Some Personal Spending Numbers in 2008
2008: Personal Expense Breakdown
Had some time on hand during the weekend, and thought I would go through my last year’s spending to see how I can do better in year 2009. Well, the numbers are staggering – I wouldn’t have imagined I spent that much! Not ready to disclose the actual amount, but here are some numbers:
Top 5 expense categories in year 2008:
- Auto (28.4%)
- Dining (8.8%)
- Travel (7.9%)
- Insurance (7.3%)
- Misc (6.4%)
Not much trips last year – only Pulau Perhentian on April, Sipadan on August (yea, watching the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony at Semporna!), and the Bangkok/Pattaya trip on December, but it already took up almost 8% of the total yearly spending. This will only become worse this year, with a few planned trips (Redang, Bali, Manila and Manado).
Dining is something I can look into. Probably will have to come home for dinner more often…
Automobile spending is the biggest chunk at 28.4%, mostly from the hire purchase repayment:
- Hire Purchase: RM 13.9k
- Fuel: RM 4.1k
- Service: RM 1.7k
- Toll: RM 1.54k
Toll spending will be reduced a bit this year, with the NPE toll gate at PJS2 Kuala Lumpur-bound direction being abolished just few days ago. Fuel spending really depends on the crude oil price, which I hope can stay at sub-USD40, or least not higher than USD60 per barrel. Hire purchase repayment will remain the same for this year – I still have 15 months of repayment to clear the loan.
By the way, the pie chart is generated by iBank, the financial manager software that I am using religiously almost everyday to keep track of expenses and income. It fits my need perfectly, and I like it because of its simplicity but yet powerful. Can’t say the same for Quicken, which I used to be using when I was still using MS Windows based personal computer – the software is loaded with so many features that I don’t need. Most things under Mac are simple, and more importantly, they just work.
Probably no upgrade of my iMac this year :-p … Need to save as much cash as possible to weather the storm!
looks like your top spending is same as mine… but mine 2nd spending r mainly contributed to “Family Saving”.
yeah… i use Quicken w/ a lot of tools that I don use at all. I think they r mainly design for US user.
Well I took out all the Savings from the chart, just plain spendings. Also taken out the house loan spending or else that will be the biggest chunk…