2007 Spendings- Beating the Recession

It's always neat to go back and see where my money has been going the past year. I pulled out what I had left of my receipts from 2007 as I put Excel to work to see where my money went to, and here are the results:

The numbers were somewhat suprising to me other than a couple of the categories. When I spent money on books I did buy quite a lot of manga from Borders during the summer of 2007 (mainly Rurouni Kenshin but also some Bleach). Some Misc stuff I bought includes your general purpose stuff from Wal*Mart (personal care products, soap, toothpaste, etc stuff like that).

And here is the big suprise: nearly one third of my working money went towards... you guessed it... gasoline. Gas prices are still very high, about where they were last summer (but a little less). On average it will cost me $45.00 to fill up. Because I can't find a job right now and I am in school I am on borrowed money to pay for gas and car insurance. Gas shot up to about $3.35 USD a gallon last summer around the Allentown PA area.

I spent an alright amount on gifts for others, largely in thanks to the Dollar Tree store up in Nazareth. I spent a good deal, but not as much as I wanted to- on anime. I only purchased DVDs this round of the year. I spent a good amount on electronics, most of that money in there is due to my Wii and Nintendo DS purchases from Best Buy. 2007 was my final year for Star Wars Galaxies, so I canceled my subscription around July of 2007. Another good amount I bought was in Hobby materials: model kits, paints, supplies for scratchbuilding and the like. Engineering supplies was money spent on drafting supplies and other important things for college, and 1% accounted for a bit of food I bought when my old folk were too lazy to go out to the grocery store (I am fortunate because I was fed).

I will probably end up paying about the same this year in gas once I can get the money rolling again. I really hope I can find something above minimum wage so I can have more money not only to spend on hobbies but also money that I can save. Everyone is very iffy right now with the recession and I am no different: prices are going up but salaries are not. Lucky for me there was a huge layoff across the country for February (I think around 63,000 jobs) and I have been seeing places looking to hire for the summer. I am thinking about working at an Arts and Drafting store or Radioshack, but I would prefer to work in a Hobby Shop.

I would be one to say that the economy stimulus package did not work.