The Average US Household Budget In One Chart

This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, shows what the average U.S. household budget looks like by tracking where all income goes to, including expenditures, savings, and taxes.

The data comes from The Motley Fool, with annual figures for 2023 converted to monthly spending.

Not all spending happens every month (car maintenance for example). The annual cost is averaged over 12 months.

Furthermore, households include families, single people living alone, or two or more people living together sharing the majority of their expenses.

What Do Americans Spend Their Money On?

Taken together, housing (25%), taxes (14%), and savings (10%) account for nearly half of the average American household’s monthly budget.

This works out to about $4,000 every month.

Note: The graphic combines eight categories into miscellaneous spending.

Transport costs (including gas, insurance, and maintenance) take another big chunk ($1,100) out of the average household budget.

After that, food (both groceries and eating out), personal insurance, and healthcare are all the other big ticket items, between $500–800 each.

The biggest “non-necessity” expenditure is entertainment, coming in at roughly $300 a month.

All figures listed are averages and do not account for variances between states with significantly different costs of living.

Additionally this chart breaks down the average pre-tax household income by month. And averages can be skewed by ultra-wealthy outliers in the country with significantly larger expenses.

For context, median household income for that same year stood at $80,610, about $20,000 lower than the average.

Have U.S. households gotten richer over time? Check out How U.S. Household Incomes Have Changed Since 1967 to take a look at inflation-adjusted figures.