2014 — 8 December: Monday
In what might look1 like a brief flurry of organised activity I've jotted down2 a summary of my financial outgoings. I'd become briefly inspired to do this by hearing a news item about the poorest 10% or so of UK households making increasing use of food banks while the guvmint gets cross about supermarkets getting rid of lots of food past its "sell by" date. Actually, I also heard a similar whinge on NPR about US households at the lower reaches of their demographic3 now experiencing genuine hunger for much of the time. The poor quality of food available to them more or less ensures obesity and diabetes in short order.
Such a good system, with no signs of impending breakage.
"Just the facts, ma'am"
I've annualised my spending figures — or perhaps "obfuscated" them might be le mot juste — as percentages of my available net (you should pardon the word) annual income.
The single biggest cost is food (19.7%), followed by whatever the heck is paid for by my local council tax (6.7%), and combined gas and electricity (5.4%). I think the guvmint would therefore class me as not yet in "fuel poverty". The next 13% goes on petrol, broadband fibre, telephone landline, house and contents insurance, Dr Fang's monthly bites, my smartphone, and annual car insurance.
After that, we're in the realm of (almost) petty cash: water, clothes, and car service (3.5%), and TV licence, car tax, car breakdown insurance, boiler service and water pipe insurance (less than 2.5%).
Anything left over goes into my fun fund jam jar :-)
It may be...
... almost the bleak midwinter (+5C out there and a nasty breeze) but there's a Terry Riley organ concerto premiere coming up. (Link.)
Oh dear. I'd twitched the dial away within 10 minutes. My patience isn't what it used to be, it seems. In fact, this may be a good time (after 40 years or so) to confess that I always found "Rainbow in Curved Air" just a teensy bit, erm, boring. And Christa hated it. "What are you listening to that for? Haven't you got anything nicer?"
:-)
One could almost...
... be tempted to think that this could be turned into a nice comedy script. But, as Upton Sinclair told us, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary is dependent on his not understanding it..." Particularly a very senior accountant, of course. (Link.)