THE COST OF LIVING
What do we really spend our money on?
IF you wonder where all your money goes each week, we might have the answer.
On average, households spent a total of £528.90 a week in 2015/16 on all the items for everyday life.
The value of spending on each group of items is calculated by the Office for National Statistics by taking the total UK spend in a year and dividing it into weeks, then dividing it by total households. So for some categories some households will be spending a lot more or less than others, and for some items spend will be a one-off purchase rather than a constant weekly demand. The weekly cost of putting a roof over your head works out as an average of £48.30 in rent per household per week and £42.90 in mortgage capital and interest payments. The essential bills set us back an average of £7.40 a week for water, £11.50 for electricity, £10.70 for gas, and £21 for council tax. Keeping our homes looking nice means an average weekly spend of £17.40 on furniture and furnishings, £7.60 on maintenance and repairs, and £2.40 a week on cleaning materials, as well as £2.60 a week on our gardens.
Households spend an average of £56.80 a week on food and nonalcoholic drinks, plus £7.80 on alcohol to drink at home. Keeping our pets fed as well costs £2.50 a week.
The average weekly supermarket shop contains £2.40 worth of bread and £2.10 worth of milk, plus £3.60 of fruit and £4.10 of vegetables. We average a bigger weekly spend on coffee, 90p, than tea, 50p.
When we fancy a change from homecooked meals, we spend an average of £17.30 a week on restaurants and cafe meals, and £9.10 on takeaways and snacks, as well as £7.50 a week on alcoholic drinks out.
We spend an average of £23.50 per week on clothing and shoes, made up of £18.90 on clothing and £4.60 on shoes. Looking our best means spending £11.40 a week on personal care such as haircuts and toiletries.
In order to get about, households spent an average of £24.80 a week buying vehicles, and £19.40 a week filling them up, while rail and tube fares averaged £4.10 a week, and bus fares cost £1.30 a week.
Mobile phone contracts cost as an average of £7 a week, with £3.10 a week spent on internet subscriptions. During our leisure time, we’re averaging 80p per household on computer games, 70p a week going to the cinema, 80p watching sport, £1.20 on books, and £2.40 taking leisure classes. A TV licence costs a household £2.30 a week on average with £4.40 spent on cable and satellite subscriptions. We’re spending an average of £1.40 a week on package holidays in the UK, and £20.80 on those abroad, as well as 30p on UK air travel and £6.20 on international flights. After all this spending, we also find £5 a week to put away as savings.