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Investigates Investigates Money Diaries Daft.ie Property Magazine Allianz Home Magazine The 42 Sports Magazine TG4 Entertainment Magazine The Journal TV Climate Crisis Cost of Living Road Safety Newsletters Temperature Check Inside the Newsroom The Journal Investigates The Explainer A deep dive into one big news story Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture have your say Or create a free account to join the discussion Advertisement More Stories Money Diaries An administrator on €37K living in the Midlands This week, our reader is busy taking their children to various activities while managing the finances after a job loss. 8.01pm, 22 Jun 2025 Share options 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 finance manager on €60K living in Dublin. This week, an administrator on €37K living in the Midlands. I’m a mother-of-three living in the Midlands. My husband recently lost his job so we have had a big change to our family finances. He is exploring options about going back to study and retrain, so we are taking the summer to see if it’s possible to survive on one wage! We are not huge savers – the cost of raising three children in Ireland is a lot! But we do put away money for holidays and Christmas so don’t have huge debts or credit card bills so for us that’s a win! Occupation: Administrator Location: Midlands Salary: €37,000 Monthly pay (net): €2,308 Child benefit: €420 Monthly expenses Transport: Diesel – approx €250 to €400 ( depends on how many matches we have to bring the kids to!) Rent: €400 (Total Mortgage – luckily we bought a very cheap house 10 years ago when prices were not outrageous!) Household bills: Electricity – €100, broadband – €30 Life Assurance: €110 Phone bill: €30 for me and my husband (two of the kids are on pay as you go so they have to earn their top ups by doing chores, but can be €15 each per month) Health insurance: None Groceries: Anywhere between €600 and €800 – I used to be able to do the shopping for €100 per week, but the prices have gone mental in the last two years and some items have easily doubled in price. Subscriptions: Netflix and Amazon Prime – €20 Car loan: €280 Car insurance: €40 7.00 am: Today I can work from home so I get the youngest up for school. The two oldest have just finished secondary school so I expect I won’t see them till closer to 10am. We live very close to the local primary school, so the youngest can cycle to school. After making breakfast and lunch, I open my emails and make sure nothing too urgent has come in over the weekend. I can work flexi time, so I usually do 9.30am to 3pm through and then spend the afternoon and early evening with the kids, and then catch up on work when everyone is bed. Advertisement 8.30 am: Head out for a walk with a friend and leave the two oldest sleeping. My husband is on the laptop job hunting and looking into retraining options. 9.30 am: Back in the house. Catch up on emails, work on invoices and online meetings until 3pm when the youngest gets home. Usually we would have the kids in camps for a few weeks in the summer so we can both work, but my husband being home means he can look after the kids. I always bank up all my leave to try to take every second to third week off in the summer so it means I can do things with the kids over the summer and we don’t spend a fortune on camps. My husband usually takes the time off to cover holidays during the year. The older two are able to entertain themselves either visiting friends or just lazing around, but don’t feel 100% confident leaving them to their own devices all day if we were both at work. Maybe next year! 3.00 pm: Youngest has no homework as they only have a few weeks till the end of term, so wants to use his one hour of gaming time now. The past few weeks with the weather being so nice, the kids have hardly been inside, but with the rain, it’s hard to say no. 4.30 pm: I make dinner and we sit down to eat a spaghetti bolognaise. With all the kids’ activities, it suits us to have dinner early and then a snack before bed. 5.30 pm: The youngest heads off to swimming. 7.00 pm: I bring the oldest to training. Realise I have no diesel in the car so throw in €20 to keep me going. Also realise swimming lessons needs paid next week so need to budget €90 for that! 8.30 pm: We get back in and the youngest is in bed. The oldest two have a quick snack and shower. As they are on school holidays, we let them stay up till 10pm watching TV with their dad while I catch up on work and then everyone heads to bed. Today’s total: €20.00 7.00 am: Youngest up and off to school and I head to the shops to buy food for a couple of days. I found that the traditional “Big Shop” left us needing to top up fairly regularly in the local shops, so switched to doing two smaller shops a week. Seems to be saving us a little bit. It’s a 10-minute drive to the shops and I grab what I hope will cover us for four dinners and lunches. (€80.50) 9.30 am: Back at work straight through till 4pm. 4.30 pm: The husband says he will make dinner as we have to bring the kids to a match tonight. I finish up and we have a lovely chicken fajitas meal. 5.30 pm: Husband brings the youngest to training and I take the oldest two to a match. Only one is playing, but they both like to go so they can see their friends. It’s a half an hour trip and we have to be there by 6pm. 7.00 pm: Match over. Very close but their team wins, so I treat everyone to some chips on the way home. Two bags of large chips at €3.90 each, and I swear the bag gets smaller each time! Just enough to feed the five of us. (€7.80) 10.00 pm: Everyone in bed. Today’s total: €88.30 6.30 am: Up early as I have a full day of training I have to attend so I leave at 7am in the car. Put €30 diesel in. Hoping the day will finish early as Wednesdays are always manic in our house with multiple trainings in separate directions, so it’s very hard to manage when you are by yourself. 3.45 pm: A free lunch and an early finish, so I’m delighted with life as it means I should miss the worst of the traffic as well! 5.30 pm: Arrive home with dinner on the table. It’s pizza and chicken wings, which keeps everyone happy! My husband is out at martial arts with the youngest and I have to bring the oldest two to football training. 6.45 pm: Head out the door. I meet up with some friends and walk round the pitch while the training is going on. Husband brings the youngest to soccer training so we are all back in the house after 8pm. 8.30 pm: Quick snack for the youngest and then we play a few games of cards with the eldest two before we all head to bed at 10pm. I used to read every night before bed, but finding the business of life starting to erode all my free time! Today’s total: €30.00 7.00 am: I have an office day today so get the youngest off to school. It’s the best day of the year for him as it’s school tour day. Our school opens earlier at 8.30am, but there is always a queue of kids waiting from 8.15am. We pick up extra snacks in the shop (€6.50) and I give him €10 to spend. I have a hybrid work option since Covid and it’s amazing. It allowed me to switch from being part-time to full-time and the lack of stress for the daily commute is great. I only have to be in the office one or two days a week and I love the mix of getting in and catching up with everyone and the quietness of home to work on the work that needs concentration. Luckily I can get a bus to work, not quite from the door. I have to drive and park, so top up my Leap card on my phone for €20 and head into the office for 9.30am. 1.00 pm: I always treat myself to lunch when I’m at work as I tend to skip it when I’m working from home, but €10 for a roll, drink and chocolate bar does sting a little. Chocolate bars being €2.50 has really made me reassess my need for chocolate. 2.00 pm: Middle child is calling me to give her extra time on Family Link. We limit both their times on their phones to an hour a day which both feel is really unfair and apparently we are the strictest of all the parents, but we find their behaviour nose dives if they spend too much time online. I give her an extra half hour as they have walked the dog and tidied their room. 5.00 pm: Finish work and head home 6.30 pm: Arrive home to dinner on the table and the kids all playing a board game. The good atmosphere lasts for a little bit longer till unknown rules are used. Monopoly is a risky choice of game in our house. 8.30 pm: Youngest goes to bed and we watch The X Files with the oldest two, which they surprisingly love. Related Reads Money Diaries: A finance manager on €60K living in Dublin Money Diaries: An escalation manager on €120K living in Dublin Money Diaries: A public servant on €55K living in Co Westmeath 10.00 pm: Everyone goes to bed and I spend half an hour looking up activities for our holidays which are coming up. We luckily had the holiday paid before we found out about the job loss, so we have spending money put aside. However, seeing how much my kids are eating at the moment makes me doubt if we have enough. Today’s total: €46.50 7.00 am: Up with the youngest and get him off to school. Have arranged with a friend to do a forest walk once the school drop is done. 8.30 am: So we meet up for a nice walk and a chat. We treat ourselves to a coffee on the way home. (€3.50) 10.00 am: Fridays are a quiet enough day so I know I can bash everything out and be finished by 3pm. I tend to log in about 5.30pm on a Friday just in case something urgent has come up, but it very rarely does these days. I find a lot of people either take Friday or Monday off so the workload comes in on a Thursday evening, which I find much easier to deal with than a last minute request on a Friday. 11.00 am: The two oldest are out with their friends shopping today and will be at a sleepover for a friend’s birthday. I pop €20 into a card and then put €15 each into their Revolut accounts (€30). I pay €3.99 a month so I can have two kids accounts linked to my account and find it very handy. The eldest in particular is quite good at saving up money on their account and I find it much easier to use than a regular bank account for them. 3.00 pm: Youngest is home from school and straight onto the computer to play minecraft with his friends. 6.00 pm: As it’s a Friday and only the three of us are at home, I treat us all to a takeaway (€25) and we watch a movie. Youngest has just got into Star Wars so makes us watch The Phantom Menace. As the youngest he never really gets to pick what movie we watch, so we suffer watching it with a few glasses of wine. My husband bought a couple of bottles on deal last week so it was no cost for me. Today’s total: €78.50 9.00 am: Saturday lie-ins are not really a thing in our house! Everyone is up and out of the door for 9.30am. My husband helps out with coaching the youngest one. I head out to collect the two oldest as they both have training at 11am. 11.15 am: Have the dog so bring him for a walk while they are training and then head to the shop with the girls to grab some more food bits. €90 later, the oldest are satisfied we have enough food for lunch and we head home. I definitely notice an increase in the shopping bill if I have the kids with me! The youngest has a friend over so they are happy playing outside kicking a ball in the green. 2.00 pm: Lunch done (toasted sandwiches and soup), I get the car ready as we are heading up to my husband’s dads for the night. We try to visit whenever we can, but it’s tricky as we have to juggle visiting his dad, my parents and all the kids’ activities and both of our parents live an hour away in different directions. Before we travel though, we go to see our youngest play a soccer match and drop his friend home on the way. The two oldest manage to talk me into buying them iced coffees (€8.00). They try to plead for ACAI bowls for the car journey, but are told to use their own money, so they decide against it. We took my car and I put in €30 to cover the diesel. As my husband is not working, I’m trying to pay for as much as possible. He just missed the larger social welfare payment by a few weeks so his €244 a week has to cover his car loan repayment and his insurance, but he chips in whenever he can. 5.00 pm: Arrive at the house and after chatting for a bit, my husband brings his dad out for a few drinks and I visit his sister who makes us dinner. 9.00 pm: Head back to my father-in-law, put the kids to bed and have a few drinks while playing cards and chatting. 11.30 pm: Head to bed, leaving the husband and his dad watching some terrible kung fu movie which they both love. Today’s total: €128.00 8.00 am: A little bit of a lie-in. The youngest is up at the crack of dawn to watch tv uninterrupted so I make breakfast for everyone. 10.00 am: We go with his dad to mass and then back up to the house. We make a packed lunch and head to the park to meet up with the cousins. Luckily the weather isn’t too bad, so have a lovely few hours outside. I treat the kids and their cousins to ice cream (€25). The charge for sauce is a new one! 3.00 pm: Drop my father-in-law back to his house and head back home. I have a 7-seater, which is so handy for bringing friends and family on trips. My husband puts on dinner (Sunday roast) and I double check the youngest has a clean uniform. It’s great not having to worry about the oldest two for the next few weeks. The kids are outside playing with their friends so I manage to get the house looking a little bit presentable! 8.00 pm: Youngest is up in bed and the two oldest have gone up to read, something we actively encourage, but find I don’t do enough of myself. I sit down and go through the schedule for the week just to double check my work days and meetings and if there are clashes with matches, training, etc. It’s much easier now with my husband being at home but before that we had to rely on friends to do lifts as he worked shifts. 9.30 pm: Head upstairs and finally get a chance to read while my husband scrolls on his phone for jobs. Today’s total: €25.00 Weekly subtotal: €416.30 What I learned – I think this is a fairly standard week for us, and in some ways, quieter than usual as we don’t have the oldest two in school so there’s much less running around doing lifts from after school activities and dropping to friends. We find most of our money goes on the kids, whether it’s food or clothes or activities. My husband and I often joke that we would be millionaires if we didn’t have children. Thank God for the child benefit as it does cover the cost of bringing them to all their activities. Our kids do multiple sports so it’s a year round expense! We know we are very lucky with our small mortgage. We moved out of Dublin in order to get a cheaper house, but even our locality is becoming unaffordable. We recently got our house valued (we were advised to check in case we had to increase our house insurance value) and it has doubled in nine years. It’s insane, and I don’t know how anyone is supposed to deal with unexpected things like job loss or pregnancy while paying a massive mortgage or rent. I think we need to start thinking about the future in terms of college costs and pensions as it’s not something we have ever really been in a space to plan for. My husband’s job loss has really made us aware of how precarious financially we would be if we had bigger expenses so we are thinking of ways to future proof ourselves. We had worked very hard over the last few years to pay off credit card debt and personal loans so luckily, aside from car loans which are nearly paid, we don’t have huge debt – which was certainly not the case a few years ago. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Support The Journal TheJournal.ie reader Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “Money Diaries: An administrator on €37K living in the Midlands”. Recipient's Email Feedback on “Money Diaries: An administrator on €37K living in the Midlands”. Your Feedback Your Email (optional) Report a Comment Please select the reason for reporting this comment. Please give full details of the problem with the comment... 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