More than half of my credit card bill goes through my digestive system
Updated: Now with the months of September thru December!
I’ve been crunching the numbers from my credit card bills and this is what I have so far. The largest chunk goes to food (39.1%), which includes eating out, barhopping, and groceries. The next biggest slice goes to shopping (35.6%). A bit shocking to me is that coffee accounts for nearly 20% 15% of by CC bills. Counting only the months of January thru March and May thru August every month of 2008 but April, I have spent over $2500 $3100 with the plastic. Hit the jump for more numbers.
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Caffeine expenditure
Largest by amount charged: January – $117.74
Smallest by amount charged: November* – $3.50
Largest by percent total: August – 35.2%
Smallest by percent total: November* – 1.3%
Largest by number of separate transactions: August – 21
Smallest by number of separate transactions: February and November* – 1
* excluding October, which has zero coffee transactions
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Food expenditures
Largest by amount charged: September – $198.95
Smallest by amount charged: October – $12.00
Largest by percent total: September – 71.5%
Smallest by percent total: June – 16.9%
Largest by number of separate transactions: February – 11
Smallest by number of separate transactions: October – 2
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Total expenditures
Total spending (all of 2008, excl. April): $3109.07
Largest by amount charged: December – $467.59
Smallest by amount charged: October – $42.46
Largest by number of separate transactions: August – 29
Smallest by number of separate transactions: October – 6
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Trends
Coffee expenditure is the least in February and March because I was abstaining from drinking or buying coffee during Lent. However, as the summer months roll by and the Capstone deadline nears, I’ve spent more time in coffee shops finishing up my thesis, thus increasing the overall number of transactions and the percent of total bill used for coffee. But in the fall, I was gone and so the coffee bill was considerably less – it was zero in October.
I ate out more during the first three months of the year and so my food bill was higher in those months. I was eating out with friends more frequently then than 3 months and 6 months later because I was stuck in lab more and more at later hours and so reduces the frequency that I eat out overall. In September, I ate out daily while I was in Philadelphia – and food isn’t too cheap there either. Frequency starts to pick up again around November when I began going out to lunch with my labmates.
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What’s left out?
Since I don’t have my credit card bills for the other months, the overall distribution may be skewed. For example, October should be the month where I used the plastic the least because I was on vacation for a good part of the month. April and December are more shopping-heavy months due to big-ticket purchases (Wii, GPS, and LCD TV) and they were not included in the chart above. I’ll post the updated one as soon as I got them.
The tabulation excludes the month of April because I don’t have the bills for that. But it should be the month of the greatest expense. More detailed tabulations will be posted later when I found the bill. Furthermore, this list does not include purchases I made with cash (though they are mostly from people paying me back) which are numerous.
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