Week 5 of the data postcard project Sarah Bartlett and I are working on has long arrived and this blog post is overdue. I am a tiny bit behind schedule and can’t blame timing on the mail for this week!
The topic to track and visualize this week was items we purchased. So for this week I tracked every single receipt and line item – basically anything that I spent money on. This was a relatively easy tracking week because I held onto all my receipts and then compiled the data into a spreadsheet at the end of the week.
I was genuinely curious on what I spend my money on, and this week of tracking was a fairly normal week. I didn’t go anywhere spectacular, host friends for an evening, or have any emergencies (that required money). I consider myself a pretty frugal, not tending to buy clothes or luxury items very often, with one exception, I have very specific food preferences. I don’t like luxury food, but I do follow a very specific diet that includes pricey food items.
Here’s how the week turned out:
![](https://jacksontwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IMG_1128-1024x768.jpeg)
![](https://jacksontwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IMG_1130-1024x768.jpeg)
For this week I took the approach of going more abstract with my visualization. I didn’t want to represent time directly (as I’ve previously discussed), and I also wanted to veer off course to create an image/drawing/picture based completely on data. What I ended up with were potted flowers. Each pot represents a separate receipt. The leaves represent each individual item on the receipt, the circles represent the amount spent, the color of the circles/buds represent the product category. Finally, if there is a saucer at the bottom of the pot it means that it was a purchase just for me vs. my entire household (me and my husband).
This is probably my favorite postcard so far – it gave me joy when Sarah shared her reaction to it. And seeing it again in the blog post also makes me quite happy.
Getting down to specifics – my suspicions were quite true, of the $348 I spent, $315 was on food (that’s 90%). Pretty much the rest of the purchases are luxury in the form of a book and board game. The remaining purchase is airport parking.
And as you begin drawing conclusions you’ve probably got two thoughts: Ann spends a lot of money every week on food or something else is going on. I try to avoid going grocery shopping every week, so I tend to stock up on things – this was a week of stocking up.
Conversely here is Sarah’s postcard:
![](https://jacksontwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IMG_1180-1024x768.jpeg)
![](https://jacksontwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IMG_1181-1024x768.jpeg)
I like Sarah’s approach of marking whether products were essentials or not. Similar to my card, she’s chosen to denote whether a purchase was for herself or someone else. She mentioned she was sick during this week and you can see exactly when that happened with the medicine purchase! I also like the balance of essentials vs. non-essentials. The final visual is simple and very effective.
![](https://jacksontwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IMG_1131-768x1024.jpeg)
And that’s it for the week. My last lingering comment is that this postcard arrived to Sarah’s doorstep in the fastest time (so far!). I have a strong suspicion that it’s due to dropping it off inside vs. outside the post office. Make sure to check out Sarah’s take on the week!