Antworten zum Universum

So, economists think consumer make their purchases rationally, and that they make their decisions based on past behaviour and expectations of the future.

I put that claim to the test, with the sample size of 1 – me. For the past 20 weeks or so, I’ve been making grocery runs every Saturday. I only do my groceries once a week, since I am fairly capable of gauging my expectations with regards to what I want to eat for the week.

I base my diet on staples – there is a set amount of carbs, proteins and veges I eat each week. Because the amount of veges I eat is embarassingly dwindling (I eat a lot during the beginning of the semester, and less and less as time goes on), and my protein intake is relatively fluctuant to my desires at the time of purchase (i.e. if I feel like eating a meat on Saturday, I will buy meat for the rest of the week, even though there will be some days I totally do not like to eat meat). So, the only data I analyzed is my weekly carbohydrate purchases.

There are primarily 4 forms of carbs that I buy – bread, Indomie, instant noodles and pasta¹. I also buy and eat plenty of rice, but rice is unquantifiable (it actually is, but rice isn’t as instant as eating bread or instant noodles). So, how did I fare?

Pretty horrible graph isn’t it? Not only it tells nothing about my spending habits, it also looks bad to begin with. So, let’s look at some numbers instead. Continue reading Groceries by Expectation

1. bread in loaves, Indomie in bags – one bag has 5 packets, instant noodles in packets, pasta in packets [↩]