Annual Spending Review - 2018

So where did all the money go in 2018 ?  Here's our regular end-of-year review.

click on the graphic for a larger image ...


As usual, the columns are ranked highest-to-lowest from left-to-right, based on the 2018 spending, and include the equivalent 2017 and 2016 percentage spends alongside, for comparison.

Here's another plot containing exactly the same data, but this time with the 'Savings & Investment' and 'Holidays and Travel' categories hidden, as these are typically much larger than the others and therefore tend to distort the chart scale :-

A few notes :-

• The 'Savings & Investments' category looks quite low this year, but this is down to my 2017-18 ISA allowance being almost all filled during the latter part of 2017, whereas I haven't yet deployed all of the allowance for 2018-19.   

• 'Groceries & Alcohol' doesn't reflect the total household spending, only my own.  My wife usually picks up the tab at the supermarkets when we do our major food shops every other week or so.  I pay all the other household bills except for the broadband.  

• The 'Gambling' category is shown as zero for 2018, but this isn't strictly true.  In fact, I made a net positive return this year, for the first time ever, thanks to one big win on the horses in September.

• 'Household Bills' appears to have increased considerably over previous years, but this is mainly down to the timing of our purchases of heating oil.  We topped up three times in 2018, but we should now have enough oil to see us through into the early summer of 2019.

• We no longer have pets, not since 2016, so this category will disappear in the next review.

• In actual cash terms, the total annual 'spend' was down by 20% over that of 2017, but this can again be attributed to the timing of contributions paid over into my ISA.  This reduced total spending level also tends to raise the 2018 percentages of all the other categories, of course.

Finally, a very happy new year to all !