In this example we have a pie chart
that represents a percentage of income by
category
for the average American, and this
pie chart was created from data taken in
October 2010,
also called is circle graph.
So let's take a look at the chart, we have
different categories
of spending, and then different
percentages that are associated with them.
 
They're the same as the categories listed here, so we can just read the information
from the Chart itself. The first
question, how much of their income does the
average American spend on health care?
So I'm going to look for a category called
health care,
which is right here, and that is 6%
For the average person,
what is the single biggest category of expense? So we can just look at the
biggest part of the pie here,
and that is housing, and that's
going to be the biggest expense.
Suppose your monthly salary is
2200 dollars, how much
should you be spending on food?
So what I want to do is to find out
what is the cost for food.
Food is 13%, so I want to take
13% of 2200
 
and that's going to tell me to multiply
.13 times 2200,
and if I do that on my calculator,
very quickly here, I get $286.
So if my monthly salary is
$2200, I should be spending, according to this chart,
 
about $286 on food.
 
