B[e] stars are anomalous objects around which extended circumstellar matter is present. The observed properties of the central star are significantly affected by the surrounding material. Therefore, the use of standard synthetic spectra is disputable in this case and our capability to study these objects is limited. One of the possibilities is to analyse variations of the spectral features. Long-term spectroscopic observations are required for this, but are not found in the literature. For our study we choose the B[e] star HD 50138 of the FS CMa type because of the indication that this star is a post-main-sequence star, although still not highly evolved. Therefore, it can be a good object for testing evolutionary models. Currently, HD 50138 is the most extensively observed FS CMa star which makes it an ideal object for modelling. Our observations fill the gap in the available data. To describe the variability of HD 50138 we have monitored this star spectroscopically over the last twenty years. To search for the periodicity on short-term scales, series of night-to-night observations were also obtained.