That’s Google’s definition of luxury. 6 months ago I would have associated a cost with that. Perhaps you had to be wealthy or you had to spend a lot, like I used to. I would have thought about restaurants like Locanda Locatelli for a luxurious special night (£100+ per head) or Hawksmoor for a budget special night (£50 per head). I might have thought about 5 star hotels with beautifully turned down beds, the fluffiest towels and £15 burgers. I would think chauffeur driven cars and free champagne in first / business class train and plane seats. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Money
Weekly spending – W/C 19/09/16
Enchiladas for double date night with the housemate
In a week dominated by hosting far too many joyful expenses and unexpectedly expensive stuff to deal with injury and illness, I still managed to stay on budget. Continue reading
Draft 1: liberty within 12 years
I’m obsessed with personal finance at the moment. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning and the last thing before I go to sleep is check up on my favourite personal finance blogs to see whether there’s anything interesting to learn. There usually is. I’ve read so much information and learnt so much in the last few weeks. Some of the ideas are fairly common and most of the different articles offer similar opinions on what the best way to tackle debt is. As far as I understand, most people suggest that one follows Dave Ramsey’s baby steps. As I have no mortgage currently, this is what my version looks like: Continue reading
Weekly spending W/C 12.09.16
It’s not been as easy as I would like to track my spending the last couple of weeks, mainly because of a couple of deferred spending scenarios – TFL I’m looking at you – that make it difficult to look at my accounts on Monday morning and know that every penny in them is actually mine. This week, though, because I didn’t get charged for travel on Sunday (weekly travel cap for the win), I’m in a much better place today. Continue reading
Weekly spending W/C 05.09.16
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)
FIRE – I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes…
I’ve been trying to learn Italian for a few years. My first trip, after I’d got a graduate job and felt entitled to start seeing the world (in style), was to Rome. I went with a work friend and we picked Rome because at the time we were obsessed with Dan Brown books and Angels and Demons had just been released. We wanted to see all the places that were mentioned in the book plus who doesn’t love Italy? I fell in love with the people, the culture, the food, the ambience, the weather (in March), and most of all the language. I don’t think I made any serious efforts to learn how to speak though until 2009 when I met my kick-ass friend FL who I girl-crushed on and wanted to impress with my language skills. Continue reading
Weekly spending WC 29.08.16
Monday
- Bus fare £1.50
- Return ticket to Milton Keynes £23.50
Tuesday
- Savings (life fund AKA new bike fund) £100
- Loan pay off £173.33
Weekly spending WC 22.08.16
Monday
- Starbucks (catch up with a family friend) £2
- Dinner at my house (including cigarettes for the person of interest) £17.40
- The Heat (Amazon rental) – £3.49
- Returning coins (borrowed from my sub-letter last week) – £32.80
- PAYG travel £2.40
Tuesday
- PAYG travel £5.30
Weekly spending – WC 15.08.16
This was my first week of tracking all my spending religiously. I’m trying to get a baseline, a sense of what I’m OK at, what needs improving as well as a way of tracking change over the next 2 years or so that I think it will take me to become totally debt free.
Monday
- Oyster card top up £15 (contactless)
- Bagel + peanut butter from staff canteen £1 (cash)
- Sal Capone carbonara £4.95 (contactless)
- Grocery shopping with the “person of interest” £14.57 (card)
Tuesday
- Ham & egg sandwich from Eat £3.95 (card)
- Brunch burger at Wetherspoons Croydon + Kronenburg £7.25 (card)
Diary of a reforming spendthrift 