Sadie spends her cash on fancy food and travel (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

There’s a stereotype that millennials can’t afford homes and have no savings because they chuck all their money on takeaway coffees and avocado toast.

The truth is it’s a bit more complicated than that (see: the rising cost of homes, stagnant salaries, insecure work, and so on), but sometimes we do need to take a cold, hard look at where exactly our money is going.

How I Save is your weekly inspiration to do just that.

Each week we catch up with a different person about their money habits, tracking how they spend and save over the course of a week.




This time we’re in the wallet of Sadie*, a 22-year-old content writer living in London.

How Sadie saves:

I earn £30,000 a year and in my savings account right now I have £215.

I’m saving for constant travel and music festivals. I am originally from Perth, Western Australia, so I am trying to take advantage of the close proximity to Europe as opposed to a 27-hour plane trip.

The main way I save is through automatic saving with an app called Chip – I don’t have to think about it nor feel it. On payday I try to transfer around £200 to my Chip account as well, you know, ‘pay myself first’ kind of thing. Having it in a seperate account reduces the urge to transfer when I go in for an impulse purchase.

I have swapped from catching the train to the bus to save a bit of money, and made a feeble attempt at meal prepping.

I struggle with saving because I love exotic and overpriced food way too much. You’ll never catch me with a Tesco meal deal.

How Sadie spends:

Monthly expenses:

£560 for rent and bills

£24.99 for gym

£20 phone bill

A week of spending:

Monday: I get a £1.50 bus from Clapham to Holborn. It takes me twice as long but it means I don’t have to brave the Northern and Central line at peak time AND I save half as much by the end of the week. I also find it sort of cathartic, which, in reflection, is quite sad.

I have breakfast at work. They supply both oat milk and oats, so I make porridge. However, I do supply my own pretentious toppings; turmeric, cinnamon, hemp seeds, peanut butter, blueberries… My desk is a small Holland & Barrett.

I spend £28 on tickets for a wine and painting class this Wednesday in Battersea.

I had meal-prepped my lunch: chickpeas and roast veg. I am predominantly vegetarian with the exception of fish once or twice a week. Buying frozen fish I’ve found works out cheaper, and a can of chickpeas is generally only 65p. Though, I do find I compensate by spending more money on exotic vegan alternatives; marinated tempeh, smoked tofu, Linda McCartney meatballs.

£1.80 for a Kombucha at Boots. I was looking for foundation, but they didn’t have the brand I needed and the fridge caught my attention as my friend paid for her items. Sue me.



£13.99 was automatically transferred from bank account to my Chip balance.

I changed my gym membership to a cheaper plan that means I can now only go to one gym location – saving me £5 a month.

£1.50 bus to the gym – walked home 20 minutes from there.

Made dinner at home – all the roast veg I had left with some tofu.

£56.15 for gas and electricity bills – these only come out every 3 months.

Total spent on Monday: £102.94

Sadie finds herself spending money on overpriced food (Picture: Ella Byworth)

Tuesday:

£1.50 on a bus to work, £9.10 on a water bill, lunch was prepped the night before.

Walked to Boots by Oxford Street station as a second attempt to buy foundation. Bagged my Estee Lauder Double Wear at £34. I really need to find a cheaper alternative, but I am a self confessed creature of habit.

On the walk back I bought a bunch of bananas from Waitrose for £1.35.

My ASOS order I placed on Sunday arrived… I’m lucky that I started this diary the day after.

£1.50 goes on a bus home.

My friend made me dinner so no money spent there. We take it in turns to make each other a home-cooked meal instead of dining out.

Total spent on Tuesday: £47.45

Wednesday: Working from home today, though I still went to a spin class early.

I went to Sainsbury’s to get some veg for lunch/dinner which cost £5.23. Generally, I buy enough for the week, but I am mindful that I am flying overseas on Saturday and don’t want to risk overbuying.

I transferred a friend £15 to go in on check-in luggage for our flight to Bulgaria on Saturday. We bought vintage ski suits last week and, well, they take up a lot of room.


Went to a Reformer Pilates class on my lunch break which I booked through ClassPass, which is paid for through work.

My friend transferred me £7.99 from going halves on a bottle of vodka on the weekend.

£1.50 bus to Battersea for the paint and pint class, £2.50 for some hot chips post-class, and £1.50 on a bus home.

Total spent on Wednesday: £17.74

Thursday: £1.50 bus to work, £2.98 for a new tube of toothpaste, and again, I enjoyed my meal-prepped lunch.

I booked a £70.99 flight to Prague for Easter and a £96.15 flight from Vienna to London the same Easter weekend.

£1.50 goes on a bus home.

Total spent on Thursday: £173.12

Friday: £20 monthly phone bill.

Walked to Paddington Station from my house in Clapham because I knew I wouldn’t be going to the gym and it was a really nice day. This also saved me £1.50 (but took 100 minutes).

I bought a green tea and a water bottle from a cafe within Paddington Station, costing a whopping £5.64.

My return train ticket to Bath was covered by work – we were on an out-of-office date to meet with our media agency.

I ordered some vegan banana bread at £2.75.

iTunes payment of £4.49 – i think this is for extra iCloud storage – I don’t even know at this point…

£9.80 for two drinks at a bar in Bath called Graze post-meeting. Lunch was covered by work.

Spent £9.25 at Marks and Spencer, involving a vegan salad and popcorn as dinner, plus 3 canned G&Ts for the train back to London. The drinks that followed back in London were shouted.


£6.50 went on the mandatory late-night kebab and transport home was £4.80.

Total spent on Friday: £63.23

Saturday: I Deliveroo-ed my breakfast because I was really hungover… a £14.43 cacao smoothie bowl. This is usually the case most weekends.

I went for a long walk/very weak attempt at a jog in the morning to ruminate on my life decisions, and bought a £1 water from Sainsbury’s along the way.

Spent £11.95 on lunch at Heathrow airport – a vegan burger and water – plus £6.24 on plane snacks and a Cosmo magazine at WHSmith.

£43.34 transferred to my friend for return transport to Bansko from Sofia airport, plus a little extra for groceries.

£16.22 was transferred to Chip for savings.

£5 for dinner in Bansko – an omelette, chips and a drink.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Total spent on Saturday: £98.18

Sunday: Spent £199.51 for 6 days’ hire of snowboard, boots, helmet and gloves and £181.46 for a six-day lift pass.

Spent £8.70 for lunch – thirds in two pizzas with a friend, plus a water.

£8.66 for snacks and groceries.

£9.83 for dinner. For most dinners out with a big group, we just split the bill instead of individually paying for a meal – which can work out either more expensive, or cheaper.

I am oh so very glad the diary ends here and you don’t get to see the spending that followed…

Total spent on Sunday: £ 408.16

Total spent this week: £910.82

How Sadie could save: We spoke to the experts over at Plum, an AI assistant that aims to boost your bank balance, to find out how Sadie can save better (and what we can learn from her spending). Here’s what they said: Hey, Sadie! Thanks for sharing your week with us. Your talk of travels and music festivals has got the team at Plum HQ wishing it was summer already… but it sounds like you’re still feeling those winter vibes on the Alpine slopes! But did you stay on-track, or go off-piste with your spending? Let’s take a closer look. Saving You’re clear that you want to make the most of your time in Europe and saving isn’t the biggest priority. Yet you are still saving a bit, thanks to your app that saves automatically for you. So you’re not struggling to save – everyone has to start somewhere. There’s a lot more you can do with apps besides auto-saves, though. There are all sorts of smart ways Plum puts money aside for you without you even noticing, including rounding up spare change when you buy something, automatically saving a certain amount on payday without you having to do it yourself or even putting money away whenever it rains. You don’t give much info about your saving account, but note that Chip doesn’t offer any interest, so you’ll have to think about other places to put the cash once you build up a bit of a stash. When you want to start saving for the long-term, you could try investing, for example in a stocks and shares ISA. This strategy will help you beat inflation, but it’s more for long-term savings. And of course, your capital is at risk with investing, so it is a tad less convenient if you need to get that cash out fast, say, for your next trip. Spending This wasn’t a typical week for you so let’s leave the end-of-week skiing shenanigans to one side and focus on your more normal spending. Your love of, as you call it, ‘exotic and over-priced’ food, doesn’t seem to be ‘eating’ (pardon the pun) into your spending as much as you might think, though you haven’t shared how much your weekly shop cost. And while you might say your meal-prep is feeble, it seems to have saved you quite a lot of money this week, so bravo! A good way to look after those pennies when it comes to food is by planning how much you want to spend on ‘everyday’ food (the weekly shop, meal prep) and how much on ‘treat’ food (takeaways etc). You could even set aside a separate pocket for treats. That way, you’ll be able to spend guilt-free. While you’re not too worried about saving a lot right now, a few small changes will make all the difference in the future. Getting into a few good habits will ensure that when you do want to ramp up your saving or rein in your spending, it won’t feel too painful. And in the meantime, hope you enjoy that apres-ski!

How I Save is a weekly series about how people spend and save, out every Thursday. If you’d like to anonymously share how you spend and save – and get some expert advice on how to sort out your finances – get in touch by emailing ellen.scott@metro.co.uk.

If you want more tips and tricks on saving money, as well as chat about cash and alerts on deals and discounts, join our Facebook Group, Money Pot.

*Name has been changed.

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