Last week was quite difficult to keep track of because I had money moving in and out of everywhere and I didn’t always have the opportunity to track daily.

Monday

• Provisional driving license £34 (gift from a friend)
• PAYG transport (£6.50)
• Snacks at second job (£1.20)
• Groceries (£3.73)

Tuesday

• Loan to a friend (£150) – withdrawn from wedding travel fund
• Refundable deposit to watch US Open online (£5) – slush fund
• Lunch with a friend (£9) – shocking. Miscalculated how much I gave her back after paying for us both on my card
• Groceries (£5.93)
• PAYG transport (£6.40)

Wednesday

• Skinny jeans (£24) – Get a 50% discount from work + bought 2 different styles as I’ve never bought trousers from them. Intend to return 1 so will be £14
• PAYG transport (£9.30)
• McDonald’s breakfast (£3.99) – Preemptively assessed my spending for the whole week the night before and decided that since my cousin provided dinner for the 4 nights I spent at hers I had room to treat myself. #Fail

Thursday

• PAYG transport (£9.30)

Friday

• PAYG transport (£9.30)
• Sweets for myself and my charge (£2.00)
• Sausage and chips from chippy split with the person of interest (£1.50)
• Replacement oyster card for my cousin (£5)
• Topping up my cousin’s oyster card (£3) – second cousin lost the wallet when we were trialling out whether he might be able to go on public transport on his own. Slush fund.

Saturday

+ Tips from second job (£8.90)

• PAYG transport (£5.30)
• Sausage roll (£2.95)
• Snacks at work (£1.20)

Sunday

The cowboy brunch, which I did not have but might one day go back for, at Jam Tree.

• Celebratory drinks with new football team (£14.99*) – We went to the Jam Tree which was surprisingly expensive but at least the food was AMAZING.
• Big Tasty from McDonald’s on the way to meet person of interest (£4.19)
• Chinese with the person of interest (£8.10) – I was a little drunk after all the drinking and thus starving + not so mindful in my spending
• Ticket for the BFI film festival in October (£16) – slush fund

Summary

* I actually got some food too but I haven’t paid for it yet because the coach got it and we need to transfer some money. Not sure how deferred payments work. In my mind, I haven’t spent it yet.

**Since I got £8.90 in tips this figure is actually £1.08

What was my best purchase? Arguably the jeans (3 pairs) if they fit. I had to throw away 2 pairs of jeans that I’ve been mending/managing having bought them cheaply. One was my favourite pair I wore all the time & had owned second hand since 2011/12. It’s nice to get half price new clothes. There are ethical concerns about the fact that I work for a fast fashion retailer but since I work here I think I’m contributing one way or another to the overall picture and I might as well get the cheap clothes while I’m doing that. The company is supposedly ethical but the cheapness of our clothes have got me thinking about getting a new job.

What could I do better?  Oh my days! I bought so much fast food last week. 2 McDonald meals in one week! McDonald’s just before Chinese! In my defence, I was thrown by not being at home and I worked/did way too much/wasn’t at home so I didn’t have my trusty groceries to hand.  For some reason, I was also really hungry. And because I was awake for so many hours on a lot of those days, I needed a lot of food. That’s it for the excuses. At the end of the day, I didn’t save the £15 I wanted to add to the emergency fund. I need to stop thinking about McDonald’s as a treat. Does anyone have any idea how I could stop this behaviour?

Wash up: Yesterday morning before I had a chance to reconcile my different accounts and look at the full picture, I thought I’d had a horrendous week. On the one had there’s so much stuff in there that I really could have done without spending but I also managed to give my second cousin a pound and replace the oyster card + money  (unexpected expense) on it without going over the budget by much. That is movement in the right direction.