I am helping a friend make a move from New York to Texas with financial advice and a small loan. Talking about budgeting got me to go look at the longest term spending data I have electronically. This is in Pounds Sterling and I can't be bothered to convert to dollars because I would have to research exchange rates from the 1980s. It goes back to September 1988. I probably could extend it further from handwritten records. But, anyway, this is what I have readily to hand:
It's also not inflation adjusted. I would have to research the UK price index for the last 20 years to get it into real pounds.
Apart from the upward trend, it is noticeable how much more volatile the series gets recently. You can see the peak when we bought our house (stamp duty) and the trough at the start of the Pandemic. There are previous peaks usually associated with moves, like in 2007 when we moved to Australia. Currently, school fees are the most volatile element in our budget. Actually, in percent terms, spending got more volatile recently, but it's not more volatile than it was in the earlier years of the series:
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