Spending Perspectives

Monthly Percentage of Total Spending

I’ve been getting frisky with my spreadsheet – trying to size things up … the results were less than desirable.

Right now that we’ve enjoyed that quip – I took the total spending and divided it up over time to see how the bulk of my spending is spread out. I added a trend line hoping to see it declining, or at least stable … but it was steep.

I would have rather it been an upright finger and a message “You’re over doing it!”

After sobbing over a cup of coffee and a cookie, I looked for some positive news in the numbers … so I started to look at how much of my income I was spending …

Percentage of Income Saved

… and there it was, the giant middle finger called February and its ugly sisters March and June … the good news is that I’ve saved about 20% of my total income … and on average I save 40% of my income per month … but what was up with terrible triplets?

Percentage of Income Saved

… looking at the percent of income spent per month reveals more … I spent more than I made on February … and almost all I had in the other two months … then I looked into the spending details of each of those months …

  • I paid off my car in February – good bye savings 🙁
  • I had to pay for a set of new wheels in March (ouch .. shee6 shee6)

June on the other hand was an interesting one … It seems like everyone in the 80’s got hot and heavy in September, and most of my acquaintances were born 9 months after several September many midnight merriment … but what can anyone do about that really? Diversify your social network based on birth days maybe? 😕 you got me!

The point is, however, if you only look at spending in one way, you wont see the whole picture, and it will just look like you’re over spending … when in reality, if you tilt your head to the left a little, you see that you’re saving … but a few ‘investments’ put a cap on that …

More importantly, this lets you forecast how much you need to make to realise greater savings … e.g. I budgeted for car insurance this year and wasn’t caught off guard like I was last year … also ‘surprise’ money always colours your excel cells green ~ even though inflation is a mouldy monster that feeds on ‘surprises’ …

2 Comments on “Spending Perspectives

  1. Pingback: How I Spent 2011 – Literally. : Salem Marafi

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