Archives

Money diaries: A day in February

 I believe my expenses are a big reflection of who I am. So let’s go back to writing Money Diaries - a series wherein I document how much I spend every day in an attempt to describe how my days went. The last time I did this was seven years ago. And back then I was still going to the office 5x a week, also earning much less.

Let’s see how this week goes!


Monday (Feb 12) – ₱2,855


  • Bag cleaning – ₱150
    • Had my sling bag cleaned at the laundry shop. For the first time haha. I never really clean my bags. Which sounds gross but I don’t know, I just don’t. The last time I tried to clean my own bag with a similar material (nylon), I ruined it by wringing it, so I knew I had to leave it to the pros. What’s 150 for a properly cleaned bag. If it comes out good, at least I know where to get my other bags cleaned.
  • Juice cleanse – ₱2100
    • Like I mentioned in my previous post. I just purchased a 3-day juice cleanse to help detox my body and hopefully lose weight. I don’t intend to do a juice fast I just want the healthy juices to supplement me when I feel hungry.
  • Parking – ₱110
    • Parking was full earlier in the office building so I had to go to pay parking. When a slot freed up in the evening I moved my car out. I was surprised about paying 110 cos that’s what I usually pay last year for the whole 9 hours, and I only stayed 4hrs. I guess they increased the rates already.
  • Dinner at Mann Hann – ₱395
    • I had dinner at Mann Hann and ordered Lechon Macau with Rice which was pretty disappointing as it was just twice fried lechong kawali with mang tomas and plain rice. Couldn’t even switch to Yang Chow. And their house tea tastes like basahan. 10/10 would NOT recommend.
  • Black Dragon Milk Tea – ₱100
    • Again, I couldn’t resist. Got my usual Black Dragon 0% sugar and loved it. If it’s any consolation I had to throw half of it because I couldn’t finish it anymore. I mean I feel like I’ve always felt this way about their serving size but I just couldn’t fathom throwing away food so I always finished it no matter what. I really want to conquer the mental aspect of losing weight, and part of it is not feeling bad about being unable to finish my food because sayang naman the serving. If it’s really good I’ll have it wrapped, otherwise I already paid for it and got my money’s worth so it shouldn’t be an issue. Lesson learned: Stop when you’re full.


Other household purchases I’m not adding cos we have a separate budget for it…


  • We do groceries on Mondays and we spent ₱1869 for this week. Very conservative considering we didn’t get meat (cos I kept getting lazy last week so we ordered in most days) and yet I’m surprised we almost spent 2k today for what? Eggs, cereals, coffee, coffee filter, bread, avocadoes, conditioner, a lip balm, and dog food! Didn’t look much in our cart really.
  • And because we didn’t reach 2,500 in groceries we had to pay 50 for parking haha.
  • We also snacked before heading to the supermarket. I got vietnamese iced coffee (which tastes weirdly sour), Jeckie got buko shake. We shared kwek kwek, chicken balls, and cheese sticks. That was maybe worth ₱435. Our grocery budget covered it.
  • Another thing we bought is Nexgard Spectra for Koomi. That’s ₱800. Monthly. Remind me to write a Koomi budget haha.
  • My husband just booked an airbnb for his birthday and ordered grab for dinner tonight, so if I had to count that, he spent 21k today lol


I’d say Mondays are usually big for me in terms of spending because it’s when we do the groceries so normally we would eat out before shopping. And then I go to the office so I eat out as well. And because I’m out, sometimes I window shop. So you know, there’s so much tempation when I’m out.


And I hate it because it’s not like I have money to spare. I put almost everything on credit so when payday comes, all of my allowance goes to paying my credit card and I’m back to zero, charging everything to my card again. I’ve fallen into a vicious cycle of falling in debt every month, and relying on my next allowance to pay for everything. In my defence, I pay all my cards in full and before due. And quite frankly it’s very convenient living this way. But I also miss the feeling of having liquid money to spare. And sometimes I lose track of my spending and end up overspending and having to put items on installment. Much worse having to allot my future bonuses to paying credit card debt.


Oh gosh. I have a spending problem.

Share: