The bar charts illustrate changes in average family expenditure on eight major categories per week in 1968 and 2018, with figures expressed in percentages.
Overall, it is clear that families tended to spend a larger proportion of their income on three main categories, namely food, housing, and clothing and footwear at the beginning. There were significant increases in spending on housing, transport and leisure over the given period.
In 1968, food accounted for 35% of weekly expenditure, which was almost double the percentage of the second and third ranked categories, housing and clothes. Over the following years, however, expenditure on food and clothing figures fell by approximately 18% and 5%, respectively, whereas proportions of housing saw considerable growth from 10% to around 18%. However, the largest amount of money was spent on leisure, which experienced a significant rise of approximately 12% over the years. By 2018, spending on leisure activities had become the leader with percentages reaching about 23%.
The other four-dominant categories in both 1968 and 2018 were fuel and power, household goods, personal goods, and transport. In 1968, these categories accounted for about 6%, 8%, 8% and 9%, respectively, but expenditure on transport over took other three categories. In 2018, families expenses for transport reached around 14% of their income, while both fuel and power and personal goods saw declining percentages and the figures for household goods remained unchanged.