Money Diaries: A marketing manager on €90k currently on unpaid leave after having a baby

WELCOME TO HOW I Spend My Money, a series on The Journal that looks at how people in Ireland really handle their finances.

Are you a spender, a saver or a splurger? 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. 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 receptionist on €30k saving to move to Australia. This week, a marketing manager on €90k who is currently on unpaid leave after having a baby.

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I’m living just outside Dublin with my husband and two kids. I have done two back-to-back maternity leaves (thanks to Irish twins!) and am currently on unpaid leave. As my second pregnancy was a bit of a surprise, I wasn’t as prepared financially as I would have liked to have been, so I have cut out some luxuries (like saving or buying new clothes). I have always been a saver, so thankfully I had enough saved to allow me to take some unpaid maternity leave and cover monthly costs.

I keep a household expenses spreadsheet each month to see where our money is going. It’s been really eye-opening, especially with groceries – some months our bill is over €1,000. We do our shopping in Lidl and don’t buy particularly extravagant foods, but our bill just always seems to be so high. We spend about €150 doing our weekly shop but then end up doing top up shops during the week, which all add up.

Although I am not saving consistently right now, I use Revolut’s investment account to invest my ‘spare change’. I like to think of it as money I may not have noticed spending otherwise (like the random 10c and 20c I find in old handbags). It’s slowly building up and earning interest so maybe some day down the line I will use it to do something nice with our family.

Occupation: Marketing manager

Age: 35

Salary: €90,000

Monthly pay (net): €4,500 (but zero income at the moment)

Monthly expenses

Transport: Electric car which is charged at home, included in monthly electricity bill

Mortgage: €1,450

Household bills: Just over €1,500 per month – covering electricity/gas, Wi-Fi, TV, bins, insurances and repayments on two small loans

Crèche fees: €590 (one child, part-time)

Phone bill: €20

Health insurance: Covered by work

Groceries: Between €900 and €1,000 per month

Subscriptions: €25 – Spotify and Google storage

Eating out/takeaways: €60 – try to keep this to a minimum. The price of a takeaway coffee has gone insane!!

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Monday

7.30am: Get up and feed my youngest baby, and get dressed into my gym gear. I head downstairs where my husband and toddler are having breakfast. We get both kids dressed and ready for the day. I have my breakfast which I’ve batch prepped from the other day.

8.00am: Check bank accounts to be sure we’re set for any bills going out this week. Crèche fees come out as usual each Monday (€120). This will more than double soon when I go back to work and both kids are in full-time. But I’m lucky to have a crèche to send them to so I shouldn’t complain about having to essentially pay a second mortgage, right?

10.00am: Today is a no crèche day, so I’ve arranged for the teenage girl across the road to come over for a few hours to help out (I pay her €8 per hour). We make brownies and I do some cleaning.

12.00pm: Head to the gym (i.e. our at home gym) while my toddler naps and the babysitter watches my youngest baby in the house. After this, I tidy up a bit, have a shower, have lunch, feed the baby and get a few bits prepped for dinner. Give the babysitter €16.

2.00pm: Toddler gets up and then the afternoon entertainment starts (unpacking the presses, drawing on the walls – pretty much anything they shouldn’t be doing!). I have a coffee and buy a pair of runners on Vinted (€35).

5.30pm: The usual evening rush starts with our toddlers routine. Feed (while also cooking dinner for the adults), bath time, PJs and bedtime.

7.30pm: Eat, then feed the baby and get them ready to head to bed. I’m trying to get them into a routine but I know there will be at least five wakings before morning comes. I spent some time browsing Vinted again.

10.00pm: Adult bedtime – but I will be up out of the bed a few times during the night so sometimes I feel I have three bedtimes each night!

Today’s total: €171.00

Tuesday

7.30am: Another routine morning, but today my toddler is in crèche. Tuesday’s feel like my Saturday’s with my toddler being in crèche. Although I still have my baby at home, it is a lot easier to get housework done and get exercise in. I hang up washing (we try to do all our clothes washing overnight to benefit from the smart electricity rates) – with two young kids, we have a lot of washing to do.

9.00am: Crèche drop off and head home to tidy up. On Tuesday’s, Boots do a €12 online special where they have a range of items discounted. I love looking through this while having my coffee – I rarely buy anything because having to pay for postage makes the deals not feel so great.

10.30am: Exercise time. I’m trying to work out at least four times per week. Having an at home gym makes this so much easier than trying to find the time to head out for a class. It’s helped me immensely postpartum.

12.00pm: Spend some time prepping some meals for my toddler. I always keep a batch of food in the freezer for them to help avoid any h-angry incidents.

2.00pm: Have a coffee and spend (more) time browsing Vinted and other secondhand sites – it’s become my maternity leave pastime. My husband is collecting our ‘new’ buggy today (€350) as our youngest is outgrowing our current one. I found one on Done Deal after weeks of searching.

4.30pm: Get dinner ready to be reheated later and head for crèche collection.

5.30pm: The regular evening military operation begins. I am on my own this evening as my husband won’t be home until later tonight so it’s a solo parenting survival mission.

7.00pm: Bedtimes for the kids.

7.30pm: Dinner and TV. A few minutes into dinner, I’ve to head upstairs to settle the baby (one of three times this evening).

10.00pm: Put the house to sleep and then take myself up to bed.

Today’s total: €350.00

Wednesday

7.30am: Same routine, different day. Get myself ready, get the kids ready, hang up washing!

9.00am: Do the crèche drop off.

9.30am: I’m not working out today and have a mam and baby meet up later, so I treat myself to an everything shower! I even get to dry my hair.

11.00am: Head to the mam meet up and enter into friendly competition about who is getting the least sleep (it has to be me). Get a coffee and mandatory avocado toast (€13.65).

1.00pm: When I get home I need to do some life admin. Our electricity/gas contract, home insurance and travel insurance are up soon, so I use ChatGPT to help me do some research on the best value.

3.00pm: I get dinner ready for later to be reheated. It’s rare these days to have dinner fresh from the pan or the oven – I have to cook ahead of time to ensure that we have something decent to eat. A slice of toast or bowl of cereal won’t cut it as a dinner for me.

4.30pm: Walk to crèche today to collect my toddler. It’s a lovely afternoon.

5.30pm: Regular evening routine. Basically down to the minute at this point – if my toddler doesn’t get dinner at exactly 5.30pm, then demon mode is activated, hence the batch cooking!

7.00pm: Kiddos’ bedtime.

7.30pm: Adult dinner time and watch some TV while also doing some research for an upcoming long haul trip we are taking. I have a spreadsheet with our day-by-day schedule and budget breakdown for the trip, so I spend some time updating that. Is it a holiday if it has a spreadsheet involved? For me, yes!

10.00pm: Do some stretching and wind down for the evening. Put the house to bed and head to bed myself.

Today’s total: €13.65

Thursday

7.30am: Same routine. Get myself ready, get the kids ready. This morning is a special morning because the Aldi and Lidl weekly leaflets are released so I flick through them online while having my breakfast. Another maternity leave weekly highlight!

9.00am: Do the crèche drop off and head to the Post Office to pick up one of my Vinted purchases.

10.00am: Today my youngest is getting vaccinations so we head to that appointment. To save the €2 parking fee at the clinic, I park at a supermarket nearby. After the vaccinations, I go into the supermarket to do a top-up shop. And it’s my lucky day because they have a load of meat discounted – so I buy a batch of that to throw in the freezer, as well as the other bits I needed (€46.08). So glad I saved that €2…

12.00pm: I spend the afternoon around the house, keeping a closer eye on my baby to be sure they’re OK after their vaccines. I put away the 6ft pile of laundry too.

1.30pm: I get some exercise in while my baby watches me from her buggy.

3.00pm: It’s another solo parenting evening, so I get dinner ready ahead of time. I get a snack in myself to be fuelled for the afternoon – also having a snack before my toddler gets home means I don’t have to share it.

5.30pm: The evening routine starts. My mam has come around to give a hand with dinner and bedtimes for the kids.

7.30pm: Eat dinner in front of the TV with my mam while watching a home improvement show. Why is it that with a budget of £100k in the UK, they seem to get SO MUCH more done than what we can get for our money here?

10.00pm: Head up for another night of broken sleep.

Today’s total: €46.08

Friday

7.30am: Get up and get ready for the day. No crèche today so we can have a bit of a slower morning.

10.00am: Pack up the bag with snacks and get ready to head out for a few hours this morning. We visit a local open farm that’s free entry (rare these days). We walk around and then grab a coffee while the toddler eats her lunch (€8).

12.00pm: Head home and attempt to get the toddler from the car to their bed without waking them. It’s not so successful with the baby, who likes to have 10-minute disco naps these days!

1.00pm: Get some lunch for myself and attempt to catch up on some garbage TV (i.e. reality series!) that I am falling behind on.

3.00pm: The afternoon is non-eventful (thankfully). My toddler potters around the house and we spend some time outside watering the flowers (with a watering can of course #housepipeban)

5.30pm: We head to my mam’s for dinner, but it’s normally a speedy operation as we’ve to be home for a reasonable toddler bedtime.

8.00pm: Home for toddler bedtime. We put the baby to bed too and stick on a film – which we inevitably have to pause at least three times to go up and resettle the baby.

10.30pm: We give up on the film and head for bed.

Today’s total: €8.00

Saturday

7.00am: Wake up-time for everyone in the house. I have breakfast and a coffee and get some small bits of housework done.

11.00am: My husband and I head to a gym class while my mam minds the kids (€24 for two of us). We try to get out to a class every Saturday as our ‘treat’ but it usually works out every second weekend.

1.00pm: Home from the gym for a coffee and some lunch before heading to do the food shopping.

3.00pm: I take the toddler with me and go to do food shopping for the week. They ‘helps me’ by trying to open everything that goes into the trolley. I use my Lidl plus to save a grand total of €4.74. Total this week comes in lower than normal at €124.75.

5.30pm: Our same nightly routine begins for the kids. Toddler goes to bed for about 7pm and the baby goes at whatever time they like!

7.30pm: With the weather being so nice, we throw some food on the BBQ and eat in the garden. We spent a lot of time this summer doing up our garden because with two small kids, we knew we would be spending a lot of evenings in it (I don’t know the last time we were actually in a beer garden!).

10.30pm: We head up to bed. Another quiet Saturday night!

Today’s total: €148.75

Sunday

7.30am: We wake and do our usual morning routine.

10.00am: Pack up the bags and head out for swimming lessons where our toddler inevitably wants ‘out’ 15 minutes into the lesson.

11.30am: After swimming, we treat ourselves to a coffee and pastry out (€18.35). Our toddler eats lunch that I prepared earlier.

12.30pm: Home for nap times and rest time for mam and dad too. (For mam rest = scrolling on Vinted).

2.00pm: My husband is doing some work in the garden and our toddler is outside ‘helping’ again – this time beheading the beautiful roses.

3.00pm: My sister and her partner visit for a while to see the kids and have a catch-up (i.e. listen to me talk about how tired I am)

4.00pm: Get dinner ready. I did a roast, which feels illegal given how warm it is, but my husband dropped a few hints that he would like one!

5.30pm: We have dinner together at the kitchen table, which is very rare these days given the different schedules of each person (both little and big).

7.00pm: Bedtime for the toddler.

8.00pm: I try to put the baby to bed (a lot of rocking and pacing around the room). They finally fall asleep so I can head downstairs to relax for a while. We stick a series on and get a whole episode in uninterrupted (woohoo).

10.00pm: Bedtime again. Another week survived – everyone is healthy and happy. Another week closer to going back to work :(
Another week closer to earning money again :)

Today’s total: €18.35

Weekly subtotal: €755.83

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What I learned –

Even with a limited social life, life is expensive! Any spend on socialising has just switched over to spending on supplies for our kids. I do try to buy secondhand where possible – clothes, buggies, toys – but even with that, it all adds up.
I think I might have a Vinted addiction (not always buying, just browsing to see what people are selling!).
Even though I try not to buy coffees ‘out’, I feel like I still end up getting one two or three times a week. Why does it feel so impossible to just not buy a coffee out?!

Money Diaries A marketing manager on €90k currently on unpaid leave after having a baby