The charts below show the proportion of people’s total spending in a particular European country was spent on different commodities and services in 1958 and in 2008.

The pie charts detail the proportion of people’s total expenditure on six different

goods

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and services (housing, clothing, entertainment, food, travel/transport, and luxury

goods

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), in a European country, in 1958 and 2008. It is clear from the charts that spending in all aspects, except clothing, changed quite substantially over the

fifty year

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fifty-year

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period. In 1958, people spent the largest portion of their spending on food, at 32%. The two other categories that took up the majority of people’s money were housing, at 22%, and clothing at 18%. Entertainment, travel/transport and luxury

goods

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only comprised around a quarter of all spending at 18%, 8% and &% respectively. 50 years later spending changed quite significantly with housing now becoming the biggest expense and taking up almost

one third

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one-third

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of total spending, at 32%. The expenditure on clothing, transport/travel and luxury

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all increased and all took up around 16-17% of the total spending. The expenditure on food dropped significantly to 12%,

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entertainment costs were only half of that.