Average Monthly Household Expenses Statistics (2026)

The average US household spent $81,905 in 2025, according to the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey released on October 29, 2026. Divided by 12, that is about $6,825 a month.

The survey counts 137,994,000 consumer units, which is the BLS term for a household or a group of people who share expenses. The average one has 2.4 people, 1.3 earners and 1.9 vehicles, and 65% own their home.

Spending rose 4.3% from 2024. Average pretax income rose 6.4% to $110,847, and the CPI-U annual average rose 2.6%, so the typical household both earned and spent more in real terms.

Housing is about $2,316 a month, a third of all spending. Shelter alone, meaning rent, mortgage interest, property taxes, maintenance and lodging, is $1,469. Utilities add $411, of which electricity is $157 and cell phone service $116.

Transportation averages $1,124 a month: $419 for vehicle purchases, $397 for other vehicle costs such as insurance, repairs and finance charges, $209 for gasoline and other fuels and $100 for public transport and travel fares.

Food averages $886, split between $541 at the grocery store and $345 eaten out. Personal insurance and pensions, mostly Social Security and retirement contributions, take $848, and healthcare $539, of which $359 is health insurance.

Some lines behave like monthly bills even though the survey reports them annually. On average a household pays about $318 a month in mortgage interest, $239 in property taxes, $179 for vehicle insurance, $157 for electricity, $116 for cell phone service and $74 for water and other public services.

Those averages are spread across every household, including renters who pay no property tax and people who own no car. A household that has the bill pays more than the average shows.

Mortgage principal is not counted as spending in the survey, because paying it down builds equity. The 2025 tables show an average of $2,652 a year in principal paid, about $221 a month, recorded separately as a change in assets (BLS table 1101).

Splitting households into fifths by pretax income, the lowest fifth spent $37,935 a year, about $3,161 a month, and the highest fifth spent $159,512, about $13,293 a month.

The share going to necessities falls as income rises. Housing is 42.7% of spending for the lowest fifth and 30.3% for the highest. Healthcare falls from 10.4% to 6.2%, and food at home from 9.5% to 6.5%.

The line that rises fastest with income is personal insurance and pensions, which goes from 2.0% of spending at the bottom to 17.7% at the top. Most of it is Social Security and retirement contributions taken from paychecks, which is why households with few earners record little of it.

The lowest income fifth reported average pretax income of $18,125 and average spending of $37,935, about twice its income. The second fifth also spent slightly more than it earned.

The survey does not say how the gap is covered. The group's reference person averages 59.4 years old, and Social Security and retirement income make up 56.4% of its income, so it includes many retirees who can spend from savings.

Spending fell to 87.8% of pretax income in the middle fifth and 55.7% in the top fifth. For all households, average spending was 73.9% of average pretax income.

Spending peaks in middle age. Households headed by someone aged 45 to 54 spent about $8,888 a month in 2025, the most of any age group, and those aged 35 to 44 spent $7,804 (BLS CE by age).

Households headed by someone under 25 spent about $4,511 a month, and 21.9% of their budget went to rent. Those aged 75 and older spent about $4,830, and healthcare took 14.2% of it, the highest share of any group.

Housing costs stay high long after income falls. Households aged 75 and older still spent 39.0% of their budget on housing, the largest share of any age group.

By generation, Gen X households (born 1965 to 1980) spent the most, $100,602 a year or about $8,384 a month. Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) spent $89,354, about $7,446 a month.

Gen Z households (born 1997 or later) spent $61,717, about $5,143 a month, and only 23% own their home. Rent alone was 20.2% of their spending.

Baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964) spent $70,795, about $5,900 a month, with 11.0% going to healthcare. Households headed by someone born in 1945 or earlier spent $54,175 and put 15.3% toward healthcare.

The West had the highest average spending in 2025 at $92,733 a year, about $7,728 a month, closely followed by the Northeast at $91,698, about $7,642 (BLS CE by region).

The South spent the least, $71,606 a year or about $5,967 a month, and the Midwest $81,345, about $6,779. Income followed the same order: the Northeast averaged $129,961 and the South $98,543.

Housing explains much of the gap. Western households spent about $2,751 a month on housing against $2,023 in the South. Southern households spent a larger share on transportation, 19.0% against 13.5% in the Northeast.

Rural households spent $82,093 in 2025, slightly more than the urban average of $81,857, according to the type-of-area table. They spent less on shelter, $13,787 against $18,564, and more on transportation, $16,225 against $12,824.

Rent is the reason shelter costs diverge. Rural households spent $1,977 a year on rented dwellings and 85% own their home. In principal cities, rent averaged $9,131 a year and half of households own.

Transportation was 19.8% of the rural budget, the highest of any area type in the table.

A one-person household spent $50,479 in 2025, about $4,207 a month, and 40.6% of it went to housing. A two-person household spent $84,124, about $7,010 a month.

Each extra person adds less than the one before. Three-person households spent about $8,184 a month, four-person households $9,019 and households of five or more $9,536.

Food grows more steadily with size. It was about $474 a month for one person, $1,254 for four and $1,515 for five or more, where it took 15.9% of the budget.

Homeowners with a mortgage spent the most of any tenure group, $109,765 a year or about $9,147 a month. Owners without a mortgage spent $72,679, about $6,057 a month (BLS CE by housing tenure).

Renters spent $59,943, about $4,995 a month, and 40.5% of it on housing. Rent itself averaged $17,495 a year, 29.2% of renters' total spending.

Married couples whose oldest child is 6 to 17 spent the most of any family type, $124,691 a year, about $10,391 a month. Single parents with a child under 18 spent $67,732, about $5,644 a month, with 38.8% going to housing (BLS CE by composition).

The Census Bureau measures housing costs as a monthly median, which avoids the averaging across renters and owners in the spending survey. In 2025 the median monthly owner cost for homes with a mortgage was $2,163, up 3.5% in real terms from $2,090 in 2024 (Census ACS).

The median mortgage payment itself was $1,598, and the median annual property insurance payment rose from $1,600 to $1,738. Median gross rent, which includes utilities and fuel, was $1,557, a 2.0% real increase, and median contract rent was $1,371.

The median owner with a mortgage spent 21.9% of household income on housing costs, up from 21.4%. The median renter spent 30.9%, unchanged from 2024. Among households earning $35,000 to $49,999, 72.1% of renters were cost burdened, meaning housing took more than 30% of income, against 41.7% of owners.

Average annual spending was $55,978 in 2015, about $4,665 a month (BLS CE database). By 2025 it was $81,905, a 46.3% increase in current dollars over ten years.

The only fall in the decade came in 2020, when spending dropped to $61,332 from $63,036. It rose 9.1% in 2021 and another 9.0% in 2022 as prices climbed.

Over the same ten years housing spending rose 51.0%, food 51.4%, healthcare 49.0% and transportation 42.0%. These are nominal figures and include inflation.

BLS flagged five increases as statistically significant: total spending, food (+4.6%), housing (+5.8%), shelter (+8.0%) and utilities (+4.1%). Spending on meats, poultry, fish and eggs rose 11.7% and rent rose 10.8% (BLS table 1).

Gasoline spending fell 5.4% and vehicle purchases fell 5.9%. Entertainment rose 13.2% but the change was not statistically significant.

Other vehicle expenses rose 13.3%, but BLS says part of that came from moving one subcomponent from the Interview Survey to the Diary Survey, so it is not a clean year-on-year comparison.

In the 12 months to September 2026, consumer prices rose 3.7% overall. Gasoline rose 34.2% and energy as a whole 20.4%, while electricity rose 4.4% and piped gas 5.0% (BLS CPI table 2).

Shelter, which carries 35.3% of the weight in the index, rose 3.2%, and rent of a primary residence 2.8%. Food away from home rose 3.5% and groceries 1.8%.

Two common bills fell in price: motor vehicle insurance by 5.0% and the CPI health insurance index by 9.0%. That index tracks insurers' retained earnings, so it does not show what households pay in premiums.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures consumer spending differently. Personal consumption expenditures came to $61,034 per person in 2025, and disposable personal income to $67,221 per person (BEA NIPA table 7.1).

PCE counts spending made on households' behalf, such as employer contributions to health insurance and medical care paid by Medicare and Medicaid, which the household survey does not record as household spending. PCE per person is therefore not comparable with spending per household in the BLS survey.

For a household budget, the BLS survey is the closer measure, because it records what households themselves paid. For national totals, the consumer spending statistics page covers PCE in detail.

The figures are means, so a small number of high-spending households pulls them up. The middle income fifth, at about $5,749 a month, is closer to a typical household than the overall average of $6,825.

Category averages include households that spend nothing on that category. The $523 monthly average for rent covers all households, two-thirds of which own; renters themselves averaged $17,495 a year, about $1,458 a month.

For a comparison by state, the cost of living statistics page has regional price levels, and the budgeting statistics page covers how many households keep a budget.

The Consumer Expenditure Survey combines a quarterly Interview Survey for large and recurring purchases with a two-week Diary Survey for small, frequent ones. Figures are annual averages per consumer unit for calendar year 2025.

The 2025 lapse in federal appropriations meant the Census Bureau could not collect the survey in October and November 2025. BLS used a weight adjustment to account for the missing months, and the CPI-U annual average used for comparison is based on 11 months because October 2025 CPI data were not collected.

BLS also changed how it estimates standard errors in 2025, and as a result will not publish 2024-2025 two-year tables for geographic areas.