Half-price meat, full-price regret.

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: someone who investigates fraud and scams for a living, earning £2k–4k a month, who spent one of the most sociable weeks of the year — a friend reunion, a wine and cheese night, and a gig from her teenage years — and still managed to talk herself into (and out of) nearly every purchase along the way, parting with £601.51 across 28 transactions. A quiet masterclass in convincing yourself spending money on a discount is basically saving money. Let's get into it.

Key facts

Diarist: 37, works in financial complaints, specifically around fraud and scams

Location: East London (lives with partner)

Salary: £55-60k

Biggest spend: £87.55 (meat order)

Smallest spend: £2.20 (half-price iced coffee)

I'm 37 and I work in financial services on the complaints side, specialising in fraud and scams, which is a very effective way to make yourself paranoid about who you hand your own money to. I live in East London in a Victorian terrace with my partner and our two cats, Mapo and Tofu, one of whom spent this entire week under house arrest recovering from a foot operation, which meant we couldn't open a single window during the hottest week of the year.

My relationship with money in one sentence: a recovering over-spender who is trying, quite hard, to build herself a nest egg. Going in, I knew this would be a week of reunions: one with a friend I don't get to see nearly enough, and one with my own teenage self when I have a Jimmy Eat World gig at the end of the week.

Take-home: £3-4k / month · Rent: ~£1,200–£1,400, split with partner · Week total: £601.51 · Transactions: 28

Day 01 · Monday · East London — £91.25

I wake up groggy after another hot night. Our Victorian terrace holds onto every degree of heat, and we can't open any windows because Tofu is under house arrest following an operation on his foot. I lie there thinking about air conditioning, again. We know we'll get it eventually, properly installed through the ceiling rather than a unit propped in a window, which is another £4-5k we haven't put aside yet. The milk's gone off and the milkman doesn't come until tomorrow, so it's a black coffee from the espresso machine to start the day.

8:05  · £6.60 — TFL journeys (yesterday's). I met up with a group of women yesterday because we all buy the same American brand of nail polish and split the import taxes and delivery on one big order. Half handing out everyone's nail polish, half hanging out at a board game bar in Waterloo, we played Wavelength (genuinely great game, if you haven't).

10:00  · £15 — Discounted sunglasses, Oliver Bonas. I'll be honest, this was mostly distraction from work. But one of the pairs I'd saved on my Oliver Bonas profile went half price, and with the heatwave not letting up, buying yet another pair of sunglasses felt entirely reasonable.

Feeling: not too bad. It was reduced, so I'm saving money. Right?

11:45  · £69.65 — Food shop for the week, Sainsbury's. We try to do the shop during the day so it's less chaotic, and we meal plan and cook fresh most nights. With the heatwave it's been lots of salads, and I bought a honeydew melon for the first time in my life, which feels like an odd thing to admit at 37.

Day 02 · Tuesday · East London — £178.88

The cleaner comes today (the charge will land later) so I have to tidy the house before she arrives, something my partner has never quite understood ("cleaning for the cleaner?"). Small mercy: the milkman came in the night, so it's a proper milky coffee this morning.

10:08· £87.55 — Meat, home delivery. Distracting myself from work again. I got an email from a butcher I've used before about half-price côte de bœuf and had to snap it up, then saw there was free delivery on orders over £85, so I fully stocked the freezer for the next month or two. Basically saving money, right?

‍Feeling: accomplished... I think.

10:41 · £11.60 — Coffee, local park café. Bought for my coffee crew today, me and my two neighbours from across the road, plus their dog, who try to walk to the local park most work-from-home days. We're basically friends with everyone who works there now. It was my turn to buy, so we drank coffee and walked round the park and talked.

‍Feeling: caffeinated and happy.

12:52· £25.98 — Cinema tickets. Paid for me and my partner to see the new Spider-Man film with friends on Friday.

‍Feeling: excited for Friday already.

23:55 · £53.75 — Cleaner.

End-of-day note: I feel like I spent quite a lot today. I'd like to try not to buy anything unnecessary tomorrow.

Day 03 · Wednesday · East London — £0

Today I want to try to minimise spending, though I do have to buy something from a café to get some solar eclipse glasses.

End-of-day note: I spent nothing today... but I do owe my friends £15. We sat in the park together with homemade eclipse viewers and half the neighbourhood enjoying it with us.

Day 04 · East London — £60.93

I'm going to the theatre with a friend I rarely get to see today. I'm sure I'll end up spending on food and drinks this evening, and I might also go into the office just to use their air con in the 35-degree heat, which means lunch and coffee too. Today's going to be an expensive one.

09:10 · £11.92 — Taxi to work. I always feel a bit guilty getting a taxi instead of public transport or cycling. But I'm going out after work, so cycling's out, and taxis are just so much easier. Plus, for under £12, I'm basically saving money... right?

‍Feeling: minor guilt.

‍09:14 · £3.80 — Coffee, café below work. My usual chat with the barista, who I'm now film-nerd friends with. He's seen The Odyssey twice, I watched Taxi Driver last week at the Prince Charles Cinema.

‍Feeling: ready for the day.

12:15 · £11.90 — Lunch, Korean place near work. A small spot with seats overlooking the water. I got a bento box and had a bit of time to myself.

‍Feeling: chilled.

12:45 · £4.50 — Iced coffee, Pret. Thought I needed a pick-me-up after all that rice. Got a really, really bad iced coffee.

‍Feeling: sad that my coffee is rubbish.

17:47 · £5.81  — Wagamama. I know, I know, a bit beige. But I had a voucher from coming second in the World Cup sweepstake, so it had to be used.

18:57 · £23 — Wine, theatre bar. A drink for me and my friend before the show. We saw Abigail's Party, and now I want a 70s-style draped silk dress.

End-of-day note: I spent a lot of today coveting a pair of shoes from Oliver Bonas, even reduced, they're £110, and I just can't bring myself to do it. Yet.

Day 05 · Friday · East London — £28.25

I'd like to spend less today than yesterday, but I left my laptop at work, so I have to go back in. Setting myself up for success by cycling. No taxi costs today.

09:03 · £2.20 — Iced coffee, café under the office. Had to get one. I was melting after cycling in. At least it's 50% off coffee on a Friday, which helps my reduced-spending plan. 

Feeling: pretty good — that's a steal.

10:19 · £4.10 — Banana bread. Went with some co-workers to a different café; they got coffee, I grabbed a slice of banana bread for breakfast. A very expensive slice, as it turned out; I didn't see the price until afterwards. 

Feeling: annoyed!

12:41 · £11.50 — Lunch near work. Tasty noodles at a small Chinese restaurant near the office: new, and always busy, which is a good sign. 

Feeling: full.

13:06 · £2.95 — Mango, Co-op.

18:25 · £7.50 — Water, Waitrose. Grabbed water to take into the cinema, and my partner got sweets too, because we're cheap like that. For the record, the new Spider-Man film was good.

End-of-day note: Today was good. I could have spent less, but I also don't think I went crazy.

Day 06 · Saturday · East London — £170.60

Our friend group has decided on a wine and cheese night, and I've agreed to go with two others to pick up bread, wine and cheese from Islington. I already know today is going to be more expensive.

10:14 · £5.05 — TFL (yesterday's). Enough said, I think.

11:02 · £10.40 — Coffee and an apple cinnamon roll, German bakery. I'd never been before, and wow. Really good coffee, but the star of the show was the apple cinnamon schnecke — highly recommend. We also picked up a bread selection for the cheese, which I didn't end up paying for. 

Feeling: very happy, with good friends and good food, there's not much better.

12:14 · £39.40 — Cheese, "Pistachio and Pickle." Adorable name. We went for a selection for the evening and ended up mostly with English cheeses. Feeling: excited for cheese.

12:20 · £22.50 — Tea, Bird & Blend. There was a Bird & Blend nearby and I'm a sucker for a good green tea, so I bought a very large bag of grapefruit green tea to cold brew with lemonade. 

Feeling: like I'll be a new woman who detoxes on green tea.

12:35 · £27.90 — Crémant, French shop. We needed bubbles to start the evening while eating cheese, and this Crémant looked perfect. 

Feeling: ready for the evening.

13:07 · £5.50  — Plasters. I'm going to a gig tomorrow and realised I should be sensible and get some.

14:08 · £60 — Two tops, P&Co. My friends wanted to go in, and honestly I just wanted to go home at that point, but then I saw the sale and couldn't resist. I should have just closed my eyes. 

Feeling: like I have no self-control sometimes.

End-of-day note: A lot of today was things for the friend group that I'll get back in kind eventually, though I didn't need to buy more clothes. I keep realising I need to work on my self-control.

Day 07 · Sunday · Crystal Palace — £35.80

Gig day! Jimmy Eat World, all the way in Crystal Palace, with my partner and two friends. It's not until this afternoon, so it's a chill recovery day after a good night last night.

02:04 · £3.30 — TFL (yesterday's).

17:40 · £18.75 — Two waters, a beer and a cider, the gig. First round of the night — great venue, and the drinks weren't as painful as I'd braced for. 

Feeling: ready for the band.

18:27 · £13.75 — One more round: a beer and a cider. My last round of the night — for the wallet's sake, and because I don't want to keep making the trip to the portaloos. 

Feeling: really ready for the band.

End-of-day note: Just thinking about how good the gig was, and how I got to relive my youth with friends I didn't even know back then — plus a partner who loves gigs just as much. And a low-spend day, which is good too.

What the week says

Three things stayed with us after reading it.

The social spend is doing a lot of the work. Two of the week's three biggest transactions — the £87.55 meat order and the £69.65 food shop — will be partly recouped from a joint account, and a wine and cheese night, a theatre trip, a cinema outing and a gig all landed in the same seven days. It's a week that reads less like routine spending and more like the cost of a full social calendar hitting all at once.

The "basically saving money" logic shows up again and again. The discounted sunglasses, the half-price meat order, the under-£12 taxi, the 50%-off Friday coffee; each one gets framed, at least half-jokingly, as a saving rather than a spend. It's a familiar bit of self-talk for anyone trying to rein in spending while still enjoying their life, and she catches herself doing it almost every time.

The restraint is real, even when it doesn't always hold. A £0 day in the middle of the week, a genuine debate over £110 shoes that gets postponed rather than resolved, and a conscious decision to cycle rather than taxi, set against two new tops bought on impulse at the end of a long Saturday. The nest-egg intention is visibly there; it just isn't undefeated.

The reflections

Most defended: "The meat order. I know it feels excessive to spend nearly £90 on meat in one go, but we sat down and portioned it all out and froze it, so now we'll have dinners sorted for over a month."

Quietly taken back: "That goddamn banana bread. £4.10?? It wasn't even that good!"

Almost spent on, didn't: "A pair of Oliver Bonas shoes. I still want them, to be honest. But I'll hold out and see if they go down even more in price."

Surprising: "I spent a lot. It was a heavy social week for me, to be fair, and that played a factor. Also, some of this will be recouped from the joint account, so it isn't necessarily a true reflection of my personal spending."

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.