To answer that nagging consumer question of “Where’d all my money go?,” I tracked every cent I spent in August. Here it is in an Excel pie chart. Note that I won’t be mentioning any dollar amounts because that’s not your business, mister.
Let’s look at the pretty colors together, shall we?
Boy, is it ever clear that I live in New York City. Jesus. That rent.
As for the other rough half of the pie, this was an abnormal month for spending in some ways.
The Gifts category threw things off because of a few important birthday celebrations. Normally, this category would be absent or well into low single digits, peaking again only in December for Christmas and in assorted other months for celebrations such as weddings.
Using my recently employed expense-cutting strategy, I spent an unlikely zero dollars on music. I bought a few shirts on deep discount from Century 21. And the only book I bought was a used hardcopy copy of—wait for it— Dave Barry’s Money Secrets, from the famous carts outside the Strand—in fact, the percentage for this purchase was so low, it didn’t register as a full percentage, which is why it’s not included in the chart.
That weird 1% for Recreation is related to an upcoming camping adventure and the 1% Household sliver covers things like toilet paper, Kleenex, outdoor insect repellant and roach spray.
In other ways, this was a normal month for spending.
I suspect Utilities (which includes laundry and dry-cleaning costs, plus bills I paid for internet access, electricity, natural gas and cell phone service) is very typical. And it’s a speck lower now that I’ve cancelled my cable TV and Netflix service.
Transportation is also typical. It includes my monthly MetroCard purchase and a handful of bus tickets, plus an odd charge for gas from a mini-vacation.
Regarding food and drink, I must tell you: I have a detailed version of the pie chart that breaks down each of the day’s three meals—plus snacks, soda and alcohol, each further broken-down into eating/drinking-out and eating/drinking-at-home—but it’s got so many tiny slices and percentages, it gives me a headache.
I can tell you, though, that the most interesting point revealed by that detailed data collection is that 13% of the 24% I spent on food and drink was dedicated to dinners in restaurants. It’s a lot but it’s also typical; it’s a New York thing (and, frankly, a Jason thing). I also learned that I don’t spend as much as I’d guessed on lunch, snacks and sodas at work (although these things would be healthier as well as cheaper if I bought them at grocery stores and packed them myself).
So what does this chart tell me? Where can I trim more expenses?
I could prepare more meals at home and eat out less. I could get a cheaper apartment when the lease on my current place expires. Heck, I could get a job that pays more, although this Times article from yesterday claims that I’m “fortunate” to even have a job in post-recession New York City, adding that “[p]ersonal incomes dropped more in New York than in the rest of the country last year, largely because of the smaller bonuses that were paid out in early 2009 for the dismal performance in 2008.”
Yup. The scrimping continues.