Budget of a common household in the Republic of Serbia

The aim of this paper is to show how the common household in the Republic of Serbia earns and distributes its income. The analysis of family budgets was carried out through careful consideration of available resources and household consumption. Since households in Serbia spend the largest part of their family budget on food, this paper will also deal with the main characteristics of food consumption per household. Shares of certain products within the same group of products will be presented here as well, in order to identify and understand the prevailing dominance of certain products in everyday consumption. The available data from the Household Budget Survey (which is carried out by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia) were used for analysis. In order to observe and analyze changes, certain indicators have been compared with some earlier periods. The previously mentioned survey has been conducted under this name since 1983. Starting from 2003 it has been carried out in accordance with international standards and recommendations of Eurostat, ILO (International Labour Organization) and the UN, and is based on the COICOP (Classification of Individual Consumption). They data obtained from the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications, known as 'The purchasing power of the population - Consumer basket' were also used in this study