The pie charts compare the proportion of consumer spending on seven categories in the years 1966 and 1996.
Overall, there was a big change in spending patterns over the 30 years, with a big drop in money spent on food and a large increase in spending on cars and computers.
In 1966, food was the largest category, making up 44% of total expenses. However, by 1996, this number had fallen sharply to 14%, showing a significant reduction in spending on food. On the other hand, cars showed the opposite trend, rising from 23% in 1966 to 45% in 1996, which made it the biggest spending category by that year.
Other categories showed smaller changes. Spending on restaurants doubled from 7% to 14% between these years, while petrol costs stayed quite steady, dropping just slightly from 9% to 8%. Computers, which were not included in 1966, made up 10% of expenses in 1996, showing new demand for technology. On the contrary, books were the smallest category in both years, staying at just 1%.