Welcome to Receipts with me, Emma Edwards (of The Broke Generation Podcast), where I share with you what I spend for four weeks over the silly season. Look, I’m as intrigued as you are, to be honest. Is it wild to commit to doing a spending diary in December? Perhaps. But I’m buckled in for the ride. Let’s get started.
I kicked the day off with a morning gym session *pats self on back*, and then knuckled down and worked from home for the rest of the day. I’ve recently hired a cleaner to do a couple of hours of cleaning once a fortnight and it’s been a game changer, so I paid her $250 when she invoiced me that night. Other than that, my bank account was home and dry for the day.
What was going to be another no spend day turned into something quite the opposite this fine Tuesday. Every December my husband and I set aside one evening to go into the city, pick a new Christmas decoration and have an end of year dinner. We hadn’t planned this year’s yet, as it was a case of hectic schedules and hoping the right day magically presents itself to us. But I woke to a notification that ShopBack (a cashback site here in Australia) was slinging 18% cashback on the Best Restaurants gift card. This spun me into action, and a couple of Whatsapp’s later, we had locked in a dinner for tonight. I bought a $150 gift card for dinner, for which I used $39 of existing ShopBack cashback, and then earned a further $27 from the 18% earn rate. That put me $84 out of pocket for what was certain to be a magnificent dinner. While working away at my desk later that morning, I got a notification that my favourite mindfulness app, Balance, was having a sale on its lifetime membership. A $149 once off payment for lifetime access (I usually pay around $80-$120 per year), so I jumped at the chance. Later that night, we paid $21 for our two chosen Christmas decorations, $10 on parking, and used the gift card I bought earlier for dinner.
My morning scroll led me back down a rabbit hole I’ve been down many times, involving the now-discontinued lipstick I wore to my wedding three years ago. I have a tiny bit of it left but really wanted another one (yes I’m still using a three-year-old lipstick, don’t judge me) and I found a website that still has some stock. I’m tempted, but at $80 I decided to give it some more thought. I know I want it, but after yesterday’s dinner, it’s a bit too much of an impulse spend. I might wait until my discretionary spending money hits my account for the week on Friday. One doctor’s appointment ($98 with a $46 rebate) later, I went through the McDonald’s drive thru for a frozen Fanta lemon (highly recommend) before calling it a day.
An essential purchase.
Today was a hectic day as it was my book launch event for my new book, The Wardrobe Project! A busy morning rushing around picking up catering and getting everything set up meant my only real spend that day was $14 on Spud Bar and $5.65 on a coffee for a last burst of energy. I picked up some gift cards for the raffle at the event, too (how good is the thrill of a raffle?!?!) but that was a business expense. After the launch, me, my friend Peta, and my husband all sat on the bed of my hotel room eating a gigantic pizza, but my husband paid, so that’s all for Thursday!
Friday was one of those days where I felt hungover from the busyness of launch day the day before, but I hadn’t drunk a drop. Once I got home from the city I smashed out some work in what I will say was record time, made a deadline with seconds to spare, and then hot-footed it off for lunch with my contact from my main freelance client. It was on me as a thank you for working with me. That cost $168. After that I headed home and spent the night on the couch, and I broke my rule of not getting Uber Eats unless I’m traveling for work. I spent $27 on a chicken parma and chips, and tipped my rider $3.
On Saturday I indulged in my favourite low-key weekend routine: 7am pilates with my husband, followed by a walk. I know, I know, the 7am thing doesn’t exactly sound luxurious (and no, I’m actually not really an early bird), but no matter how groggy I feel when I wake up, I always feel amazing afterwards, and getting out before the world wakes up is always such a nice feeling.
I went for brunch at my in-laws, which was a win for the wallet as that was free, and later that night headed round to my friend’s house for a watch party of the new series of Owning Manhattan. $12 on a small vegetable pizza was all that left my wallet that night — not bad.
I was up and at’em early to go on live breakfast TV to promote The Wardrobe Project, so I had to be up, camera ready and at the Docklands studio by 8.20am. The long drive and the fact it was far too early to be in full makeup left me hankering for a McDonald’s hash brown, so I went through the drive thru and to my delight, found a coupon in my app for a $1.50 hashbrown. I ordered a second for my husband at an eye watering $3.35 (when did they get so expensive?!), but then a miracle happened — they hand me a bag with FOUR hashbrowns in. Unparalleled joy for a humble $4.85 spend.
I spent the rest of the day pottering around, popped into my neighbour’s house for an afternoon drink in the garden, before heading off on a thee and a half-hour drive out to Lake Bolac for a freelance job I was doing out there on Monday morning. I filled my car with snacks from home, chucked $51 of petrol in the car to make sure I wasn’t left in the wilderness with no fuel, and that was it for a week in my wallet.
See you next week!
Emma Edwards is a finance copywriter and blogger, on a mission to humanize the financial services industry by creating meaningful content that’s accessible and empowering. You’ll find her penning money tips at her blog, The Broke Generation, sharing financial insights on Instagram, or injecting life into content for her business clients.
