How The Average Consumer Spends His Paycheck
You already have a budget, you just probably haven't seen it turned into a colorful graphic before. Here's one that illustrates where all the money goes. Sadly, we spend about three times as much on tobacco as on reading, and yet almost nothing on strippers! (Unless that falls under "entertainment.")
"Where Does the Money Go?" [VisualEconomics via FlowingData]
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Comments:
Whenever I see graphics like this talking about "2.5 people in the household", I always imagine some guy chopped in half in the corner screaming a'la Family Guy. Thank you, Seth, for permanently altering the way I see the world.
strippers cud be under personal care. It has a * and mentions services :)
The average American spends .2% of their income on "Reading"? That explains so much.
@shadow67: I generally pay for entertainment on plastic, so, I'd put strippers in cash contributions.
anyone else think perhaps alcohol spending is a little under-reported? because that's like, my MONTHLY booze budget.
@bornonbord: What you say is true:
The U.S. income distribution is really skewed. They really should be talking about the median family. Averaging in Bill and Melinda isn't very informative.
@bornonbord: What you say is true: yeah, but that's household income, assuming two people are working that's only $31,500 each.
@LupusGray: Of course! It means our public library system is so well-funded our citizens don't have to spend money on books!
Right?
...right?
@bobloblawsblog: It's and average, so you're probably balanced out by people like me, who last bought booze 4 years ago when I got a buddy a 6-pack of good beer for doing some welding work on my car.
@bobloblawsblog: Its an average of both the people like you that spend that much monthly, the people like me who probably purchase a 6 pack twice a year, and those uber-rich people who spend $100 on a glass of wine each evening.
Except for my daily newspaper subscription, I spend very little money on reading - and I read a lot. I utilize my free public library. I think a lot of people do this as well.
I can see why the thumbnail image on the Consumerist side of the article only shows part of it -- that's all that will fit on the entire screen! Holy mother of sweet baby hitler, that image is massive!
I always see my budget in colorful graphics.. Mint does it for me. It's fancy like that.
@LupusGray: Yarr, thar be pirated e-books is why de land lubbers only be spending .2% of their booty on it.
I spend 30% of my pay on champion show turtles and the rest on beer, guns, and cigarettes.
@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: I <3 Mint. They just upgraded the trends graph tool from awesome to super awesome.
I'm not sure if reading a Harlequin Romance or comic book somehow makes you smarter than watching, say, the History Channel. It's less the medium and more the message that is important.
I wish I only spent $16,900 on housing. I just calculated that we spend about $21,600 in housing a year. And that's median price for the area!
I suppose, though, since I don't drink and smoke that the money spent on that would go toward housing instead. And since we don't give nearly close to that amount in charitable contributions, that goes toward housing as well.
In which category do cell phones go?
@Radi0logy: I picture Eddie Murphy from Trading Places in the beginning rolling around when the census takers come knocking.
@pb5000: So... What, the kid is working? Renting out a room to another guy? Cause the woman is cooking all day and raising the kid, I can't imagine where that income is from
@ecohkr: Yeah, that @$$hole Bill has probably been screwing up the curve in one way or another ever since High School! :)
So, where are taxes?
Anyone notice how the hand with the smoke and the hand with the syringe are the same? I wonder what they morphed what into to save time...
As for spending more on tobacco than reading, that would probably be different if they charged the taxes on books and magazines that they do on cigarettes. Back when I worked at 7-11 some people would spend $2.50 every morning. That was $2.25 for the smokes, and $.25 for the daily paper.
If this were my breakdown, it would need to include a Morning Deals section.
@madanthony: You're right. Content is key. The scary thing is that the one and only book most Americans read features a talking snake, and they take it seriously. Although not too seriously, as indicated by the pretty much absent percentage of income spent on charity!
It seems that taxes and savings are both in the no man's land between average income and average expenditures. It would have been interesting to see those numbers split out.
@Mr_D: I wonder how they factor in all the reading we do online these days? Are they just calculating it using the dollar amount of book sales? Or even just new book sales? Because people use libraries, loan books to each other, and of course, read a lot of websites.
@TheFlamingoKing: I definitely get a ton of books from the library, and only buy a few books - mostly cookbooks since they're reference materials and I need them on hand. Before anyone says, "just find it online!" I prefer glossy photos and books that I can prop up in the kitchen as I'm working. But the only online recipe site I go to is Smitten Kitchen, anyway.
@DPGumby: I really like Mint too.. but I'm annoyed with it right now because of the WaMu / Chase changeover.. They said to mark the old WaMu accounts as "Closed" so that they would no longer be updated in Mint.. and add the new Chase accounts as though they were new accounts. I did this and it is still somehow updating from WaMu AND Chase.. so all of my transactions are doubled.. It's throwing all my graphs off.
I gotta fiddle with it some more. Before this I <3ed Mint too.
@pecan 3.14159265: I'm surprised they're not more explicit, but I would guess under "utilities, fuels, and public services"
That breakdown makes me happy I'm not the "average" consumer. I'm in my mid-twenties, working my butt off 24/7 to advance a career, and saving nearly half my income.
That's what happens when you grow up with a single parent who works 3 jobs and can still barely make the rent. Makes you paranoid about money problems, and a nice big savings account for a safety net helps counter that.
I'm actually pretty surprise by the Healthcare part. My insurance premiums are $200 a paycheck, putting me at around $5,200 a year and I've got a $4,000 deductible.
How on earth did they leave out the TAXES? Now *that* is a real eye-opener.
@bobloblawsblog: That was the very first thing I thought. Some people are CLEARLY not spending enough on booze.
Think of the distilleries, people! Won't somebody think of the distilleries???
@bornonbord: What you say is true: What do you mean? In my area, $80k as household income is the average. In some other areas of the country, $30k is the average. It all evens out in one way or the other. If you think $65k skews high, you live in a very low-cost area or you really don't know just how large this country really is. There are so many income levels that it really would even out to $65k in family income.
@bornonbord: What you say is true: Also keep in mind that this is averaged country wide.
In Austin,TX , $63k is awesome, in Palo Alto,CA you'd be living in a cardboard box.
@junip: You're not necessarily the average, but this graph factors in household income as well as household expenses - I presume you're single or at least not sharing expenses with someone else? Half everything you see in the graph and then re-measure yourself against that.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Also the smokes, I guess since this varies a lot state to state. But in the northeast it's pretty much $7+ for a pack now. Assuming you only smoke a pack a week that still about $100 more than that estimate. I'd wager most smokers average 4-5 packs a week. I did when I smoked full time.
@LupusGray: Here in Texas, we have awesome stores called Half Price books. They're wonderlands of used-book goodness. I'm guessing I give them north of $200 a month.
Holy fucking shitballs, the average household income is $63k!?
I need to talk to my boss...
But, he'll probably just point at the CIA world factbook. Even then, I'll have to beg.
[www.cia.gov]