Welcome back 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. This week I’ve got a couple of big freelance work days on the road and a weekend away with my husband, so let’s see what the week will bring.
I was awoken by my early alarm at a regional motel I was staying in for work, so I got myself ready for the day and into my car with plenty of time to hit up the one place within a 20km radius that was open and serving coffee at 7am. $16.80 later, I was taking in the brisk country air, scarfing down a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and washing it down with my coffee. I pootled off to the shoot location where we spent the day, before embarking on the four-hour drive back to Melbourne. I stopped at the only service station I passed for 190km and threw another coffee down my neck. I was fresh out of the bananas and Ritz crackers I had been munching on in the car, so I got a KFC pepper mayo slider, a small popcorn chicken and a small chips to keep me going. That all came to a tidy $17.80, and that was me done for the day.
I was out the door and on the road back towards the city this morning. My Google Maps read one hour and 10 minutes to my destination, where I was recording podcasts for a brand, so I swung into the drive-thru to get a coffee with my Macca’s points. The coffee was free, bar the $1.30 I paid for hazelnut syrup. Zero coffee snobbery here. Post-recording, I needed to pick up a few groceries. My weird work schedule over the last month has led to some very sporadic food shops, so I stopped at Woolworths and spent $51.45 on a few essentials. Other than that, I was done for the day.
My health sinking fund came to good use this morning as I went in for a medical appointment with a specialist. The total came to $440, but thanks to hitting the Medicare threshold this year, I was able to get 80% back, leaving me only $88 out of pocket. I also got my parking ticket validated by the clinic, bringing it down from $29 to $10. Win! Next, I was on the road again, driving the 200km to another regional town where I was working the following day. I checked into my hotel and got stuck into some work, before popping out for a coffee to get me through the afternoon — that was $7 (ouch). Early evening, my friend arrived, as she was joining me to share the hotel room and have a mini work-ation while I was there. We ordered pizza for dinner and shared a serve of mini Nutella doughnuts, which came to $35 each. In the background, my meal box subscription was deducted, which cost $58.99. That means meals will be delivered on Monday morning for the following week.
Today was a big work day, so I got up and ready to head off to meet my client, but not before I fueled up on a free feed at the included hotel buffet (always a win). I forgot to eat lunch, so I grabbed an oat milk latte with the four minutes I had spare upon arrival and hoped that would tide me over (it did, along with the triumphant discovery of a muesli bar in my bag). I drove back to the hotel, where my friend and I went to grab some Japanese food, which came to $30 each. A night of watching Below Deck Med followed, with no further spending.
What would we do without hazelnuts?!
On Friday lunchtime, we had a hankering for acai bowls, but the only one available in the town we were in was so… healthy. Not a dollop of Nutella in sight. Nonetheless, we persisted and made a stop at the supermarket for our own jar of Nutella. Resourceful, indeed. That plus a bottle of sunscreen came to $22. Nutella procured, we headed to get the slightly-too-healthy acai bowls, and promptly jacked up the caloric density with our pour-your-own Nutella situation. My friend paid for the bowls, and I am yet to reimburse her, so I need to follow that up. Later that evening, my husband arrived as he was joining me for the weekend. We went out to get Mexican for dinner, which came to $78.18, and that was all for the day.
Another free feed at the hotel buffet meant we were clear of breakfast expenses, which can add up quickly on weekends away, but we reserved most of our spending, and appetite, for lunch, where we were having a belated wedding anniversary celebration at a local Greek restaurant. $184 down the hatch, glasses raised to three years married, and that was that. I was flirting with the idea of an afternoon ice cream, but I never got around to it, so that’s $7 right back in my pocket. By dinner time, we were in that hungry-but-full limbo that follows a larger-than-usual lunch, so we shared a pizza for $25, and enjoyed two free drinks from the bar that were included in my booking. Another win in the bag.
By Sunday, I was so ready to get home. I’ve been away for work so much lately, and while this was a leisure trip tacked onto a working one, I still felt that familiar pull of my own bed sheets. One final fill-up at the hotel buffet, and we were on the road. Unfortunately, an hour in, I was starving again, so we stopped for a pee break and I grabbed a bag of Cheezels for $2.40. Then I went to fill a prescription and was met with a sympathetic “That’s $129.40” from the pharmacist, who seemed to share my slight sigh at the cost of the medication I needed. Other than that, I was home and dry for the week. Sitting on the couch with a cuppa, I hopped into my PocketSmith dashboard to check I’d caught everything, tweaked a couple of categories, and finished up this spending log for you!
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.
