Spending by Category Calculator
Enter what you spend each month on housing, transport, food and healthcare to see how it compares with the average U.S. household on a similar income — in dollars and as a share of income.
What do you spend?
Before tax, for everyone in the household. This picks which fifth of U.S. households you are compared against.
Rent or mortgage, property tax, insurance, utilities, maintenance and furnishings.
Car payments, fuel, insurance, repairs and public transport.
Groceries and eating out combined.
Insurance premiums you pay yourself, plus out-of-pocket costs.
The average household in the middle 20% of earners spends $50,523 on the same four, so you are below that average by $723.
| Category | You a year | Typical | Difference | % of income, you vs typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | $24,000 | $24,093 | −$93 | 32% vs 32.4% |
| Transportation | $11,400 | $11,657 | −$257 | 15.2% vs 15.7% |
| Food | $9,000 | $9,097 | −$97 | 12% vs 12.2% |
| Healthcare | $5,400 | $5,676 | −$276 | 7.2% vs 7.6% |
- Your income bracket
- middle 20% of earners
- These four as % of your income
- 66.4%
- Typical for the bracket
- 67.8%
These four categories are not a whole budget. The same households average $66,900 a year across everything the survey tracks, including clothing, entertainment, education, pensions and insurance.
How the comparison works
Your monthly figures are multiplied by twelve, because the survey reports a year at a time. Your pre-tax household income then selects one of five income brackets, and each category is compared against the published average for that bracket.
Your annual spending = Monthly amount × 12Difference = Your annual spending − Bracket average- Bracket
- The fifth of U.S. households your pre-tax income falls in
- Bracket average
- Mean annual spending for that group, as published by the BLS
- Household
- The survey’s “consumer unit” — everyone sharing the bills
For 2024 the Bureau of Labor Statistics places the boundaries between brackets at $29,932, $57,452, $94,511 and $155,925 of income before taxes. Figures were taken from the BLS public API and checked against the published news release: average annual expenditures of $78,535 across all households and average income before taxes of $104,207, both of which the release states directly.
Why this page has no percentile
Every other comparison in this section reports a percentile, because the Survey of Consumer Finances publishes microdata from which a real distribution can be computed. The Consumer Expenditure Survey tables publish averages for each income group and nothing about the spread around them.
An average cannot be turned into a percentile. Saying you are “in the top 30% for grocery spending” would require knowing how spending is distributed within your bracket, which these tables do not say — so this page compares you against the average and stops there.
The share-of-income figures carry a second caveat. The typical share shown is the bracket’s average spending divided by the bracket’s average income: a ratio of two averages, not the average of households’ own ratios. The BLS publishes means only, so this is as close as the source allows.
What this calculator assumes
- Figures are 2024 dollars from the 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey, updated when a person updates them rather than on a date.
- Four categories are compared, not a whole budget. The same households also spend on clothing, entertainment, education, insurance and pension contributions, which is why the bracket total is far larger than these four added together.
- Category definitions follow the survey: housing includes utilities, maintenance and furnishings as well as rent or mortgage; food covers groceries and eating out; transport includes vehicle purchase, fuel, insurance and repairs; healthcare covers premiums you pay yourself plus out-of-pocket costs.
- The comparison is national. Housing costs vary enormously by metro area, and a bracket average blends them all.
- Brackets are set by pre-tax income only — not household size, age or region — so a single person and a family of five on the same income are compared against the same average.
Spending by category FAQ
How much should I spend on housing?
This page reports what households do spend, not what anyone should. In 2024 the average U.S. household spent $26,266 a year on housing. The share of spending going to housing falls as income rises, from roughly 42% in the lowest fifth to 29% in the highest.
Why does the lowest income group spend more than it earns?
Because one year of income is not the same as resources. That group includes retirees drawing down savings, students, and households having an unusually bad year. Its average spending is about double its average pre-tax income — a real and well-known feature of the survey.
Should I enter gross or net income?
Gross, before tax. The survey ranks households by income before taxes, so entering a take-home figure would place you in a lower bracket than you belong in.
My spending is above average. Is that bad?
Not necessarily, and this page does not judge it. Averages blend high-cost cities with low-cost ones and large households with small ones. A difference against the average is a starting point for a question, not an answer.
Other ways to see where you stand
- Savings rate percentile — the flip side of spending: how much you keep.
- Income percentile — where your earnings rank in your age group.
- Net worth percentile — what years of saving and spending have added up to.
- Debt by age — what households your age owe.
Sources and review notes
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Expenditure Surveys, 2024 tables by income quintile before taxes
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — “Consumer Expenditures” news release for 2024, including the income quintile boundaries quoted above
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — public data API, from which the category figures were retrieved (series CXU…LB01…M)
Category averages retrieved from the BLS public API for 2024 and cross-checked against the published news release totals before release. The comparison arithmetic is covered by deterministic unit tests. No financial professional review is claimed yet.