Ok, buckle up fam. I decided to do a What I Spent This Week for the week of Christmas, and look – I knew it would be a big one, but probably not quite this big! That said, what I want this to illustrate is that you can have big spending weeks and still make bold progress towards your financial goals.

Here we go:

Monday 23rd December

I took today off work but it was a full day dedicated to side hustle/freelance stuff, so it was pretty tame, in all honesty. That said, I’d spent $165 the day before at the supermarket on a whole load of Christmassy non-meals, but hey, doesn’t count toward this week!

I spent $11 at Woolworths on some coffee capsules for my Nespresso machine and some Flake cakes (aka a British delicacy). I then stopped a two op shops and spent $76 on stock for Midsize Thrift, and $3 on a top for myself. 

Total for the day: $87

Tuesday 24th December

Christmas eeeeeeeve. Our local shopping centre stays open from 9am on 23rd right through to 5pm on the 24th, so every year we leave one present to buy and go get it during the night/early hours, just to be part of the last minute buzz. My boyfriend’s family do a Secret Santa with the extended family, and I’m in it. I knew exactly what I was buying for the $50 limit, so I left that until Christmas eve. I spent $49 on that, plus $9 on a new makeup sponge for myself. It wouldn’t be Christmas eve without a Christmas Starbucks, so I spent $17 on two festive lattés and one of the Christmas reusable cups. 

I had my hair cut booked in for 9.30am, where I spent $70 on a wash, cut and blow out, plus an extra $60 on my shampoo set. I buy about 2 of these a year, because I wash my hair so infrequently it lasts for ages.

I popped into a couple more op shops while out on a walk later that day, where I spent $9 on a gorgeous COS jumper, and $17 on another item for Midsize Thrift. To round off the day I filled up the car with $50 of petrol.

Total for the day: $281

Wednesday 25th

Christmas Day means $0 spent, yeehah!

Total for the day: $0

Thursday 26th

I actually survived Boxing Day spend-free in terms of sales, but did spend $22 on some prosciutto and extra blue cheese to top up our cheese board stash, and $14 on two drinks at our local wine bar happy hour.

Total for the day: $35 

Friday 27th

Here we go. Here’s where it gets a bit cray. I went into work on Friday, which was a big pile of unprepared hell and trawling through emails and Trello notifications. While guzzling my 56th coffee of the morning, I decided to treat myself to some cashmere tracksuit bottoms when an email from Everlane appeared in my inbox. I’d wanted a pair for ages for traveling and just generally looking like I’ve got my shit together while feeling like I’m wearing pyjamas. I got a cashmere jumper to match, but it’s not technically loungewear so it’ll be on high rotation in my winter wardrobe. The total including international delivery was $322 – BUT, that’s the cheapest I’ve seen such a high quality cashmere set. Continuing on my bouji loungewear crusade, I added a pair of Emu Australia fluffy slippers to my life, after being #influenced by Beth Sandland and Jess from @thelayoverlife. I’d been waiting for these to go into the sale, and with 30% off, they came down to $41.90. 

By lunchtime I was starving, and obviously hadn’t meal prepped a single thing, so I ordered Mexican to work, which set me back $23. After that spree, I managed not to spend anything else for the rest of the day. 

Total for the day: $386.90

Saturday 28th

In the morning I was just zooming around feeding cats that I’m looking after over the holidays, and visiting my boyfriend’s Grandma, so other than a $5.50 spend on an iced coffee, it was very low key. UNTIL I hit up Soak Bar with friends and spent $107 on a manicure and two cocktails – no complaints here. Then we went to David Jones food and spent $18 each on fancy food which, and being me I spent an additional $13 on a biscuit selection pack and $5.95 on a bouji cool bag. Classic me. A night in with the David Jones snacks, wine we already had, and lots of 2020 planning and chatting meant that was it for the day’s spending.

Total for the day: $143.50

Sunday 29th

Minus a mini wine headache, I woke up pretty chipper, and headed off to my local pool with my boyfriend’s sister for a swim, which cost $6.90. After that we went to check out the new acai bowl hot spot in our suburb, where I had an epic bowl for $13.90. Later that day I spent $20 on a bottle of prosecco to use in a piece of content (and then guzzle on NYE), and $5.50 on a set of buttons to replace on a dress I’d thrifted. A moderately tame day. 

Total for the day $46.30

Total for the week: $979.70

Wow. Yeah look, it’s high. But I also made extra money doing pet sitting over Christmas, and still had some money left from my December overflow fund (where I stash extra cash in November to help with the inevitable bouji-ness of December), so it was all still within my spending capacity. 

How was your spending over Christmas week?!