A2 reading: Saving for a holiday

Lena is twenty-eight and works as a nurse in a big hospital. Last year she decided to save money for a special holiday: three weeks in Japan. The trip was going to cost about three thousand pounds, and she had only two hundred pounds in the bank.

First, Lena wrote down everything she spent for one month. She was surprised. She spent more than a hundred pounds a month on coffee and sandwiches at work! So she started to make her lunch at home and take it to the hospital. She also took coffee from home in a flask.

Then she looked at her phone bill. She was paying for a lot of data, but she didn't use most of it, because there is free wifi at home and at work. She changed to a cheaper plan and saved fifteen pounds a month.

Lena also stopped buying new clothes. "I had lots of clothes that I never wore," she says. "I sold some of them online and got almost two hundred pounds."

Every month, on the day she got her pay, Lena moved three hundred pounds into a savings account. She didn't touch this money. It wasn't always easy. Sometimes her friends went to expensive restaurants and she stayed at home. But she often invited them to her flat for dinner, and they had a lot of fun.

After ten months, Lena had enough money. In April she flew to Tokyo. "It was the best holiday of my life," she says. "And now I know how to save, so I'm going to start again. Next time, maybe South America!"