How I Spend My Monthly Budget as a Student in Melbourne

Jyoti Tak

2025-10-05

Introduction

This personal data story explores how my monthly expenses are distributed and how they change over time.

Goal: Identify where most of my money goes and what I could adjust to save more.

Data Source

  • Data: My personal monthly spending, 12 months (simulated for demonstration).
  • Currency: AUD.
  • File used: finance_data.csv.

Visual 1 — Monthly Spending Trend

Visual 2 — Average Share by Category

Visual 3 — Category Breakdown by Month

Insights

  • Top cost drivers: Rent dominates; Groceries and EatingOut are next.
  • Seasonality: Watch for spikes (holidays/exams).
  • Actionables: Set a weekly cap for EatingOut; review Entertainment/Phone plans.

Reflection (Ethics & Integrity)

  • Data here is simulated for demonstration. For real data, I would de-identify and store securely.
  • Visual design avoids distortion: zero baselines for bars, clear labels, readable scales.

Conclusion

With a simple dataset and clear visuals, I identified where spending concentrates and how it varies across months.
Next step: set monthly targets and track Budget vs Actual to improve savings.

Appendix — Data Peek (scrollable table)

References

  • Posit (RStudio). R Markdown & reveal.js.
  • Personal finance logs (simulated).