bank statement = diary

ever since high school, i've been pretty anal about monitoring my expenses in an excel spreadsheet. i'm not sure that i still need to do this manually given all the great tools available these days (mint.com is awesome), but i guess it's a habit i can't break.

since i have all the data (and a consultant's natural inclination to run pivot tables), i thought i'd do some analysis on my spending habits in 2009.

top 20 places i spent money in 2009 - by frequency

1. mozzarella
2. ralph's
3. cvs
4. pinkberry
5. huckleberry café
6. union 76
7. amazon
8. whole foods
9. vons
10. long's drugs
11. target
12. netflix
13. forever 21
14. trader joe's
15. kreation kafe
16. queen bee
17. itunes
18. exxonmobil
19. southwest airlines
20. pitfire pizza

top 20 places i spent money in 2009 - by amount spent

1. TED
2. american airlines
3. alaska airlines
4. southwest airlines
5. ralph's
6. claremont mckenna college
7. forever 21
8. target
9. ticketmaster
10. cvs
11. mozzarella
12. united airlines
13. union 76
14. huckleberry café
15. delta airlines
16. queen bee
17. time warner cable
18. best buy
19. long's drugs
20. victoria's secret

so what does this say about me? we all know that groceries and gas are necessities and flying is expensive, but i think there are a few takeaways that are unique to who i am:

• i finally felt like TED was in the budget this year because TEDIndia was much more affordable than any other TED. that said, it was still pretty freakin' expensive. worth it? totally.
• i am very loyal to american airlines and their codeshare airlines (holdover from my days as a weekly traveler)
  
• my priorities: i buy expensive food and cheap clothing
• music is important to me -- recorded and live
  
• coconut and passion fruit swirl...mmm...
• on any given work day, it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll find me at mozzarella for lunch
• weekends aren't complete without a green eggs and ham from huckleberry cafe