Money Diary: An Account Manager Juggling Endometriosis On £350/d

This week: "I'm a 31-year-old senior account director (client servicing/campaign management) at an advertising agency, working and living in London. I've lived here for 10 years but grew up in South Yorkshire. Money was tight growing up; we had everything we needed and my parents did their best to treat us where they could but it was definitely tough for them juggling three kids’ needs on relatively low salaries.

I've recently decided I'd like to buy a flat here so have sorted out my money into savings accounts, stopped spending so much on clothes, eating out and holidays (partly due to the pandemic), and worked out how much I need to save within the next year to be able to do so. 

I was quite unlucky for the first six months of the pandemic as I'd just come back from a trip away and couldn't get any paid work until August. I was able to furlough myself based on the salary I PAYE'd myself out of my business earnings, which covered my rent and expenses plus a little more but meant I wasn't really able to save. It did, however, mean I could stay in London. Not working for so long really took its toll on my mental health so being able to stay in my home and financially support myself was a big plus for me as despite being super close to my mum and dad, moving back to my parents' would have sent me into a life spiral. 

I try to give to charities/causes as much as I can, as well as local homeless people – I make an effort to carry cash as I know so many people don't anymore. I understand donating to homeless charities is probably better than giving it directly on the street but sometimes it feels like the most humane thing to do. I often think about the wealth gap and what I can be doing to make this less horrendous. I like to think that once I'm more set up (with a flat), I'll be able to donate more." 

Industry: TV/Advertising
Age: 31
Location: London
Salary: £350 per day as a limited company. I PAYE myself £27k a year and take £2k dividends (this is all changing this week due to IR35).
Paycheque amount: £7k-8k per month (depends how many days in a month there are) as a business, I then take home around £1,700 from the £27k salary after student loan, tax etc.
Number of housemates: One friend who owns the flat, L.

Housing costs: £715 for rent.
Utilities: Included in rent.
Loan payments: Student loan comes out of my PAYE pay before it gets to me – not sure how much, I never actually look at my payslip (eek) but definitely have 10+ years left on that bad boy.
Savings? £5k in a help to buy ISA, £13.6k in a savings account (£10k of which my parents have extremely kindly lent me out of their pension to help me with a deposit, they've said I can pay them back over five years), £300 Monzo holiday pot, £200 stocks and shares, £215 Bitcoin. Then I have around £21k in my business account but I have about a year and a half of corporation taxes to pay before I know what I can take home from that if I want to close the business, which I'm currently considering.
Transportation: I try to cycle as much as I can but realistically I probably spend about £30-40 a month on cabs and maybe £15 on the Tube/bus.
Phone bill: £53 out of my business account (I got the iPhone 11+ when it first came out around two years ago so nearly due an upgrade but will probably go SIM only).
Other: £5 Now TV, £9.99 Spotify, £15 insurance with my bank (covers my phone and travel insurance), £26 contact lenses, £15 Body by Ciara app, £10 Unicef (I used to donate more than this monthly to set charities but now I prefer to do it sporadically to causes that interest me specifically).