What are your neighbors buying?

"Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month; others just go over them."-Sally Poplin

If you have a family budget (and you really, really should have a family budget), then you’ll appreciate a new web site that allows you to see what your “neighbors” are spending (in aggregate). The site is at http://www.bundle.com/ and is called EverybodysMoney. The photo at right is a screen shot of the site looking at spending for Stamford, CT, where I work. The values show monthly spending for the “average” neighbor.

$1,668 Family & Health (Pets, Insurance, Healthcare, School, Charity)
$1,139 Shopping (General, Hobbies, Office Supplies, Clothing, Electronics)
$1,022 Food & Drink (Dining out, Groceries)
$ 892 House & Home (Utilities, Phone, Home Improvement, Home Maintenance)
$ 659 Getting Around (Gas, Auto expenses)
$ 455 Travel & Leisure (Commuting trains, air fare, hotels, entertainment & cable TV)

Curiously Rent/Mortgage is not included anywhere.

In each bubble you can hover the mouse and click “Go deep” to get subcategories. Hover over the subcats and you can “See Stats” for greater detail. For example the top Merchant under Dining Out in Stamford is Starbucks! You also have the option of changing the location, looking only at homes with X kids, or only at homes in a particular income bracket.

This site is marked Beta and the data set is skimpy in places. I tried to look at Ossining, NY and could only get results for all of Westchester county.

Bottom Line

A tool like this can help you to discover that your spending is higher than average for your region. If yes, you may want to cut back. But don’t get too smug if all your expenses are “average”. I added $1000 per month to the Stamford numbers above for rent and got $6,835 spent per month. Multiply by 12 and this means $82,000 per year in EXPENSES. Assume 30% for taxes and you have to earn $120,000 per year to be “average” in Stamford.