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.

This week: A director working in education who makes $105,000 per year and spends some of it on a Build-A-Bear!

This Money Diary was written in the fall of 2025. This is a follow-up diary, you can read the previous one here .

Editor’s note: After a short hiatus, we’re back once a week! Thank you for your patience. We’ll be honoring Money Diary submissions we received during our break by publishing them in the coming weeks. There’s more to come soon — stay tuned.

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If you'd like to submit your own Money Diary, you can do so via our online form . We pay $150 for each published diary. Apologies but we're not able to reply to every email.…