FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Living by the Book: Demob Happy

By Jane Mack (TMFJane)
October 12, 2001

If you were £3,000 in debt and you were trying (and failing) to spend less than your salary each month, would you spend £50 on a birthday present for a friend? Perhaps you would, and that's exactly what our Fool, Katherine, did in the first week of her Living by the Book experiment.

You'll recall that Katherine kept a record of her expenditure, right down to the last penny, throughout September, so that we could discover where all her money was going. We've now published the first two weeks of spending diary here and here and I've decided it's time to have some fun picking over what she's spent so far.

Looking at the first week's expenditure, it clear that some of her spending is essential. Bills have to be paid and I've already told her off about the consolidation loan – a subject we covered last week. It must hurt watching £154 go out of your account every month to pay off previous debts.

The £108 for the Diploma course is part of her long-term plan for her future – she is studying Anatomy, Physiology & Body Massage with a view to starting her own aromatherapy massage business at a later date, so I suppose I'll have to let her off that one as well although she could have delayed starting the course for a year.

But just look at the rest? Payday obviously renders Katherine demob happy!

She went to the pub four times, the cinema once and took a friend out to dinner as part of her birthday present. She also bought various items from the corner shop for breakfast or lunch every single day of her first week. These snacks and outings cost her nearly £120. If she keeps this up throughout the whole month she'll be devoting 36% of her salary just to snacks and entertainment!

Fortunately, she put the brakes on in the second week. She only went out once. However she still spent just over £30 – most of it on snacks. As she says herself:

Week Two: Getting used to writing down all that I spend. Have to keep explaining it to friends when I get my notebook out in the pub so they don't think I'm weird!

I'm shocked to see how much I spend on food during the day at work – sometimes breakfast and mostly lunch. Must try and bring food from home! There are some days where I would spend nothing if I didn't buy lunch. That's my goal for the month to have at least one day where I spend nothing!!

(You might as well know now that she fails in her goal – although she does have one good day in her third week when she manages to restrict her spending to just £1.53!)

Bringing food from home is the answer. As far as I'm aware, cans of coke cost about 25p each if you buy them in multipacks from the supermarket. So why is she paying twice that? Baking spuds also cost about 25p each from the supermarket and, since Katherine's got access to a microwave at work, there's no reason for her not to make use of it. And a 50 gram topping of a nice mature cheddar costing about 35p gives you lunch with a drink at a total cost of ...85p. Simple. I could probably do a similar calculation for sandwiches but, fortunately, someone's already done it for me.

Fortunately, Katherine has decided to learn how to master the art of using the microwave as well as that of making sandwiches and, from now on, she'll be buying her cans of coke at the supermarket. It should save her quite a bit of money.

If you think I'm being rather harsh on Katherine, you should know that she doesn't mind. She started September with her pay cheque of £1,330 and by the end of the month had spent £1,543.