge-style place for a few drinks and then an Italian place for dinner (who doesn’t like pasta, eh?). My share of the total bill is €150. While we earn good money here it still pains me when I get bills like this – pint of beer was about €11 in the bar!
11.00 pm: Home (partner covered cab). One of my favourite aspects of this part of the world is how accessible everything is. Taxis are always available, you can always get a reservation and people in general are quite positive wherever you go. Beats the doom and gloom back home any day of the week.
Today’s total: €165.00
8.30 am: Get out of bed to make a cup of coffee then bring it back to bed to read for a bit.
10.00 am: I do 60 minutes in the gym to wake myself up, followed by the sauna. Grab a shower afterwards.
6.00 pm: My partner and myself head off to play golf for the afternoon – one of my favourite things about winter here is the weather for golf is stunning, albeit disgustingly expensive compared to home (€105). Based on my performance today, the money would have been better spent on a lesson and a ball retriever.
7.30 pm: Head to the mall after work to grab food for dinner (€30). My turn to cook and decide to make a Tikka masala with daal and raita. I’m an absolute sucker for Indian food and have been trying to work on this daal recipe for like six months – getting better, but I don’t think I’m willing to commit the necessary amount of butter to recreate that takeaway feel.
11.30 pm: Movie and a glass of wine later and it’s time for bed.
Today’s total: €135.00
7.00 am: Up early for a gym class today – only a 10-minute drive from the apartment and the roads are empty.
9.00 am: Feeling great after the gym. Head to a coffee shop on the drive back to grab both of us a coffee (€12).
12.30 pm: Skipped breakfast today, but lunch is leftovers from yesterday’s dinner (curries are always better the next day, eh?). I have a bit of work to do in the afternoon, not that big of a deal as my partner wants to go to a tennis lesson so I’m happy to chill. I’d rather do an hour or two of prep on a weekend than wake up to a disaster on a Monday.
5.00 pm: Finished my planning for tomorrow and decide to hit the driving range to get some air. Balls still going everywhere but straight, maybe I need a new driver… (€25).
10.00 pm: Head to a friend’s house for dinner and some food (pizza, they paid). I haven’t seen them in a couple of weeks so it was great to catch up. We make plans to try and get a weekend away organised over the next few weeks. We’re very lucky to have made friends here that are super social. We tend to regress to hermits if left to our own devices!
10.30 pm: Back to the apartment. I pack my bags and check in for my flight in the morning. I spend a few minutes reading on the couch and get ready for bed.
11.30 pm: Movie and a glass of wine later and it’s time for bed.
Today’s total: €37.00
***
What I learned –
I think I manage my expenses well, but should probably start going to the gym before work mid-week. I know I’m in a very lucky position, but I feel I work hard and have been rewarded for the chances I’ve taken.
Based on my typical bank account delta, I would say this is a lower-than-average spending week for me. I usually spend some money on Amazon and would typically splash out for food on the weekend.
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Another quango. How many more than the 600 Enda Kenny said we had do we have now. They all have a CEO and to justify them, lots of underlings.
We as taxpayers are paying for this and nothing improves. More jobs for the boys/girls.
@Donal Ronan: all decent democracies have such a commission or the like, what do you suggest instead?
@Donal Ronan: What’s your alternative, Donal? Get the UN to run our elections? The Ombudsman?
@Ciaran O’Mara: Are you saying that all the elections we have had were corrupt? If so, this is not going to solve it. It has been created by the corrupt.
If so, the fellow heading it, has been inside the tent a long time.
@Donal Ronan:
So, you have no idea what to replace it with.
@P.J. Nolan: Replace what? We never had one and unless all the past elections were corrupt, it will add nothing. Just more cost.
He said ‘we don’t really know what the turnout rate is.’. Yes we do, if anyone follows the counts and I do, they show the total poll and turnout etc. for every constituency. This guy is making it up. He also said ‘We need to understand why people vote the way they do’ Why?
@Donal Ronan: when he refers to turnout, maybe he wants to include non registered voters in the rate. Agreed on his quote about “needing to understand why people vote the way they do” – strange thing to say – I’d like to see more context. And just because previous elections were fair doesn’t mean that future one will be, so it’s necessarily just a cost adding measure
@SYaxJ2Ts: * not necessarily a cost adding measure
@Donal Ronan: great question, the answer is we don’t know as we’ve never had an electoral commission.
Does anyone at the Journal want to be an actual “journalist”? How about interviewing some of our main politicians and asking pertinent questions and not letting them away with the usual non answers? Seriously, have any of you any pride in your work? And then you’re asking for donations???
@Mike: Dont think its breaking news to know most of the supposed unbiased journalists are very much biased and in the back pockets of the political mob
@Mike: Are you a wannabe journalist Mike or just a sniper from the sidelines? The Journal gives us the 9 at 9, the 5 at 5 and ‘what happened today’ every day with a link to a short accurate report on the story. They are journalists who can take pride in their work as this is exactly why they are the main source of news for many every day. The Journal also does Factchecks; Newsworthy investigations and in depth interviews with politicians from time to time. The recent one with long serving & retiring government TD Fergus O’Dowd included very pertinent questions & answers, Mike. It asks readers who can provide any financial support to the Journal to do so, in order to keep it free to all rather than introducing a pay wall. Btw I have no financial or family or friends links with The Journal!
Just to clarify folks – the main tasks of government are ;
- to set up lots of quangos with no meaningful powers
- to do zero planning around the fact that our population has been increasing for 30 years. This not enough school places hospital beds or houses
- to ignore the 80 percent of population who think we’ve taken in enough refugees & asylum seekers
- to give the civil servants a regular pay rise with zero in return
It’s all about priorities
@Gerry Kelly: what do you suggest instead of an electoral commission? You do realise, elections must be above scrutiny.
@Paul Fahey: how about working for the people instead of against them and ignoring them completely, how that for a suggestion… Bot..
@Brian Hackett: so, there is no suggestion just nonsensical platitudes. Anything constructive to suggest?
So another new quango ( the ” electoral authority”) announced on same day as Helen mc enteee announces her latest quango ( ” cuan”) ……. you couldn’t make it up
@Ken Mc Carthy: You are making it up – the commission was launched months ago and was responsible for the constituency boundary report published in August.
@Kilkenny Proud: hey there Boris blank…..is this your new ‘handle’ for 2024?? Best wishes in the ‘trolling’ game in 24′
@Ken Mc Carthy: funny, when people point out the inaccuracy of your post, you reply by calling him a troll
@SYaxJ2Ts: Posting facts usually provokes insults here.
@SYaxJ2Ts: In fairness though Kevin he does stand out like a troll, the person operating his and scores of other trolls on the Journal has little imagination, you can tell them a mile away because they all have the same personality their writing style is exactly the same.
What do you think?
Quango. Jobs for the favoured few.
This upcoming referendum must be a 100% no on both counts. If anyone has an hour to spare go and read the fine detail, it’s an absolute giveaway for refugees and leaves Irish people screwed for housing.
@Thomas Reddy: You should do some research into how right wingers use referendums to pitch fear and lies in an effort to bring American style culture wars here. This has the side benefit of allowing our local extremists to con their gullible fellow travellers in the US out of lots of cash.
@Kilkenny Proud: What is your actual point? You’re ranting against every comment, yet saying nothing. Say clearly what you think should happen politically in this country. I am genuinely curious. Instead of telling everyone how little they know, tell us now what it is that you know….
@Mike: What is your actual point? You are ranting about my comments, yet saying nothing. Say clearly what you think should happen politically in this country. I am genuinely not curious. Instead of telling me to solve the country’s problems maybe you could share your opinions on the actual issues instead of focusing on me.
@Kilkenny Proud: I asked you a clear question. You are deflecting and showing your lack of direction and intellect. Answer the original question or else fk off.
@Mike: Sorry, that was a bit rude. Happy New Year, dude. Whoever you are. Internet gets a bit weird, I wish you well in your own real life, genuinely.
@Mike: Cheers Mike – same to you.
@Kilkenny Proud: Thanks, man!
@Kilkenny Proud: I don’t live in the US and couldn’t give a toss about it or the so called can’t be seen right wing. If this referendum passes with a yea vote it’ll bring years of hardship and many many more racist attacks from both sides into Ireland. It’s what you call a Wolve in sheep’s clothing.
When can we have a referendum to change are justice system and tougher prison sentences. That the Government can sack Judges. That we have a say on the laws on immigrants that their checked out and if criminal records deported or receive one deported with immediate effect.
@Paddy Geoghegan: No, we need to keep the seperation between government and judges (not that the current system for appointing judges is great). We are still waiting for the reform of the legal system that was part of the Trioka bailout agreement,although the government don’t seem to want to touch this issue as it’s already cost a few Justice ministers.Their attitude seems to be to bury the issue and just bring in laws around “in vogue” issues.
We should have politician police who have the powers to lock up politicians who are serving those other than the people of Ireland
If this current government proposes a Yes vote, then the correct answer is definitely No.
Building an organisation for the next 100 years, careful you done make a mess of the country like the main ruling political party’s have done for the last 100 years.
Billions of euros in debt, a broken health service, not enough houses for the population and 13,000 of our citizens without a place to call home, some living on the streets of town and city’s in 2024.
It’s a sad reflection on the main ruling political party’s of the last 100 years.
I wish Limerick well with its directly elected mayor.
I hope Dublin gets same soon – the city is screaming for someone to run it who actually cares.
Local democracy is something our country could seriously do with a lot more of – not least if we are to create a new United Ireland in the very possibly near future
@Gerry Kelly: Agreed, however it will only work if there is more local revenue raising streams, if not, it’s just another person going begging to central government for funds.
@Gerry Kelly: shouldn’t be long now, Bertie’s got the oul’ anorak in the drycleaners…..
@Mike Finnegan:
Unfortunately, whoever it is it will probably be just another party man or woman.
@Gerry Kelly: I would be careful what we wish for in Limerick.
You do know Brian Leddin is looking for a new job?.
Another qaungo for the taxpayers to fund….wonderful
A Mayor for Limerick City???
@Godfrey Ryan: The people of Limerick voted for it back in 2019.
Nobody said they were other than the usual electoral provokers for change opposition supporters.
The sooner this government is out the better for us all. Let’s just hope the Shinners don’t get a majority or go into coalition with FFG!
It’s a little disappointing that a brand new commission , it’s 2024 , and in the first article I’m reading about it they are talking about printing millions of colour booklets of explanation – surely to his a new commission could look at best practice globally , ascertain what segments of the community such as older and less digitally connected people who may need to get costly printed booklets – a fraction of the overall country – and perhaps love the country along into the digital age in a more appropriate cost effective way at the very least to avoid the perception this is just another quango wasting millions on printing ffs
They’d want to hold an election fast and a vote of no confidence – not one of them is getting re elected unless this stops – it will be a house of independents joined in will for the people
Interesting that every poster advocating a No vote is male !
have your say