How predictable is your spending?

If you plan on reducing your expenses, the first place to look is probably your spending behaviour. I was actually surprised at how regular personal spending can be.

I track all my expenses and yes they’re pretty predictable: food, clothing, gas, even accidental ‘big’ spends (like a spare tyre, gifts, broken phone, medical, etc.) average out to a specific figure every month.

The graph above represents something I thought was pretty variable; phone calls.
I’ve been a good in 2010 and overall spending is less on calls and SMSes (whatsApp FTW!), but still the trend is the same year on year; it just shifted down a little.

If you don’t track your spending and want to start; it’s pretty easy, just log into your online banking and start categorising the spends that you can see/remember. Then keep it up!

What do your graphs look like I wonder … !? o.o

Oh and for the marketeers … this predictability is what makes marketing information systems so effective and efficient.