I try to make all my purchases on credit card. This lets me easily review all my expenses each month, or at any time using online banking. (wooh, technology). So for my last statement, I downloaded it as a spreadsheet, did some grouping, and made a chart. I had to pull in some data from my debit card statement, as well, which wasn’t so accommodating (no CSV download), but I managed.
The three categories at the top with a bold line around them are pretty static and not going to change much in the immediate future: rent, bus, and phone. The three categories at the bottom with grey outlines were exceptional and help make this month a more expensive one: a trip to whistler (all expenses, including eating out, hotel, etc), some clothes (which I don’t buy often), and a new computer. These make up more than half of my month’s expenses. The rest of it is the interesting stuff. Eating out and liquor account for the greatest remaining expenses…. and eating out includes drinking out, whereas liquor is basically for drinking in – so already I could drastically reduce my expenses by drinking in more and drinking out less, right? 😀 (I don’t see drinking out decreasing drastically, any time soon, however….)
Food is miscellaneous groceries I’ve bought, and is very small because I live at home and don’t generally buy groceries. For that same reason, my rent should actually be half of what it is, but I plan on paying at least double, for the time being. I find it funny that coffee (when I buy a coffee and or any muffin or baked good) has its own slice of the pie – but not unexpected. Because I don’t have a car, gas is ridiculously small, but I like to replace what I use when I borrow my mom’s car.
For me, it will be interesting to see what changes next month. 🙂 And who knows, at this rate, that might be the next time I blog! haha. ^_^;;
Oh, and I’ll be going to EAT!Vancouver, this weekend. I might even attend multiple days. I went last year and enjoyed it. It’s a barrage of samples and people trying to sell you stuff… and it’s where I tried and bought my RADA cutlery, which I like quite a bit. Thinking I might get a tomato knife or something. It’s only $12. If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, give me a shout. 😉
I suspect the coffee expense will increase in the coming months.
Wow, that’s cool!! You put your pie chart for all to see!
Dez and I have our pie charts too, since the marriage. We use SplashMoney: she uses the Palm version, and I use the iPhone version, and we consolidate the info on a Desktop version (not officially supported, but with a bit of work I can put both data into 1 account). I love see stats…
This coming weekend I was planning to run… like, from home, around the seawall, around Stanley park, and back to home. Although I’m starting to worry that I might run out of gas when I’m at Stanley park… then it’ll be hell coming back. So… Eat!Vancouver sounds great. 🙂 But I’ll probably stick to my run… (if it rains hard, maybe I’ll join you!)
@Shirley: Nonsense! I try to brew my own, at work. Well, okay, they might a little. They’d sure be much higher if I bought coffee each day, though!
@Alex: I knew you’d especially appreciate the graph. 🙂 That sounds like a long run…. daaaayum. Bring a bus ticket in case you run out of go. 😉 FYI – EAT!Vancouver tix are $12 online, $15 at the door.