Three-year old economics on 45 minutes of sleep.

Welcome to Outgoings, a weekly series where we speak to Yonder members about their weekly outgoings. Real people, real money, real spending habits.

This week: an operating theatre nurse who came off a 24-hour shift on 45 minutes' sleep and went straight into three days of looking after her three-year-old godson: Paw Patrol magazines, a Gruffalo matinee, and a TV licence bill nobody realised they didn't have. Let's get into it.

Key facts

Diarist: 32, works as a nurse in an operating theatre 

Location: Highgate, London (with her partner) 

Take-home: £3.5k–4.5k 

Biggest spend: £210 (six tickets to Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical) 

Smallest spend: £1.75 (tied: a bus fare and an IKEA soft-serve, on separate occasions) 

Yonder member since: 2026

I'm 32 and work as a nurse in an operating theatre. I live in Highgate with my partner, and my take-home is somewhere in the £3.5-4.5k a month bracket. No big rent bill weighing on me at the moment, which helps.

My relationship with money is complicated. Some days buying a pint of milk will send me into a panic about money, other days I'll spend hundreds of pounds and laugh all the way home. This week won't help my case either way: I had a 24-hour shift, a friend visiting from Cardiff, and then three days of babysitting my godson while prepping for my niece to fly in from Norway next week. Going through a week with visitors and obligations to friends means spending money, whether I like it or not.

Take-home: ~£3.5-4k / month · Rent: £0 (lives with partner) · Week total: £948.86 · Transactions: 38

Day 01 · Monday · London — £31.96

I'm going to be sensible on spending this week. No unnecessary purchases, no online browsing, dinners in.

06:32 · £6.99 — 3-day Lime Bike Pass. On the side of Archway Road, alone, running late and not able to cope with a bus right now. 

07:05 · £4.05 — Oat flat white. Still exhausted, I tried to give myself a boost with a quick Pret before work. I regret cancelling my Pret subscription.

12:15 · £5.00 — Lunch at the hospital cafeteria. Needed something quick and cheap. I often opt for the cafeteria lunches because they’re cheaper than the outside world, but £5 for a measly amount of plain rice and veg still feels quite steep.

16:15 · £1.75 — IKEA soft serve ice cream. I work close to Oxford Street and since my partner and I are redecorating the flat, I popped into IKEA to look for some household items. Left with an ice cream and no household items. 

Feeling: pleased with myself. An ice cream at the same price as my bus fare is good value, and it's a lot more delicious than my ride home on the 134.

16:50 · £1.75 — Bus. A necessity to get home. I hate the bus.

17:27 · £14.17 — Groceries for dinner. Went to Aldi for cheaper groceries, came home with a 1kg tub of peanut butter that I didn't need. It was only £4 though, it would have been a sin not to.

Scrolling in bed before sleep, my finger hovered over Reiss' Allie Biker Leather Jacket in Chocolate Brown, £328, on John Lewis' website. I talked myself out of it. I was feeling good about such a minimal spending day and didn't want to let myself ruin it. There's still plenty of time this week to do that.

Day 02 · Tuesday · London — £214.90

I got to sleep in because it's my late day at work. That means saving money on breakfast and coffee by having it in.

09:00 · £5.00 — Milk, eggs and crumpets. Looked in the cupboard this morning: no breakfast food. Looked in the fridge: no milk. Ran across the road to Co-op to replenish the cupboard.

10:05 · £19.30 — Amazon. My niece and her friend are visiting from Norway next week and I’m desperately trying to scramble to get the guest bedroom ready. Despite my trip to IKEA yesterday, I found myself frantically scrolling Amazon for pillows and a duvet for the guest room, and chucked in a charger extension cord and an HDMI cable too. 

Feeling: Annoyed. I’ve barely left the house yet somehow already spent over £20.

13:00 · £5.00 — Lunch. Another fiver for another subpar cafeteria lunch. Note to self to start bringing in my lunches (yeah, right).

20:15 · £3.85 — Tesco Meal Deal for dinner. Back to back in the operating theatre all day with no time for dinner. Starving, and it’s all I had the energy for.

20:25 · £1.75 — Bus. No energy for a Lime bike right now.

‍21:11 · £90.00 — Enterprise car hire. I’m visiting friends in Sheffield next weekend, and instead of the extortionate train tickets, I decided to rent a car. I thought it was a good idea until I had to pay for it.

22:05 · £90.00 — Annual TV licence. My partner and I only just got a TV set up over the weekend and realised we didn't have a TV licence yet. My partner mentioned that she’s starting to worry that any ring at the doorbell is the TV license man waiting to charge her and send her away in handcuffs. We split the £180 annual fee down the middle.

Started the day feeling okay about my spending, but the TV licence debacle showed how quickly money goes as the week progresses.

Day 03 · Wednesday · London — £101.79

06:40 · £6.99 — 3-day Lime Bike Pass, again. My cycle to work takes 20–25 minutes, and with only 15 minutes left on the last pass, I didn't want to risk it.

11:15 · £69.00 — Three tickets to The Gruffalo. We’re babysitting my godson at the weekend and looking for ways to entertain him. Wanted to take him to Paddington the Musical so had a look online: cheapest ticket was £70. That idea went straight in the bin. Kept looking and found The Gruffalo for £23 a pop. Sold. 

Feeling: honestly, excited. I love my godson more than anything, so money spent on him feels worth it. (Maybe not Paddington-the-Musical-level worth it, but The Gruffalo felt like a good middle ground.)

16:10 · £3.90 — Tube. A good friend from Cardiff is down in London today for work, so we agreed she’d come over and I’d make us dinner to save money. 

21:36 · £21.90 — Dinner at the pub. The moment my friend stepped through the door, I changed my mind about staying in. I suggested the pub down the road instead. Food was good value to be fair, but probably didn't need that second pint. 

Feeling: fed up of £7 pints.

It’s amazing how much you can spend by simply existing in this city. Oh London.

Day 04 · Thursday · London — £15.85

It’s my 24-hour shift today. Ugh.

06:55 · £4.05 — Oat flat white. Coffee was a necessity before work today. Crazy how even just two pints can mess up your sleep once you reach the ripe age of 32. 

Feeling: sluggish, annoyed at myself for not making coffee at home, and dare I say… a tad bit hungover.

12:12 · £6.80 — BBQ pulled mushroom bagel at B Bagel. I rarely get more than 30 minutes for lunch, but today I had a longer window. Ran over to Tottenham Court Road for the £5.80 mushroom bagel I love, only to find they'd raised prices by a pound. Whatever, I’m here now. Might as well fork out the extra pound.

18:15 · £5.00 — Dinner. Only a few cases so far today, so it was time for an early cafeteria dinner. A slow daytime on a 24-hour shift always makes me nervous. Usually that means a busy night. We'll see how it goes.

I decided I’m going to sign up for Gousto. My friend is constantly raving about it, and it's half off the first order. I lay there, daydreaming about the thought of six whole dinners for only £23.25… only to be called 20 minutes later for my first emergency case.

Day 05 · Friday · London — £125.98

I slept 45 minutes last night. We had cases all through the night, and every time I was able to retreat to the room it was barely half an hour before I was called for another. Ah well. Now off to go pick up my godson for my weekend of babysitting.

10:40 · £14.98 — Two Paw Patrol magazines. I have a deal with my godson that I buy him a magazine every weekend. Because it was a special weekend, he got two. I’m a pushover, I know.

10:42 · £8.80 — Coffee and pastries. I grabbed a sausage roll and pastry for my godson and his dad, and something for myself. A girl’s got to eat.

11:16 · £12.80 — Uber. There's a lovely trail called Parkland Walk that connects Stoke Newington and Highgate. I tried to get my three-year-old godson to walk it with me. Got 15 minutes in before a tantrum. Sleep-deprived me let the tantrum last less than a minute before calling an Uber. 

14:56 · £28.04 — Crouch End Picturehouse. My partner was working from home and I needed a distraction for the three-year-old. Toy Story 5 was the answer. Selfishly I couldn’t help but hope I got the chance for a nap in the cinema.

16:34 · £5.99 — Photo booth. Finished the film and thought it would be a cute memory. Now looking back at that photo I can barely remember it. I think the lack of sleep was making me delusional.

16:48 · £4.80 — Hot Wheels toy. My godson had asked for a Hot Wheels half a dozen times that day before I gave in. We popped into Waitrose and I let him pick one.  

17:43 · £50.57 — Pizza dinner. It's a family tradition for my godson to have pizza on a Friday night, so obviously I had to take him. It’s fine. Forty-five minutes of sleep makes you numb to spending money.

Feeling: full of pizza, and a bit sick, if I’m honest. Is it from lack of sleep or the amount I’d spent today? Probably both.

Day 06 · Saturday · London — £43.39

5am wakeup today. Do I really want kids? 

07:05 · £10.50 — Groceries for breakfast. No breakfast food in the house, per usual.

13:45 · £3.50 — Ice cream. Hours of playing at the park, and he asked for an ice cream. Fair enough. Who am I to deny him that? 

Feeling: amazed at the killing that ice cream van must be making.

14:17 · £21.40 — A pint at the Duke of St Albans. He got an ice cream, we got a pint. 

15:48 · £7.99 — A third Paw Patrol magazine. Somehow convinced me to buy him a third. I have no will power. 

I ended the day genuinely questioning whether I should quit nursing and buy an ice cream truck.

Day 07 · Sunday · London — £414.99

First day of proper sleep in 48 hours. Feeling refreshed… until I remembered how much money I’ve spent so far this weekend.

09:12 · £3.30 — Tube. Off to Leicester Square for The Gruffalo.

09:55 · £5.10 — Popcorn. Got my godson some popcorn for the performance. He put one piece in his mouth and spat it out. My partner and I didn’t let it go to waste. 

12:38 · £71.00 — Dim sum at Joy King Lau in Chinatown. We took him for a dim sum after the show. This cost is always worth it, nothing better than dim sum on a Sunday.

13:13 · £4.99 — The Lego Store. We popped in just to have a look, but I promised myself I wouldn't buy anything. Obviously I ended up buying him something. 

Feeling: thankful it wasn't a full Lego set.

16:56 · £120.60 — Arsenal Football Club shop. We dropped my godson home, finally sat down on the couch, then remembered my niece is visiting next week from Norway. Time for more money spending. She loves Arsenal so bought four tickets to a match. I’m not even an Arsenal fan.

19:11 · £210.00 — Six tickets to Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical. My niece wanted to go to the theatre, so we got a group together. 

Feeling: broke.

Thank god this week's over, maybe next week will be cheaper. (Unlikely.)

What the week says

Three things stayed with us after reading it.

The 45-minutes-of-sleep economy. Our diarist came off a 24 hour shift with 45 minutes' rest between call-outs, and walked straight into three days of childcare. Friday (the day she was most exhausted) was also the day she spent the most on herself and her godson combined outside the weekend big-tickets: magazines, an Uber to dodge a tantrum, a cinema trip, a photo booth, a toy, pizza. £126 in one day, almost none of it planned. "Forty-five minutes of sleep makes you numb to spending money," she said herself, and the receipts agree. Exhaustion doesn't make people careless with money in general, it makes them decisive about small, immediate relief, over and over, until it adds up.

Careful with fivers, ambushed by £90 admin. She tracked her cafeteria lunches to the pound, considered the price of a bus fare against an ice cream, and still got blindsided twice in one evening by a £90 car hire and a £90 TV licence she forgot she owed. That's the actual shape of most people's spending: meticulous about the things that are small enough to notice, and then quietly overtaken by the two or three admin costs a month that are too big and too occasional to budget around properly.

Hosting doesn't cost her any anxiety. By her own admission, the week's biggest single spends – the Grease tickets, the Arsenal shop, the Gruffalo tickets, the dim sum – were all for someone else's benefit, and none of them made her regret list. "Spending on visitors doesn't give me that much anxiety," she said. "It feels more justified. I like to show off what London has to offer." The guilt in this diary attaches almost entirely to solo, adult purchases (the flat whites, the almost-bought jacket); spending in service of someone else's good time barely registers as a cost at all.

The reflections

Most defended: "£1.75 on IKEA soft serve ice cream. It's delicious. I’d buy it every day if I had the metabolism for it."

Quietly taken back: "The third Paw Patrol magazine. What’s the saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times… well that’s just pathetic.”

Almost spent on, didn't: "Reiss' Allie Biker Leather Jacket in Chocolate Brown for £328 on John Lewis' website. Didn’t buy it this week, but most definitely will end up buying it in another moment of weakness sometime soon."

Surprising: "Spending on visitors doesn't give me that much anxiety. It feels more justified. I like to show off what London has to offer."

Outgoings is a weekly diary series from Yonder. Every Thursday, one anonymous member takes us through a week of their spending life. To write one, submit an application here.