Money Diary: A Design Quality Engineer On 44k

This week: "I’m a 27-year-old design engineer living in Bristol with my boyfriend, A, and my cat. I’ve been here for four years and bought a house with A just over a year ago which is big enough to be our forever home if we want to stay in Bristol. I switched jobs a few months ago for a big pay rise and I’m still somewhat finding my feet as it was a slight career change. It does mean I can walk to work though!

I’ve always been good at saving and even managed to save a bit of my student loan every year (mostly down to being in a very, very cheap city) but I don’t stop myself from treating myself when I want to. Having a house has given me the freedom to spend a bit more as I now don’t have any big purchases to save for."

Occupation: Design engineer 
Industry: Consumer tech
Age: 27
Location: Bristol 
Salary: £44,000
Paycheque amount: £2,565 after tax, pension and student loans come out. 
Number of housemates: One: my boyfriend, A (and my cat). 
Pronouns: She/her

Monthly Expenses
 
Housing costs: £850 split between us. We’re remortgaging soon so this is set to go up to £1,100 with the interest rate hikes. 
Loan payments: £108 student loan, which comes out of my paycheque.
Savings? £27,000 including £1,600 in investments. I’ve just started investing, post-pandemic, which makes me feel very grown up.
Pension? I pay 5% salary sacrifice into my pension and my employer pays 5% too. I’ll up this once my remortgage is done, when I get an idea of my new expenses. 
Utilities: £160 council tax, roughly £80 gas/electricity, £30 water, £16 cat insurance, £35 internet. These are all split equally between A and me.
All other monthly payments: £20 for my phone, £20 for my gym, £6 National Trust, £10 local charity donations. Subscriptions: £15 cat health plan, £16 life insurance, £40 for a fortnightly local veg box (all split between A and me). £15 family Spotify split between me, A and my sister.

I went to university and this was covered by government student loans. My parents didn’t help me out financially except the occasional train home and paying for my phone contract. 
 
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?

I knew we could stay afloat but the household always got a bit stressful every tax year and at times things were definitely tight. My parents still managed to take us abroad once a year (I don't really know how). I had little education on money as both attitudes to finance were very 'bury their heads in the sand and deal with problems as they come up'. My dad came into an amount of money about five years ago and things have gotten considerably easier for them since.

I moved out at 18 for uni. 
 
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?

Mostly at 18 when I moved out for uni. My mum still paid my phone contract and I'd be given money whenever I came home to cover the train but otherwise I supported myself fully off my student loan. I was lucky enough to receive near the maximum loan and live in a cheap city. 

Aside from babysitting once or twice when I was a teenager, my first job was a year in industry as a student engineer. I was earning £15,500 while living a student life and I felt like I was living like a queen. This was part of my degree. 

Thankfully I am on a great salary and I recently had a pay rise that covered the cost of living increases so I don't worry about myself too much. I do worry about other people though, because if I'm noticing the cost of living impact then how on earth are people on the breadline managing to get by?

Yes. My grandma left me £9,500 when she died and this went towards the house. My parents gifted me £40,000 to help buy the house so I could match the contribution my boyfriend had. This enabled us to buy a good size house that we could stay in for life, rather than buying a smaller place that we would have to move out of if we wanted children. I am eternally grateful and very aware that this is a huge amount to receive. I didn’t need all of it and have the remainder sat in a high-ish interest account in case my parents ever need it back. I haven’t given it back to them yet as if it was left with them it would just sit in a current account, earning no interest.