I had several ideas about what I want to do for a data journalism project. I wanted it to include something that I’m passionate about (i.e. food, nature, literature, cats, among other things). But I also have been dealing with a lot of different expenses paying for wedding things, and thought it would be nice to have something that tells me how I can arrange my expenses more effectively.
This calculator was interesting, but didn’t help me prioritize.
I also had the idea to use average wedding costs to create some sort of generator to calculate how much a bride should spend on what. Unlike the ones I saw, I’d like something that helped prioritize major costs.
Wedding Stats has a great site with a lot of data from various sources across the country. People who go on the site can answer a series of questions about what is important to them, what they intend to spend, what they can do without, etc. and the site will prepare a list based on their preferences, what they may need to cut, how close they can come to their intended goal, and provide resources. For those on a tight budget, I could provide some resources about how to do some of these things on a budget and alternatives and so forth. Statistic Brain also has a lot of useful statistics as well.
I also thought about doing something like, “How much do you spend a year on alcohol/fast food/cigarettes?” I don’t know if I’d do all in the same calculation or separate (or maybe give both options), but then I could provide something comparable that the person would have been able to buy without, say, smoking. Like, ‘With that money, you could pay for a house.” Or something like that.
Statistic Brain also has some interesting information about fast food and the others as well. This idea might be a little more manageable for me than the other. And it’s something I’m more interested in than weddings (which is just relevant to me at the moment).
For either, I’d like to include side information about relevant stats, articles and/or photos.