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Everything you need to know about how to submit your Dollar Diary, for the chance to receive a free two-year subscription to Graziher magazine.
Graziher’s Dollar Diary series asks rural and regional Australian women to record a week in their financial lives. In this series, we find out what ordinary Australians are spending their hard-earned money on and what their biggest financial worries are. Plus, they share their best budgeting, savings and investing tips.
If you submit your Dollar Diary and we publish it, you’ll receive a free two-year subscription (worth $145) to Graziher magazine.
You can submit your Dollar Diary via this Google Form. The Google Form will ask you a series of questions about your current financial situation – how much you earn, how much you have in savings etc – and then there will be space for you to enter each day of your Dollar Diary. We will publish your location, occupation and salary, but will we never publish your name, contact details or any identifying information. You can read our Privacy Policy for further information about how we collect, store and use personal information.
Simply record everything you do, eat, and spend over a seven day period – the more detail, the better.
Here’s an example of what a day in a Dollar Diary might look like.
7:00am – I wake up and slowly make my way to the kitchen to make my first coffee. After I gulp down my coffee, I shower, get dressed and start my drive into Rockhampton to begin my work day. My husband, B, is working from home today so I wave goodbye to him as I rush out the door.
9:00am – When I arrive at the office, my colleague asks me to go for a walk with her so she can discuss her upcoming performance review. We walk around the block a few times and then stop at a cafe and get a coffee and an almond croissant each. -$10.95
12:00pm – The rest of the morning flies by in a blur of meetings and emails. At lunch, I realise I left my leftover stirfry in the fridge, so head out to a nearby bakery to pick up a ham and salad sandwich and a Coke Zero. $12.50
5:00pm – More meetings and emails fill up the afternoon and at 5pm I realise I haven’t chatted to B all day. I give him a call and we decide to cook steak, chips and salad for dinner. I run into the local IGA on the way home to pick up some steak, some potatoes and a fresh lettuce. – $26.45
6:00pm – While B gets the dinner ready, I head outside to throw the ball for our Jack Russell Terrier Gus for awhile. Once we’ve finished our play, I turn on the first lot of sprinklers. We’ve already had a string of hot days this spring, so we’re trying to keep the grass as green as possible before the bushfire season starts.
7:00pm – After dinner, we watch a few more episodes of The Perfect Couple on Netflix while I scroll through my phone looking for sales. We desperately need some new cookware and I find a Scanpan set for just $165.95 – what a bargain! – $165.95
9:30pm – We head to bed. I pop in my headphones and listen to a few chapters of my audiobook (The Exiles by Jane Harper) before falling asleep.
Daily Total: $215.85
If you live in a small town or community and you’re worried about anonymity, you can always list the region rather than the town. For example, if you lived in Molong, you can say you live in small town in Central West NSW.
Graziher’s Dollar Diary editor will contact you when your Dollar Diary is going to be published and organise your free two-year subscription for you.
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