According to a new survey, a lot of Americans are blowing their budgets by eating out too often. Surveying 2000 US residents and using data from the USDA’s Cost of Food at Home reports, Hloom—a company that makes templates for resumes, invoices, and the like—dug into what people feel they’re wasting their money on.
最新调查显示,许多美国人过于频繁地将金钱“挥霍”在外出就餐上。一家制作简历、发票等模板的公司Hloom调查了2000位美国居民并使用了美国农业部《家庭食品开支报告》的数据,探究人们认为自己把钱都浪费到哪儿去了。
While the answers varied based on age and gender, across the board, people listed eating out as their top money-waster (of the expenditures they'd be willing to cut back on). Almost 69 percent of all respondents said they spent too much money on restaurants.
尽管不同年龄和性别的人群回答有所不同,总体看来,人们把外出就餐列为自己最愿意削减的第一大浪费性支出。约有69%的调查对象表示他们在餐馆花了太多钱。
A quarter of respondents admitted to wasting their cash on alcohol, and almost a fifth admitted to throwing money away on credit card interest. More than 30 percent said they wasted money by letting food expire or otherwise go uneaten, though few were willing to try to change that.
四分之一的受访者承认把钱浪费在饮酒上,约五分之一承认花费在信用卡利息上。超过30%的人称自己将食品放到过期或是剩下不吃而浪费了钱,尽管几乎没有人愿意试着改变。
However, more than 17 percent of respondents said they weren’t wasteful with their money, to which we say, who are you, and do you know about online shopping?
然而,有超过17%的受访者说他们并没有浪费钱。对此我们表示:你是谁啊,你知道网购不?
More women admitted to wasting money than men: Almost 20 percent of men consider themselves nonwasteful, the study found, compared to 14 percent of women. But that may have a lot more to do with societal pressures to spend money on beauty and personal care (one study found women who wore makeup to work got paid more) and the higher prices women face for purchases like hair cuts and dry cleaning—not to mention cultural stereotypes that women are bad with money and love to shop til they drop—than the reality of people's budgets.
比起男性,有更多女性承认自己浪费金钱:研究发现,近20%的男性认为自己并不浪费,而持此观点的女性只有14%。但这很可能与社会压力迫使女性在美容和个人护理上花费更多有关(一项研究显示化妆的职场女性薪水更高)。并且较之实际预算,女性在理发和衣物干洗等项目上要承受更高的价格,更不必说“女性总管不好钱,热爱‘买买买’”的文化成见了。
What you think of as a waste of money also varies by generation. Most Millennials aren't worried about wasting money on cable bills, but do say they're spending too much on streaming services.
不同年代出生的人对“浪费钱”的理解也不相同。千禧一代中的大多数不担心有线电视费钱,却表示自己在流媒体服务上花了太多。
It’s important to note that this is a self-reported survey, meaning that it’s not about what people are actually wasting their money on, but rather what they perceive as a waste of money. One person may think $500 a month spent on restaurants and bars is a huge waste of money, while another may consider it a normal part of life. Just because Millennials don't list cigarettes as one of their money-wasters doesn't mean they're not smoking, necessarily—just that they don't think it's a waste of their cash.
需要注意的是,此研究是一项自陈报告,这意味着结果显示的不是实际花费情况,而是人们自己认为的浪费。有人可能觉得每月在餐馆酒吧花上500美元非常浪费,而另一个人或许将其看作是正常生活的一部分。千禧一代没把香烟列为浪费金钱的项目并不见得他们不抽烟,他们只是觉得买烟算不得浪费罢了。
Let’s not forget, though, that forgoing your daily latte will never make you rich. As financial experts and sociologists have pointed out, most people in America aren’t bankrupting themselves buying luxuries like fancy coffee or meals out. Over the past few decades, while the prices of education, housing, healthcare, and gas have risen significantly, salaries have gone down. So yes, paying your credit card bill off in full every month should be a big priority, but living like a hermit and never buying a meal out is a poor substitute for meaningful public policy that makes necessary purchases like health care and rent affordable.
尽管如此,别忘了,放弃每日的拿铁咖啡永远不会使你富有。金融专家和社会学家已经指出,美国的大多数人并不会因为买些昂贵的咖啡和外出吃饭而破产。在过去几十年,教育、住房、医疗保健和汽油的价格显著提高,薪水却降低了。所以是的,每月全额付清你的信用卡账单应当是头等大事,但也不要像隐士一样生活,从不在外吃饭。有效的公共政策应能确保人们能够支付医疗保健和租房等必需开支。
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