| Jill recently wrote about a study that indicated that Americans spent 9.7% of their expenditures on food. One point that was brought up was that Americans had begun to spend less and less on food since the 1930s.
I found an interesting graphic that broke out the average American's expenditures visually and the numbers were based off of the Department of Labor's and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' surveys in 2009. The percentage of expenditures spent on food was 12.4% (7% of food expenditures were consumed at home and 5.4% of food expenses spent outside the home). This 12.4% did not include tobacco (0.7%) or alcoholic beverages (0.9%).
What struck me was the figure on transportation. The average American spent 17.6% on transportation.
Now think about that for a minute...
There are penalties for driving without a insurance, without proper registration and one can't go anywhere without a tank full of the ever rising cost of gasoline.
But there is no penalty for spending too little on food.
And I suppose that is reflected in that pie chart. |
