How Much Did Siobhán O'Hagan Spend in the First Week of 2025? | A Guest Money Diary

Siobhán O’Hagan is a fitness and nutrition coach, yoga teacher and occasional influencer from Dublin. We first met years ago, when I wrote a feature for The Irish Times on bodybuilding; later, we’d work together again on a feature for STELLAR on influencers; later still, we’d find ourselves on an all-expenses paid trip to Spain with FitBit where we took each other’s Instagram pics and her stand-up paddleboarding put mine to shame (to no one’s surprise I suppose – but did you know that, if you’re afraid of heights, that fear might just show up when you try to stand up on a board in a body of deep water?! Because I didn’t!).

In recent years, Siobhán has taken a lot of big leaps – from living and working full-time in Bali, to a stint in London and then home, to Dublin, where she’s gone from single gal about town to working mother; her daughter, Cadhla, who just turned one.

You can sign up to Siobhán’s training, nutrition and mindset programme, The Self-Improvement Project, here, and listen to her podcast, Life Lessons with Siobhán O’Hagan, here:

I decided 2025 was the year I needed to stick to a budget. I pay my wages from my company and it’s always a wild guess how much I’ll need month-to-month but I decided this would be the month I stopped guessing.

I added up all my usual monthly expenses and savings and then tried to estimate how much I would need each week to survive a quiet January.

I guessed €150 a week to feed myself and Cadhla and miscellaneous bits. That’s on top of my HelloFresh subscription (€46.99), which I did an ad for this week so technically that box was free.

So how did I get on?

Jan 1st (Wednesday)

My New Year’s Day was spent mostly in Temple Street with Cadhla and her dad. I went to Spar to get us coffee, (stale) croissants and bananas. (€14.05)

Cadhla went home with her dad and I spent the evening catching up on work.

Daily total: €14.05