Argh! Another poor week. I should stop moaning after the fact. I consciously, willingly and decisively made some poor money choices last week that mean that I exceeded my budget in several categories as well as overall. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though so let’s look at how I spent my money last week.

I went to a Mexican restaurant that had a wide selection of hot sauces

Monday

I found myself craving a snack or two and popped into the Tesco near work to get some yoghurt (£0.69). I increased my robo-advisor payment from £20 to £70 just for the week – to take advantage of lower stock prices. I at least hope that’s what happens. I also changed my allocation strategy so that I will buy 95% stock for the next few weeks. I did a reasonable amount of grocery shopping including splurging on 5 packs of pancake mix  and laundry detergent (£23.28). I also got some toiletries (£12.05) that I will need over the next few weeks because they were on sale.

Tuesday

I got into work and they treated us to some free pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. I had mine with Nutella (£0). My friend and the person of interest are doing ultra white-collar boxing for charity in April. I got a VIP ticket for the event (£50).  I went to the Picturehouse cinema (can I shout out to the best membership ever?) to see Una Mujer Fantastica for £5 (but paid for in December) and got a large popcorn (£4.41). I also thought it would be nice to do something outside the house with the person of interest so bought tickets for us to see Kiri Pritchard McLean’s Appropriate adult at Soho theatre (£30).

Wednesday

The breakfast pancakes from the day before kick-started a breakfast craving for the week so I picked up breakfast from Pret on my way in (£4.40).   I also got a tea with the person of interest from the only available place near Bethnal Green station, a Starbucks (£4.60).

Thursday

I brought lunch in and wasn’t tempted to buy anything else through the day. I believe this counts as a ‘no spend’ day!

Friday

I went on another breakfast run at Pret because I had a craving for the perfect, undercooked croissants (£2.60). Lunch was used to catch up with a colleague from a different department so I got some Wasabi (£8.90) and we ate in the café area of the office. I was supposed to go to social thing with my mates but they decided to have dinner first so I met them for a cheeky Nando’s (£10) and then picked up some sweet treats for frugal date night(£4.56).

Saturday

I had to work at the theatre (yes to making money to pay for those theatre tickets I bought earlier in the week) so walked into town in the glorious sunshine. I took in lunch with me but had a craving for Jamaican patties and picked up a couple from Tesco (£2.35) as well as a chocolate bar from the theatre bar (£0.40). After work I walked into Soho and the person of interest and I splurged on an authentic Mexican meal – I hope it was anyway because I wasn’t as thrilled as I am with what I must assume must be non-authentic chain versions (£22.75 for my share). She’d spent an unexpected night at mine on Friday so we stopped off at Primark for her to get some underwear and she very kindly bought me some new pajamas (£0 for me although they cost £6.50).

Sunday

I had an away game in Kent that was a mission to get to. I struggled to get out of the house on time  so paid for a black cab from Bromley south station (£13). I was shocked to discover that the cost of PAYG transport to get to zone 5 for a return trip was £11.60 (£5.40 more than budgeted for the standard week’s pass) so that was unfortunate. I also didn’t eat enough before the game and underestimated how long it would take to get back so was unprepared to resist the temptation that was McDonald’s at Victoria station (£6.77).

Wrap up

I don’t think I should buy theatre tickets often without pre-budgeting for them but Kiri’s show was totally worth it and it was a great way to discover more about shared interests with the person of interest. I didn’t do very well on prepping for the tough scenarios. I took food I wasn’t really inspired by for lunch a couple of times during the week and this resulted in my getting other things from the grocery store. The taxi was a bad idea but the alternative would have been letting my team down – not acceptable.

• Total budgeted for the week: £92.04
• Total spent: £155.16

You can catch up on other money diaries from this year

• Money diary #1
• Money diary #2
• Money diary #3, 
• Money diary #4
• Money diary #5
• Money diary #6

NB: All the diary entries are only my discretionary spending and exclude savings, housing, utilities and other more fixed costs.

NB2: All the things in green were budgeted for / in budget and the stuff in red was unplanned (for this week) or higher than budgeted.