I have decided to reduce. I do not seek to have a lot but to need little. Having a lot is exhausting. First, you need to work hard to earn the money to have all those things. Second, you need to spend a lot of time to consume them. If I focus on the things I really enjoy, I can save both time and money. With this in mind, I started a detailed recording of all my expenses when I moved to Munich. Since this was now one year ago, I decided to take a look at all that data. The figure below shows how the money that I spent (not including what I save) splits into different categories. Unsurprisingly for Munich, most of it goes into housing.
Overall spending from April 2018 to March 2019, without what I save
A very interesting analysis is where I buy food and how much I spend on it. Note that the 9% in the above figure also includes restaurants that do not fall under Leisure Time. In contrast, the figure below only includes what I spend on supermarkets as such and the canteen at work. I must admit that I had never expected to spend that much money in the canteen. Overall, I spend an average of 5.6 €/day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when not eating out. Is this much, or is it little? One thing that surprised me is that I spend roughly the same in Edeka than in Lidl, although the former is considered to be much more expensive than the latter.
One year of food at home and at work
One may now argue that I probably go much more often to Lidl than to Edeka, and thus the absolute amount of spent money is similar. However, the figure below shows that I actually go much more often to Edeka. The reason is that it is right on the way back from work, whereas Lidl requires some detour. Location obviously plays a crucial role. In April and May 2018 I had a temporary flat which was right across a Penny. Thus, I shopped there 80% of the times. As one can guess from the figure below, I now live near an Edeka and a Lidl ;-) All in all, where one shops is not necessarily related to how much money one spends!
Percentage of the number of times that I shopped at Lidl, Edeka, Penny, and Hit
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