Money Diary 30-Year-Old Trainee Teacher

Welcome to Money Diaries, where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking a cross-section of women how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period – and we're tracking every last penny.

This week: "I'm a 30-year-old trainee teacher living in southwest England. I moved to the UK in September 2021 after five years of living in Australia with my British husband. We hadn’t been home in over three years so we both felt it was time to rip off the Band-Aid and move to the UK. Simultaneously, I wanted to leave my job in tech and retrain as a teacher. It's something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time but kept putting travelling and living overseas ahead of it. When we got back to the UK, we moved in with my husband’s parents as they live a commutable distance to my university and have plenty of room in their house. I started my PGCE in September and will graduate in June, which is when we plan to buy a house in Cornwall. My finances are completely joint with my husband so for the purpose of this money diary I will detail both his and my income/expenditure."

Occupation: Trainee teacher
Industry: Education
Age: 30
Location: Southwest England
Salary: My salary: £0. Husband's salary: £350/day.
Paycheque amount: Unsure about the exact amount as my husband has just started this role/day rate. It was previously £3,800 a month.
Number of housemates: Four: J (husband), J’s parents and J’s dog.
Pronouns: She/her

Monthly Expenses

Housing costs: £250 but this is more to cover food. We did offer J’s parents more but they only wanted us to cover our food expenses. We really appreciate their generosity for this year, allowing us to save more.
Loan payments: £9,250 student loan. This will start to be taken from my pay when I start teaching in September 2022 (fingers crossed). My husband has no debt.
Savings? £92,000 in premium bonds (this is our house deposit, which is getting better returns in bonds – we add £2,000 to this every month), £8,000 in a LISA (we maxed both of ours so we can get the £1,000 bonus each next year to go towards our house costs), £12,400 in stocks and shares, £2,000 in crypto, £3,940 spread across sinking funds (emergency fund, gift fund, holiday fund, appointments fund, sports equipment fund). I also ran my own business in Australia as a part-time hobby so I have approx £2,200 in an account which I still need to move over to my UK bank.
Pension? I don’t have a pension and wasn’t eligible to pay into one in Australia so I set aside money every month to go into stocks and shares. My husband pays into his pension 7%, which his employer matches. However now he is contracting he will set up a private pension contributing the same amount.
Utilities: Car insurance £48 (this covers me, my husband and his parents). Car tax we paid in full last June for the year.
All other monthly costs: £60 phone, £89 CrossFit gym, £160 Squarespace (yearly). Subscriptions: £13.99 Spotify (Premium Duo covers both our accounts), £9.99 Netflix.

Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?

Education is free from my home country and my parents paid for my housing/living expenses as I went to uni a few hours away from where they live.

Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?

Money wasn’t really discussed when I was growing up, except that the only debt I should ever take on is a mortgage. Our house and cars were ordinary compared to my peers, however we went on about five or six overseas holidays every year, which I thought was normal but in hindsight it’s definitely not and something I absolutely would not be able to provide to my own children.

If you have, when did you move out of your parents'/guardians' house?

I moved out when I was 18 to attend university and I never moved back in.

At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?

When I graduated university I moved to the US, then Canada, then back to Europe, then finally Australia in 2016, all funded by myself. Up until September last year when I moved into my in-laws' I was financially responsible for myself. Now my husband is supporting me, and his parents are supporting us by not charging us for rent/bills etc.

What was your first job and why did you get it?

When I was 16 I got a job as a barista for a bit of pocket money.

Do you worry about money now?

Although I’ve been fortunate to receive some inheritance and have the opportunity this year to save a lot I do still sometimes worry about money as the starting salary for a teacher is quite low compared to the salary I was on in the tech industry. I got interested in personal finance in my mid 20s and have since read a lot of books and regularly listen to finance podcasts so I feel I am equipped with enough knowledge and understanding to make the most out of my salary when I do start teaching.

Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?

£50,000 of our savings was a combination of inheritance. My husband and I both received similar figures of money from grandparents we unfortunately lost. £10,000 is from a redundancy payment I received from my last job (they offered me an excellent redundancy package a week before I was about to hand in my notice and tell them I was moving to the UK, which was unbelievably lucky).