What My Salary Gets Me: A 27-year-old lawyer and content creator on $127,000 a year.

Mamamia’s What My Salary Gets Me asks Australians to record a week in their financial lives. Kind of like a sex diary but with money. So not like a sex diary at all. In this series, we discover what women are really spending their hard-earned cash on, and nothing is too outrageous or too sacred. This week, a 27-year-old lawyer shares her weekly money diary.

Age: 27.

Job: I am a lawyer by day, but outside of my 9-5 I host a podcast about finances and investing called Big Swinging Stocks and I create content for Broke Girl Wealth. 

Income: I have a few different sources of income (salaried job, investment property, content creation, podcasting and investments). All up, my base salary is around $127,000 and I earn around $8,700 net per month.

Housing: Rent in Sydney's inner west. It's $715 a week, and I split it 50/50 with my partner.

Watch: Four money hacks that don't cut out your daily cup of coffee. Story continues after video.

Monthly expenses:

Rent: $2,780 (split in two = $1,390).

Mortgage/expenses on the investment property: Rising due to rate rises but around $2,000.

Rental income: $1,500~.

Health and pet insurance: $175.

Phone: Free with work.

Internet: $30 (split with partner).

Business expenses: $45 (iCloud, email, website).

Savings: $1,400.

Assets: An investment property, shares, and superannuation. 

Netflix and Stan: $25.

Monday.

Great start to a Monday - our dog woke us up vomiting and sick at 5am. Even though I went back to bed, I feel shell-shocked. I smell of disinfectant and while I’ve worn some pretty shocking outfits to our local coffee shop, Birkenstocks and a puffer jacket over pajamas is definitely my worst. 

I buy both my fiance and I two iced lattes ($12) and we text the vet ($0, for now). 

We both work from home which is always a blessing. But today, when I’m still trying to get rid of the smell from our dog being sick... it’s a dream. Lunch is free (leftovers) and we don’t pay for public transport. 

Daily total: $10 + emotional damage.

Tuesday.

Tuesday’s wake up time is 30 minutes later than Monday (apparently, a sign of apology from our dog?) but still leaves our bathroom looking like a crime scene.

We get two cappuccinos again ($10) and the vet texts us to come in at 6pm. 

A consult is $175 and our dog is either getting an ultrasound or a stool diagnostic. Either way, I see dollar signs where my dog’s eyes used to be. I hold my breath and down the cappuccino. 

My partner does the grocery shopping - so around 12pm he disappears during his lunch break and returns just before 1pm. This week we’re mostly home so the shop is $110 but, with wedding prep, we spend an extra $132 on gifts for our bridal party. Money spent on making our closest friends feel special always feel worthwhile to me. 

Paul takes the dog to the vet and $570 later, he’s on medicated food and nausea meds. 

I get paid an invoice for a brand campaign I did almost two months ago and my salaried job today (yay!). I celebrate having our wedding and holiday funds inch a little closer to full. 

I transfer $200 to holiday, $200 to gifts, $50 to the dog, $500 to the wedding, and $750 to a bill sinking fund. 

As with any other pay day, our bills hit too: health insurance, my investment property rates, our rent and our internet. 

Daily total: +$1,968.

Wednesday.

Our dog, Pluto, is now on medication but it leaves him soppy and loopy so he spends the morning cuddling with us when normally he’d shun any kind of physical contact. 

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We take what we can get before we go out for coffee ($12). Given the last few days have been EXHAUSTING, we both get a treat with the coffee. I get a ham and cheese croissant and Paul goes for a brownie. Altogether with the coffee - $26. Yikes. 

This is one of those work weeks where I feel like all the tropes about being a lawyer come true. I start the day with 15 unread emails that I actually need to read and action. I work late; I don’t eat lunch until 4pm (which almost NEVER happens to me!), and a new email comes in every two minutes. I finish the day with 28 unread emails that I actually need to read and action. 

My partner pays his half of the car lease to me (+$190) and I transfer $300 out of my gift sinking fund to pay for my Grandma’s birthday and Christmas presents and head to Victoria's Basement before getting back to work.

Daily total: $136.

Thursday.

I get up at 7.30am because I have a podcast recording this morning. We usually film from about 8-8.45am before I start work. 

I have an EXTREMELY exciting guest this morning - Peter Thornhill, investing legend and Australia’s answer to Warren Buffett. He's my investing hero. It's awesome. 

Before I begin work, we go get coffee and take the dog out - but the iced lattes do cost more ($12). I’m starving at the coffee shop but I avoid getting the croissant again. Instead, I have granola and yoghurt that we have at home. It doesn’t hit the spot and I end up grazing until noon on random things we have in the cupboard. 

Literally nothing of note happens today except for my wedding dress arriving! 

I was really expecting a nice beautiful box but instead it comes wrapped like second hand clothing. I love a good wrapping so I’m a bit disappointed that a $2,500 dress comes like it was purchased off eBay. 

Nonetheless, the dress fits like a glove and I feel a little less salty about the fact that I will be saving quite a bit on alterations. 

I purchased the dress back in August so it doesn’t count as a spend but $20 is transferred out of my account to a micro investment. I also start a new sinking fund for a new personal laptop because my laptop conked out twice during the interview and I think it is trying to tell me that it is dying. Given it is seven years old, I’m sad but not surprised. 

Daily total: $332.

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Friday.

Friday is the work day where everything that I was too busy to do Monday to Thursday comes back to haunt me. 

So after the coffee from our local, I continue to overdose on caffeine into the afternoon via my stash of instant coffee. I can’t tell if I’m productive, anxious, or both. 

I make a serious dent in my emails and I actually feel like it has been a great day. As always in our household, Fridays mean no one cooks. 

We order Chinese food and absolutely demolish it (the honey chicken was calling me name). My best friend calls after dinner to catch up for breakfast. 

Daily total: $72.

Saturday.

Because we’ve been so busy at work, the house is a tip. It's getting to the point where I’m overwhelmed just thinking about it and therefore cannot actually get into gear to clean it. 

I have the intention to get a bunch of chores done but then I decide to meet my best friend and that goes out the window.

I leave around 9.50am to pick her up in my car and we go to the Bearded Barista for brunch. It's so bloody good. 

We get coffee and share two mains (my favourite) - she just found out she's moving to London on secondment which means flights to visit her are in my future. I’m so proud of her. 

To celebrate, I force her to come with me to test a new set of wedding nails. I only get my nails done for big events, or ahead of a work event. 

I go for a SNS manicure and a gel pedicure (Opi Bubble Bath and Funny Bunny, the classics). I pay for her pedicure because she paid for breakfast. It comes to $142 (from my gift sinking fund because this is a gift... to me).

After I get home, my partner has cleaned most of the house. I’m so happy I could cry. The vacuuming is done, the showers have been cleaned, the bathrooms are sparkling. It's the little things. 

He complains that I didn’t get him coffee while I was out though, which, fair! 

I convince him to take the dog for a walk to the Peanut Butter Bar that has opened nearby - we share iced lattes and a skillet cookie ($30).

When we get back, we finalise our wedding favours and order drink tokens for our bridal party. We weren’t originally going to do favours, but once we realised we could have them double as place cards for our wedding, we were hooked! 

We purchase them directly from a small business in Queensland and she is so kind to send us a five per cent off coupon code. Luckily, we’ve pre-saved for all of our wedding expenses so this comes directly from the wedding sinking fund ($575). 

Daily total: $727.

Sunday.

I’m dreading today. We go out for coffee to soothe the nerves and I’m fairly sure our dog is aware that something big is happening today. 

We get coffee and I convince Paul to get a treat too ($25). 

Given the thing causing me anxiety isn’t until 5pm today, I get to spend the entire day thinking about it. 

This is fantastic because I have a host of branded content to film and edit today - nothing quite like being on camera when you’re anxious!

The anxiety ends up becoming some sort of hyperactive energy that doesn’t seem too terrible and I edit for most of the afternoon. Then I film two TikToks about my never-ending saga to find my wedding shoes (we are literally five weeks out).

The rest of the afternoon, I distract myself by logging onto work and completing a review of a contract I need to send to clients on Monday. 

By 4pm, I get dressed and we head to my Grandma’s to decide seating charts. My mum and Paul’s mum will be there.

The reason I’m anxious is because my family is upset we don’t want to have a bridal table. In the grand scheme of things, I never thought seating would be the thing that frustrated me the most about wedding planning - but here we are. 

We order pizza and bring moscato to keep everyone fed and calm and to be honest, it doesn’t go terribly. Mum probably feels like she needs to mea culpa so she covers the Domino’s bill. Nice. 

Daily total: $25.

Weekly total: $2,378. 

Reflection:

It is a pretty standard week - all things considered. When I think back to how I used to be with money, I thank past me for getting out of the spending and debt trap.

I’m by no means thrifty (we get coffee out every day!) but I’ve automated all my finances - my savings, my spending, my investing. So in addition to working to improve how much money comes in, I’m far better at moderating what comes out. 

All things considered - my biggest takeaway is: elope. Haha!

Want to contribute your own anonymous money diary for What My Salary Gets Me? Email submissions@mamamia.com.au to get involved.

You can catch up on our previous What My Salary Gets Me articles here:

• What My Salary Gets Me: A 26-year-old social worker living in regional Victoria on $75,000 a year.
  
• What My Salary Gets Me: A 21-year-old student working part-time on $50,000 a year.
  
• What My Salary Gets Me: A 35-year-old in PR earning over $100,000 a year.
  

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