Money Diary: 'My DJ gigs bring in £3,000 a month'

My Money explores how people across the UK manage their spending in a typical week.

As prices rise, BBC News has been hearing about their ways of cutting costs and the financial choices they have to make.

Aaron 'Mr A' Beveney, is a 33-year-old DJ from east London.

He earns around £3,000 a month depending on how many gigs he gets and rents a room in a shared house for £575.

I had meetings to plan work for the week and sent invoices for the weekend's gigs.

I spent £5 on the tube fare when I went to meet a client in Knightsbridge and bought lunch for £30.

Later, I bought dinner from an amazing Caribbean shop near my house for £10, which I prepared at home. I'm pretty health conscious and try to eat as much homemade food as I can.

I then went to football, which cost £10 to pay the subs.

Amazon Prime was taken out at £6.99 as well as an Apple app at £21.99.

That means today's total spending was £83.98.

I work from home a lot during the week organising the Hero Games, an upcoming documentary series featuring emerging artists in the community.

This has drastically reduced my travel costs and means I eat out less during the day. I bought lunch from Tesco, which cost £10.

I cancelled my gym membership a while back and built a gym in my garage. I trained there today, and friends often come over to join me for a workout session.

I don't charge people to workout there, but some pay £20-30 for a training session, so I've made money from it.

I DJ at lots of places across London. I had a gig at Sushi Samba, a rooftop restaurant in the City, for their staff party and had a few free drinks. My Uber home cost £25.

£85 went to BT Broadband & TV, I paid a Transport for London congestion fine of £85 and £4.25 more went to TfL.

In total I spent £209.25.

I had a dentist's appointment which set me back £180, and I had to pay for a speed awareness course which was £92.

Lunch cost £15.50 at Caribbean Flavours and dinner from Tesco was £9.95.

Everything came to £297.45.

I gave a lesson to a DJ student who comes over to my home studio. They paid me £200 for a two-hour session (£100 per hour).

Lunch from Tesco was £8.95, home cleaning products to tidy the house cost £11.34 and I bought some fruit and veg from the market for £4.20.

A friend came over to train and later an old friend visited for a takeaway, so I got us Chinese for £25.00.

Today I earned £200 and spent £49.49.

I bought lunch for £10 and had dinner at my favourite Vietnamese restaurant in Shoreditch for £19.13.

Then I got ready to DJ at Annabel's private members nightclub, where I get paid £500 a set.

I spent £29.13.

I drove to two meetings about music and put petrol in my car for £50.

If I'm going to spend so much money on petrol then where I'm driving should make me money, for a meeting or for a gig.

I had meetings at Jin Bo Law, a rooftop bar in Aldgate, then LDN East nightclub in Canning Town. I get free drinks at both.

In the evening, I met a friend at Sushi Samba and bought a round of drinks for £70.37.

A subscription for a design app called 'Beautiful Ai' came out of my bank account at £24.30. I use that for making presentations.

When I'm gigging, it isn't unusual for me to DJ at three or four venues in one day or night. I did that on New Year's Eve and it was fantastic to get to experience four different parties in one evening.

Tonight, I finished the night at Village Underground and bought a bottle of water for £5.80.

Today's total spend was £150.47.

Sundays are usually quite chilled, especially if I've been gigging on Saturday or had a night out.

I'm a massive animal lover and I bought a laser pen for my cat on Amazon for £12.99, as well as £10 for the Hero Games website domain subscription.

My Sunday spending came to £22.99.

Overall, this week I have spent £842.76.

I've had two years without a steady income or support network, making nothing during lockdowns when all events ceased, so I feel proud I can now get through life.

I'm getting by, I'm still here and I'm only going to make more money by doing great things with good people.

As told to Jamie Moreland. Design by Jenny Law.

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