Quite interesting:

http://hatmandu.net/content/spending.htm

I appear to be quite frugal. Except for “hobbies and gadgets”. Cant think why that might be 🙂

Amazingly I’m about 2/3rds average.

where’s the bit for “mortgage”? all my other figures are low as a result…

agree, no mortagage or rent

and no “how many earners/people in the hosue”

as it stands i earn the “average” (presuming the average income is two people so presumably i’m on twice the average?)

but my drinking/goign out is twice the average as well, so i have the beer consumption of 4 people? And if it is average for 2 people, how exactly do you squeeze 2 meals and drinks out of £26?

all in all, a very flawed survey!

you cant determine whether it’s flawed or not without analysing the sample data that it is using to determine trends.

All it is doing is giving you a rating comparing your household expenditure in the categories that it’s using against the average expenditure in those categories by those in the same household income bracket.

it’s not really a survey is it, just a tool to compare you against the results of a survey

I think this is meant to be about household income and outgoings that you have control over – rent and mortgage are more or less fixed costs whereas the others are variable costs.

as it stands i earn the “average” (presuming the average income is two people so presumably i’m on twice the average?)

Average will be over all households (or possibly all working households) – ie. some have one, some have two earners. Last I saw the average individual salary is somewhere in the low 20,000s or high teens, household about 30k.

but my drinking/goign out is twice the average as well, so i have the beer consumption of 4 people? And if it is average for 2 people, how exactly do you squeeze 2 meals and drinks out of £26?

Maybe not everyone goes out for a meal every week? Or they go to Wetherspoons or similar cheap places – 2 meals for about £7, plus beer from £1 a pint, for £26 you could get 4 meals + 10 pints, which is surely enough for a family meal out, let alone 2 people? There are loads of chain places, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut etc. you could easily get 2 meals + drinks for £26. They’re just not the sort of places people earning a lot tend to hang out.

Personally I spend well below average, but that is mainly because we were both PhD students until last year, so we have suddenly doubled our incomes.

Joe

I think this is meant to be about household income and outgoings that you have control over – rent and mortgage are more or less fixed costs whereas the others are variable costs.

Yep, and they’re surely strongly correlated to household income as well, meaning for this kind of comparison there isn’t a massive point in asking you that if you’ve already been asked how much you earn.

Joe