Jean's Blog

Are You a Spender or a Saver?

Posted by Jean

Pop quiz:  How much do you spend each month on dining out? Gas?  How much do you give to charity?    Well, if you’re living in New York City (zip code 10016 to be exact), you spend $869 eating out, $67 on gas (you likely don’t own a car, and if you do it’s garaged much of the time), and give $148 to charity.  If you’re in San Francisco (94117), you spend $522 dining out, $114 on gas and give $74 to charity.  And if you’re in Houston (77036), just $147 eating out, but $146 on gas and give $62 to charity.

Personally, I find this sort of data fascinating.  I spend time wondering why folks in Houston spend so much less on auto expenses than in the other zips.  (Is it because a) cars hold up better in Texas, b) they know how to perform routine maintenance themselves, or c) they all have leased cars covered by warranty?)  I want to know how it is that people in Chicagoland (60643) can spend so much less on eating out and groceries. (Shouldn’t one go up as the other goes down?  Or did we – in choosing zips popular with WOW readers – happen upon one full of single women or empty nesters?)

Whether or not you enjoy this sort of comparative analysis, Bundle.com CEO Jaidev Shergill hopes you find the data useful.  The idea for the site, he said, came to him two years ago – before the financial crisis – when he got a small raise at Citi where he was working at the time.  “A month or two later, it hit me that more money was coming in but I was just spending it all,” he said.  “My house was the same.  My other basic expenses were the same.  I didn’t know where it was going.”  Most frightening: he hadn’t saved an extra dime.  “In my 20s that wouldn’t have been a problem.  But I was in my 30s.  I knew I should be saving more for retirement, but the behavior wasn’t there.  And I started to wonder – is it just my problem or across the country?”

The new site, funded by Citi (which provides aggregated anonymous data from its credit card accounts that is used to build the comparisons), Microsoft and Morningstar, allows you to compare with other people your age, at your income level, and again, by zip code.  US Government data, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is also used.
Shergill says the thing that gets him aren’t the average numbers, but the ranges.  To see that some people in the same age, income, zip are spending $3000 a month eating out but others are spending $250, he notes, “that’s the thing that completely kills me.”  He’s also paying attention to how much his spending is likely to increase as he heads into his 40s and even 50s.   As a result, Shergill says, he has changed his own behavior.  “I’ve started to look at how much I’m going to spend on my vacations, for instance, and put the money away beforehand so I don’t have to pay it off later.”

Here is the spending of some popular WOW zips.  Where do you fit in?

New York City: 10016
$631 on travel
$869 on dining out
$431 on groceries
$67 on gas
$124 on auto expenses
$271 on insurance
$148 on charity
$281 on school and child care

In San Francisco: 94117
$114 for gas
$284 for auto expenses
$247 for insurance
$74 for charity
$104 for school and child care
$522 on dining out
$415 on groceries
$385 on travel

In LA: 90004
$327 on dining out
$436 on groceries
$131 on travel
$235 on insurance
$152 on school and child care
$94 on charity
$165 on gas
$193 on auto expenses

Chicago: 60643
$182 on groceries
$158 on dining out
$150 on school and child care
$50 on charity
$333 on insurance
$113 on gas
$238 on auto expenses
$108 on travel

Houston: 77036
$288 on insurance
$88 on school and child care
$62 on charity
$137 on dining out
$222 on groceries
$146 on gas
$123 on auto expenses
$84 on travel

In Miami: 33155
$206 on auto expenses
$115 on school and child care
$47 on charity
$193 on insurance
$147 on travel
$165 on dining out
$301 on groceries