Band 9: The charts below show the proportion of people’s total spending on different commodities and services in a particular European country in 1998 and 2008. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

The bar graph compares how much money people spent on various goods and services in one country in Europe two years: 1998 and 2008.

Overall, spending on three categories saw a decrease, while that on clothing and electronic goods increased, with eating out remaining unaltered. Of these, electronic goods stood out as being the biggest expenditure across the years, in contrast to newspaper/magazines and attending the cinema, both of which came at the other end of the spectrum in both years.

Focusing on the downward trends, holiday expenses shrank the most, dropping from 8 units to 5 units. The other two expenditures, newspaper/magazines and visiting the cinema, stood at 3 units each in 1998, the lowest at the time, before they witnessed a 2-unit fall to a chart low of 1 unit.

As for clothing and electronic goods, their spending grew, with the former going up most notably to 18 units, 6 units higher than in 1998. The latter also climbed, though to a lesser extent, ending the time-frame at a whopping 20 units and thus marking a growth of 4 units.The outlay on eating out was the only one to have seen no change, standing stable at 6 units.