If you're writing your first budget, or trying to work out why the money runs out before the month does, the starting point is the same: a full list of what you actually pay for. Not the big three that everyone remembers, but all of it.
Below is the checklist we'd use, grouped into categories that work for tracking. After it, there's a table of what the average household spends, and a section on the irregular costs that are the real reason most monthly plans fail.
The complete monthly expenses checklist
Go through each group and write down what applies to you, with a monthly amount. If a cost is yearly, divide it by twelve. If it changes month to month, use an average of the last three months from your bank statements.
Housing
- Rent or mortgage payment
- Property tax (if not included in the mortgage)
- Home or renters insurance
- HOA, body corporate, or strata fees
- Maintenance and repairs (budget about 1% of the home's value a year if you own)
Utilities
- Electricity
- Gas or heating oil
- Water and sewer
- Trash collection
- Internet
- Mobile phone
Food
- Groceries
- Eating out and takeout
- Coffee and snacks
- Work lunches
- Alcohol
Transportation
- Car loan or lease payment
- Fuel or EV charging
- Car insurance
- Registration, tolls, and parking
- Servicing and repairs
- Public transport, rideshare, and taxis
Insurance
- Health insurance premiums
- Life insurance
- Disability or income protection insurance
- Pet insurance
Health
- Prescriptions and pharmacy
- Doctor, dentist, and optometrist copays
- Therapy
- Gym or fitness classes
Debt payments
- Credit card minimums (and anything extra you pay)
- Student loans
- Personal loans
- Buy now, pay later installments
Children and dependents
- Childcare or school fees
- School supplies, uniforms, and activities
- Allowances
- Support for parents or relatives
Subscriptions
- Streaming video and music
- Cloud storage and software
- News and magazines
- Apps, games, and memberships
- Subscription boxes and delivery memberships
Personal and household
- Clothing and shoes
- Haircuts and personal care
- Household supplies (cleaning, toiletries)
- Pet food and vet bills
- Hobbies and entertainment
Savings and investing
- Emergency fund contributions
- Retirement contributions not taken from your paycheck
- Savings for specific goals
Irregular and annual costs (monthly share)
- Car registration and servicing
- Annual subscriptions and memberships
- Gifts, birthdays, and holidays
- Travel
- Medical or dental work
- Home or appliance replacements
Savings sit on the list on purpose. If they're not written down as a monthly "expense", they tend to be whatever's left over, which is usually nothing.
What does the average household spend each month?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the most detailed figures on household spending through its Consumer Expenditure Survey. For 2024, average spending per household was $78,535 a year. Here it is broken down by month.
| Category | Per year | Per month | Share of spending |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing (incl. utilities) | $26,266 | $2,189 | 33.4% |
| Transportation | $13,318 | $1,110 | 17.0% |
| Food (total) | $10,169 | $847 | 12.9% |
| of which groceries | $6,224 | $519 | |
| of which eating out | $3,945 | $329 | |
| Personal insurance and pensions | $9,797 | $816 | 12.5% |
| Healthcare | $6,197 | $516 | 7.9% |
| Entertainment | $3,609 | $301 | 4.6% |
| Cash contributions | $2,292 | $191 | 2.9% |
| Apparel and services | $2,001 | $167 | 2.5% |
| Education | $1,569 | $131 | 2.0% |
| Everything else | $3,316 | $276 | 4.2% |
| Total | $78,535 | $6,545 |
A few things are worth knowing before you compare yourself to this.
It's an average across all households, from students to retirees, with an average pre-tax income of $104,207. A single renter in a cheaper city and a family of five with a mortgage will look nothing like it.
"Personal insurance and pensions" is mostly Social Security and retirement contributions, much of which comes out of a paycheck before you see it.
Housing, transport and food together take about 63% of spending. That's useful as a sense check: if those three are eating 80% of your take-home pay, the pressure you feel isn't a lack of willpower on coffee. It's structural, and the fix is in the big three.
How to turn the list into expense categories you can track
The checklist above is deliberately detailed so you don't miss anything. For day-to-day tracking, you want far fewer buckets. Logging a purchase should never involve choosing between "Coffee", "Snacks" and "Eating out".
A practical set of personal expense categories:
| Category | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Housing | Rent or mortgage, property tax, home insurance, repairs |
| Utilities | Power, water, gas, internet, phone |
| Food & Dining | Groceries, eating out, coffee, takeout |
| Transport | Fuel, public transport, rideshare, parking, servicing |
| Health | Pharmacy, doctor, dentist, gym |
| Shopping | Clothes, household items, electronics |
| Entertainment | Going out, hobbies, games, events |
| Subscriptions | Streaming, software, memberships |
| Work & Education | Courses, books, work equipment |
| Travel | Flights, hotels, holiday spending |
| Other | Gifts, donations, anything that doesn't fit |
Those are the same 11 categories TallyMsg uses by default, and that's deliberate: they're broad enough that nearly every purchase has an obvious home, and specific enough to show you where the money goes. If one bucket gets big and you want to understand it, split it then. Splitting "Food & Dining" into groceries and eating out is the most common and most useful change.
Debt payments and savings don't need to be tracked purchase by purchase. They're usually a few fixed transfers a month, so note them once in your budget instead.
The irregular expenses that break monthly budgets
Most budgets are built from a typical month. The trouble is that almost no month is typical. In any given month, something on this list shows up:
- Car registration or a new set of tires
- An annual software or Amazon Prime renewal
- A wedding, a birthday, or the December holidays
- A dental filling or new glasses
- Back-to-school costs
- A flight home
Each one feels like a surprise. Added up over a year, they're entirely predictable. The fix is simple: list every irregular cost you can think of from the last twelve months, add up the total, and divide by twelve. That's a real monthly expense, even if the bill only arrives once a year. Set that amount aside each month and the "surprises" stop being emergencies.
For annual subscriptions especially, the subscription tracker converts monthly and yearly plans into one figure so you can see the true monthly cost.
How to find your real numbers
Estimates are almost always too low, especially for food and shopping. To get honest figures:
- Download the last three months of statements from every card and account you use.
- Total each category using the checklist above.
- Divide by three to get a monthly average.
- Add the monthly share of your irregular costs.
- Then track your spending going forward for a month to catch cash and anything else statements miss.
Step five is where most of the useful surprises come from. Our guide on how to track expenses covers a method that takes seconds per purchase, or you can use the free expense tracker in your browser to total categories as you go.
Once you have the full list, it's worth splitting it into fixed and variable expenses. Fixed costs tell you what you need to earn. Variable costs are where you can make changes this month.