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What did I learn from analysing my expenditure after a year

In the following blog post, I share the results of two analysis. The first one is an analysis of my spendings by categories after a year, the second is analysis of what I want to achieve by category. The analysis contribute to my main aim which is to achieve financial independence. I am currently trying to pay a debt - 12K for a student loan.

To do the first analysis, I downloaded all the statements from my current account in an excel format. I assigned a category to each entry.

What are the results?
I  allocated 18% of my resources to my loan and the same amount to travel to France and have a couple of trip in the UK.
I spent more money on conspicuous consumption than food.
I did not have many outings that involved financial expenditure.

What am I missing?
I haven't got a good idea of what all the cash I have taken out was used for. A part of it must be to commute to work, then it is a mix of food shopping, outings, shopping and more outings.

For the second analyysis, I made a rough estimate all the things you want to achieve in the future, I created a budget to understand how much you have to put on a side every month to reach every goals you have set yourself using the categories set in the first analysis.

What did I learn from the analysis.
My main learning points are:
  • It seems that my current dreams amount to 12K - the same amount I need to reimburse (£12 000). (voice..argh). It is probably an amount of money that I should always have aside when I want to be completely free to reach any goal quickly. A FREEDOM POT
  • The other learning is that I really enjoy travelling and it is something I want to do more. It informs me in some ways on what I should do maybe professionally, who knows.
  • I can also see in comparison to my past that I want to focus more of my attention on personal development. It is something which is positive and I can predict that it is something that is likely to expand with time.
  • I will have to reschedule some plans in order to actually repay my loan quickly. Key tasks: what are my priorities.

Using my results, it allowed me to plan my budget for the upcoming months using a spreadsheet






Having this, I was able to actually analyse the information and develop some categories that you can actually see in the graph below.


Actions plan
So through my analysis, there are a number of key elements that I should look further on:
- what do I spend my cash on
- creating a freedom pot could be a new priority
- can i align my thirst for travelling with my professional aspirations
- what am i ready to reschedule to actually pay my loan very quickly.



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