Our daily expenses never seem like much, but when you really start to evaluate the costs long-term. The amount you spend on that morning coffee, putting gas in your car, and taking care of Fido add up.
Moneyland has collected some stats from a variety of sources. Here are some of my favorites:
Pets: According to the American Pet Products Association, the average dog owner spends $1,542 annually, while the average cat owner spends $1,183.
Beverages: The average U.S. household spends an estimated $850 annually on soft drinks, for a total of $65 billion on soft drinks alone. A total of $101 billion was spent on beer in 2010.
Shoes: Estimates for what the average woman spends on shoes range from $370 per year ($16,410 over 67 years), up to $25,000 over a lifetime.
I take issue with that last one. First, the shoe data have to be horribly skewed, meaning that a small proportion of women are spending
a lot of money and it's driving up the average. Of course, this may be true for many of the averages on that list. The second problem I have with it is that they only list the average for women. Do men not buy shoes? And if so, is $400 a year excessive?
Ed enjoys all forms of entertainment and has an unnatural love for quantitative methodology. He operates out of a basement in Northern Virginia (@edomaniac).
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I would imagine the shoe thing varies widely for both sexes, and is hard to pin down at all. For example, serious runners will buy new shoes about every 3 months on average, probably at about 100-130 a pop if they are buying good running shoes. That's over 400 right there just for running shoes.
ReplyDeleteI probably buy 1-3 pairs a year, at least one of those being an athletic shoe.