Welcome to Money Diaries where we are tackling the ever-present taboo that is money. We’re asking real people how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we’re tracking every last dollar.
Today: an unemployed Airbnb host who makes $27,000 per year and who spends some of her money this week on her favorite vitamin C serum.
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Occupation: Unemployed/Airbnb host
Industry: Tech
Age: 52
Location: San Francisco
Salary: $27,000 (I’m dipping into my savings at the moment).
Assets: House: $1,400,000; 401(k)/IRA: $481,000; savings: $36,000.
Debt: Mortgage: $1,064,989.20
Paycheck Amount (monthly): $2,250 (pre tax).
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses
Housing Costs: $4,582 for my current mortgage — but it will become $4,867 in April due to home insurance.
Property taxes: $1,338
Utilities: ~$400 (trash, water, electricity, gas).
Cell phone: $56
Cleaners for Airbnb: ~$700
Streaming services: ~$30
Internet: $72
GitHub: $4
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
My parents did not have any expectation that I would go to college — in fact, they let me know that they couldn’t afford to pay for it. Nevertheless, I managed to figure out a way to get financial aid and I worked to pay for my room and board. My parents only gave me $300 towards my degree.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
We didn’t have much money growing up; we were even on welfare at one point. My parents had this thing where if we did yard work they would pay us, as I recall, a quarter. We were constantly scrounging around looking for money in the house and elsewhere. And so, I started working pretty young.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was as a papergirl when I was about 12. I made good money delivering papers on my bicycle until men in cars took my job away.
Did you worry about money growing up?
We did have a house and some food (although not much), but there was not much else by way of support. My friends helped me a lot: I ate over at their houses. As soon as I started working, I had more money and that helped, but I was always struggling. I was fortunate that many people helped me.
Do you worry about money now?
I am worried about money at present because I have had to take on caregiving for my mother, and I lost my job. After extensive effort, I managed to get a full crew of caregivers for my mom, although they require super close management. I am looking for a new job but the market is very tough right now.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I have been on my own since I was about 15 years old. Unfortunately, I never had a safety net but that has made me very independent.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
I received an inheritance about two years ago of about $38,000, it’s gone now (due to living expenses — I’ve been unemployed for two years).
Day One: Wednesday
8 a.m. — I wake up a bit groggy; I’ve been having some trouble sleeping. I make a big pot of coffee and start checking the news. I read CNN, Reuters, Market Watch, Politico, the SF Chronicle, New York Times, Washington Post, and Guardian every morning. Plus I have to check my LinkedIn, the weather, and a few other sites for good measure! Finally, I settle down to work on my resume.
10:30 a.m. — I get in the shower and try to get semi presentable. With all the steps to my skincare routine, I know I might not be totally there before 11 a.m. I always try to go down and check the unit in between when my guests leave and my cleaners arrive. If I don’t do this and there are stains or other damages, I won’t know whether the guest did it or my cleaners. I found this out the hard way when I noticed that several tiles in the shower were cracked. I asked my cleaners if they knew when this happened and they were very circuitous in their reply. That’s when I realized it could have been the cleaners or one of the guests. This was a difficult repair and I wasn’t able to bill any one for the damages.
11 a.m. — My Airbnb guests check out. I run down to inspect: not too bad, no damages. I leave cash for my cleaners. With the way things have been going, I have been thinking of doing the cleaning myself, especially as the cleaners really don’t seem to do that much. There is never a time that I do not have to redo the pillows, straighten the duvet, check for stray hairs, make sure the toilet seat is down, and various other issues after they leave. But what takes them 20 minutes, takes me four hours. So… So far, I continue paying them. $50
2 p.m. — I eat scrambled eggs with quinoa, tarragon, and cheddar. (This was my first time adding fresh tarragon to scrambled eggs and it was delicious.) Then I have broccoli tossed with garlic and olive oil, dusted with Aleppo peppers, sprinkled with cheddar cheese, and roasted for 15 minutes at 425°F. I also finish off some carrot juice I have in the fridge. I add the garlic skins and some tarragon that was wilted to my bag of vegetable scraps in the freezer, which I’m collecting for a future vegetable stock.
3 p.m. — Though I don’t have anyone booked for tonight, I’ve learned to always be ready because sometimes people book at the last minute, although sometimes these are drunk people. If it’s a regular person who’s not problematic just booking last minute, I want to be ready and get the extra income. So I treat a vacancy list any other night, not a vacation, running up and down the stairs as usual, attending to the laundry, which my cleaners only start one load of and it’s always two. The dryer is “smart” and energy efficient, as much as a dryer can be I suppose, so it can take one hour plus to dry a load, and even then, I might have to add more time on to the end. Then there is the folding. I have three sets of sheets and towels because for one night stays, it’s just too difficult to make sure everything is ready for the next guests.
9 p.m. — I have a mozzarella stick snack, then chard gratin. I add the stems to the freezer bag. Sadly, no one has booked for the night and I go ahead and block the night off so I don’t have any surprise requests. Even though I enjoy it when I have the place to myself, I am conscious of the lack of income. After dinner, I settle down to watch a new episode of Prime Target. I was getting a lot of ads for this show and then I read good things about it in The Guardian and I haven’t been disappointed. Even though it does seem a bit of a stretch at times, it is amusing and entertaining nonetheless. I love all the Cambridge stuff especially.
10 p.m. — I do my nightly skincare routine which at this time involves: cleansing with a salicylic acid gel cleanser and my Foreo device, then spritzing The Ordinary rosewater which is infused with powdered niacinamide powder. I wait for this to absorb, then I apply AQ Solutions serums: one for the face, another for the eyes. I also paint on a serum for my lashes that makes them grow. After this sinks in, I finish with a thick moisturizer and prescription tretinoin.
Daily Total: $50
Day Two: Thursday
8:15 a.m. — I wake up and have two cups of coffee with cream and sugar and a bowl of granola with extra flax seeds and vitamin D milk. After reading through all my news sites, I spend some time checking for new job listings, which is onerous because of all the different job titles and the fact that no one accepts boolean queries anymore — it’s super frustrating.
11 a.m. — I see that my favorite Timeless vitamin C serum is on sale for 40% off, so I buy a vial. I have been using this serum for some time — it’s a Skinceuticals knockoff. Very satisfied, although they’ve had packaging problems recently: they switched to plastic bottles, which are a disaster for the environment and also after some weeks, start leaking. But for the price, I live with it. $26.96
1:30 p.m. — I have a cup of Genmaicha tea then leave for the pool to lap swim for an hour and a half. I had been doing free home workouts from Instagram all through the pandemic, but the trainers aren’t putting up many new videos anymore — at least not free ones — and I’m getting a little bored of it. During a major heat wave last summer, I finally broke down and went to my neighborhood pool. It turned out to be free because of the heat wave! Now I’m hooked. I still do the home workouts, but not as much. $7
6 p.m. — Riding my endorphin high, I decide to celebrate the second 70+ degree day in February and a new episode of Severance by buying a case of Pacifica beer from Bevmo and making a big bowl of guacamole and nachos. I have leftover beer and guacamole for another day. $19.11
Daily Total: $53.07
Day Three: Friday
8 a.m. — I start the day with two cups of coffee with cream and sugar. I mix pumpkin seed oil with rosemary oil and rub this into my roots, then brush it out to the ends with my rapidly degrading Maison Pearson brush. Swimming in chlorinated pools is so drying for my hair, plus at my age, it is starting to thin, so this oil mixture is supposed to be good for hair growth. I don’t know if it’s working for that, but it does work as a deep conditioner. I usually do this every other day and let it sit for two hours.
10 a.m. — I’m prepping another résumé to submit — my goal is one a day — then I head to the bathroom. First, I suds up my oily hair with a prescription ketoconazole shampoo (again for hair growth) and let this sit for five minutes. Then I take a shower. In the morning, I use a vitamin C serum on my face, neck, arms, hands, and knees. After this has absorbed, I follow up with a retinol serum on the same areas. Face sunscreen, then body lotion on top. My body lotion is a DIY concoction, using a thick lotion I get in bulk mixed with lactic acid, vitamin c powder, niacinamide powder, and lavender essential oil.
11:30 a.m. — I make two small breakfast burritos with quinoa, guacamole, and salsa macha. I’ve realized that you can’t root tarragon in water, so I shift over to trying to propagate my leftover tarragon in cactus soil.
12 p.m. — I finish my résumé and cover letter and send it in. These days, it’s very difficult because of AI systems. Intelligence is definitely a misnomer, as all they really seem to do is keyword matching. So for every application, you have to spend a lot of time matching the keywords and getting to the highest match rating possible. Otherwise, the robots reject you out of hand. It took me months to figure this out.
2PM — Dealt with a bunch of Airbnb messages. I have pretty much identified about 80% of the most common queries and I have responses ready to just paste in. I really wish they would open up their API to hosts so that these things could be automated. I do have an idea to develop automation for the door codes but so far I haven’t had time to actually do it. So it’s a highly manual process. I try to deal with them in bulk as much as possible.
8 p.m. — My dinner consists of roasted Brussels sprouts glazed with a balsamic and honey mixture and baked French fries dusted with cayenne pepper and smoked paprika, dipped in sriracha mayonnaise (made with non-fat yoghurt). I spot an ad on Craigslist Free for silverware and write to express interest. I have been thinking that I could use more for myself, and also for the Airbnb. This looks like a nice set — and it includes steak knives!
9 p.m. — Today, I’ve spent nothing! This is my goal every day but it was also important to me to participate in the economic blackout protest.
Daily Total: $0
Day Four: Saturday
8 a.m. — I wake up and have two cups of coffee with cream and sugar.
9:30 a.m. — I receive an automatic notification that one of my mom’s caregivers has submitted her timecard. She also texts me to say the same. I get super annoyed when she does this but I know it’s because she needs the money. There is another caregiver who also did this a few times and when I told her I couldn’t instantaneously approve her timesheets she told me that she literally didn’t have any food and I felt really bad.
10 a.m. — I heat up five leftover French fries for a quick breakfast (these are the large homemade fries from last night — they’re honestly quite tasty).
10:30 a.m. — I order three more tubes of my favorite lip plumper from Amazon, as I was running low. I can’t help but observe that in one year’s time, the price went up $2 a tube. Reward points helped a little! $41.28
11 a.m. — My Airbnb guest checks out, stashing her luggage in the closet. Simultaneously, my next guests arrive, putting their luggage in the same closet. There is also a chance that my cleaners will arrive now too, so I have to discreetly leave their cash payment somewhere neither guest would see or steal it: in the room, just after the guests had departed. All in all, a bit of a whirlwind through my tiny foyer (in which three people can barely stand at once). I have decided that the next time I have a turnover, I’m going to do the cleaning myself and see how long it really takes me. I just can’t help harboring the suspicion that my cleaners are laughing all the way to the bank having made $50 for 20 minutes of effort. I’m also keenly aware of how rapidly my savings are dwindling. $50
12 p.m. — I have a cup of sencha tea in an effort to become more energized. After reading that the organizer of the economic blackout was a convicted sex offender, I have some dark chocolate.
2 p.m. — I head out to pick up the silverware. Someone else had replied first, but then flaked! Stop at a mailbox to send off my mortgage check.
8 p.m. — Nachos again! Finish off the guacamole. Meanwhile, I caramelize shallots and garlic for many hours in preparation for the next day… To be continued. My mother’s caregiver texts me again about her timecard. It’s so frustrating, it’s like she expects me to approve it the moment she submits it. And she’s not the only one. But I can’t afford to lose her so I swallow my annoyance and I go through the Google camera events to verify her timecard. I also do another one as well while I’m at it.
Daily Total: $91.28
Day Five: Sunday
8:30 a.m. — As I’m making a pot of coffee, I get a message from my guests. They’ve checked out early, so I run down to check conditions. No issues. Leave cash for the cleaners. $50
9:30 a.m. — I return back upstairs to nurse my coffee and look at the job listings from last week. I have each one printed out and consider them one by one, sorting them to put the best ones on top so I can attack them in priority order.
12 p.m. — The cleaners finish, so I run down to see how it looks. As ever, they have the pillows backwards — I really need to try to talk to them about this. I basically readjust everything, then run a vacuum over the carpet (it doesn’t look like they bothered). Finally satisfied, I head back upstairs and return to working on my resume.
1 p.m. — For lunch, I have two fried eggs and one piece of toast with homemade bread and jelly. I also take vegetable stock out of my freezer to start defrosting for soup tonight.
2 p.m. — I take photos of various items I’ve toted from apartment to apartment as I moved around the city: towel racks, toilet paper holders, that kind of thing. These are all good quality but I don’t have any use for them in my new place. With everything that’s been happening, I have been thinking maybe I can convert these into cash by putting ads up on Craigslist. I get the ads up and sit back to wait. I have had limited success with this in the past. If no one buys anything, at least mentally I can console myself with thinking that I tried when I finally cart them off to Salvation Army.
7 p.m. — I make vegetarian caldo verde soup with the caramelized onions and garlic for dinner. The unit is vacant again tonight and for the next two nights so far. With everything that’s been going on with Trump and the tariffs and the mass layoffs, people have been cancelling right and left, the majority with no comment. People who had planned their trips way in advance, who were doing big events like the AIDS Lifecycle ride or concerts at the Chase Center, just canceled without a word. It’s gotten so I’m scared to message them until I’m within the five day cancelation window, for fear it will remind them of their reservation and prompt them to cancel.
Daily Total: $50
Day Six: Monday
8:30 a.m. — I make coffee and then look at the latest news and happenings, then I start back on my job search. Even though it seems to be going nowhere, I have to try and stay positive. Memories of the other recessions I’ve been through are coming back and I start remembering the techniques that I used back then. It has been a while, but what’s old is new again, like the need to respond to an ad quickly, because the good positions are filled within weeks. I’ve almost forgotten how you used to even set up alerts to help with this. There is also the heightened need to compete, to say yes to everything, to claim skills you don’t have but imagine you could gain over the course of a weekend.
11:30 a.m. — I snack on a mozzarella stick and roasted seaweed, then spend a few hours getting in an Instacart order for my mom. It takes a lot of messaging: first with her caregiver as to what she’s got and what she needs, then figuring out the best store for the order, making the actual order on Instacart, and finally messaging with the shopper to tell them to check the dates and advise on substitutions.
1:30 p.m. — I eat some dark chocolate-covered espresso beans for energy, then head to the pool for lap swim. The swimming really helps me reset mentally. I think it’s a combination of being in the water, totally unable to check my phone, and endorphins. Each time I go, I try to get my money’s worth by swimming for at least an hour and a half, so in between the transit and the showering, I don’t get back home until early evening. $7
7 p.m. — I set some cannellini beans to soak overnight and remove a jar of homemade vegetarian stock from the freezer. I realise I’m running low on cream, which is the only thing making my cheap coffee drinkable, so I ended up making a Whole Foods run. (Maybe this was a good call as tariffs went into effect the very next day.) At Whole Foods, I notice that they have only one half pack of eggs left and it’s almost $8, whereas my usual grocery store has had no problem stocking eggs and they haven’t even seemed to go up in price. It’s another reason I don’t go to Whole Foods a lot, but I do like their sushi and cheaper produce like blueberries. In this city, it pays to shop around and buy some things here and other things there. I get Sauvignon Blanc, red wine, spaghetti squash, potato chips, cream, sour cream, sushi, spicy shrimp, blueberries, and some other fruit and veg. $87.49
Daily Total: $94.49
Day Seven: Tuesday
8:30 a.m. — Over coffee, I check the latest news and start back again with the job search. I have resolved to try to apply to one job a day, although I can’t help realizing that just finding jobs to apply to also takes time.
9:30 a.m. — After reading about the tariffs, I tried to think about what I should buy today that would cost more tomorrow. As I had already been planning to do, I order plastic feet from Amazon for an outdoor chair I recently repainted due to rust. After applying rewards points, it was only $1.19. $1.19
10 a.m. — I receive an email from GitHub informing me my monthly autopayment has been taken out (this is to host my work portfolio).
11 a.m. — I submit another résumé and cover letter and then hop into the shower.
12 p.m. — I have a late breakfast of granola and Vitamin D milk with blueberries and extra flax seeds. Also had an apple. Afterwards, I sautée a bit of onion and garlic with garlic powder, then add a little white wine. Once very soft and translucent, I scrape it into my slow cooker along with the vegetable stock, some water, presoaked beans, cauliflower, and a russet potato. Set it to low for eight hours.
3:30 p.m. — I run out to fill up my tank before the price starts to go up because of tariffs. It cost $4.39 a gallon, paid in cash. $18.03
6 p.m. — I do a home workout from one of my favorite trainers. Even though they don’t put out new ones very often anymore, I have a bunch from Instagram bookmarked and am cycling through. So far, there are still enough to where it doesn’t feel redundant.
9 p.m. — For dinner I have cauliflower, potato, and white bean soup with sour cream, chives, and crumbled potato chip garnish. This was an NYT highly rated recipe. Would I make it again? No. I delete all the bookmarks in my browsers referencing it. Waste of effort! (I think NYT is hit or miss —WaPo is better on the recipes, imo. I am suspicious of recipes that are super specific with various amounts). I end up with a ton of leftover soup though, so I freeze it.
Daily Total: $19.22
The Breakdown
Weekly Total $$ Spent: $358.06
Food & Drink: $106.60
Entertainment: $0.00
Home & Health: $165.19
Clothes & Beauty $68.24
Transportation $18.03
Other $0
Conclusion
“Taking stock of the week in expenditures, the mortgage payment really stands out, of course. It’s not every week I have to pay that, it’s every fourth week, but it is the biggest item. Normally, my goal is to spend nothing every day. I see that I hit that on only one of the seven days, so that raises the question, are my goals realistic? But I have a tendency to set high goals and it does create a constant sense of disappointment in myself. This exercise of actually documenting my expenditures and looking at things in black and white helps me see what’s really going on.”
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