Band 8 report sample | Household spending patterns

The chart below shows the average household spending pattern for households in three income categories as a proportion of their income.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Band 8 report sample

The given bar graph shows how families belonging to three income levels spend their money on various items. Housing is the biggest expense for families in all income levels. Low ($15,000 – $25,000), medium ($50,000 – $75,000) and high income families (above $150,000) spend roughly the same proportion (27%-28%) of their income on housing. Transportation is the next biggest expense. Low and medium families spend more (17 and 18 percent respectively) on transport than high income families (15%). Low income families spend more money (12%) on cooking food at home than medium (8%) and high (5%) income families. They also spend more on utilities (about 13%) than the other two groups.

Low income families spend less money than the other groups on eating out, entertainment, education, clothing, retirement savings and health. While high income families spend about 17% of their income on retirement savings, low income families spend only about 3% of their income on it. The biggest expenses for high income families are retirement savings, education, entertainment and clothing and the biggest expense for middle income families is transport.