What is Your Average Spending Per Month? Here's How to Break It Down

My income

My take-home pay does not exclude the money I put toward my 401K because I want that to be part of my spending. The average income I make in a month is $5,867.27. That is the average of my take-home pay and then I added $300 to it because I put in my 401K.

My income fluctuates frequently–not my full-time job income, but my side-hustle job changes monthly.

1. Housing/utilities

I organized this from where I spend the most money down to where I spend the least amount of money. The total is $1,625.12. That breaks down into 27.7 percent of my income.

This is normal to me. I’ve always spent about 30 percent of my income on housing. I do live on my own so it’s a little more expensive and I live in a major city where there are a lot of close conveniences, such as grocery stores.

This includes rent, renter’s insurance, as well as WIFI, electricity, water, sewage, pest control fee, and trash. 

2. Savings/debt

This is my second largest spending category. I spend $1,264.99 or 21.6 percent of my income on savings/debt. I am disappointed because I wanted this category to be savings/investments this year, but that didn’t work out. But, by this time next year, my debt will be gone.

My goal is to get rid of this debt by the time I turn 30 next year. On the positive side, I did not have to pay any interest on my student loans due to the student loan forbearance program. 

3. Investing

I put $600 in investing. I do $300 a month for my Roth IRA, $300 a month goes to my 401K, plus my company matches that but that’s not my money so I can’t include that here.

That is 10.2 percent of my income. Between my savings and investing, that’s over 30 percent total.

Once I am debt-free, the bulk of my money will go to investing. I want to continue to save for my emergency fund, a house, and everything else, but I will increase this investing amount.

4. Business/electronics

I purchased a new Macbook and GoPro this year, those are business expenses, and I can write them off. I have to pay a few thousand dollars a year just to maintain my business, such as subscription services, domain name, security, and other things. The amount is $470.98 per month or 8 percent of my income.

5. Food

This is how much I spend on food a month. Groceries and eating out came to $455.20 per month. It’s high on average but I traveled earlier in the year and ate out, but only 7.8 percent which is reasonable.

6. Personal/miscellaneous

This category includes random things such as postage, shipping, fun and entertainment, parking, furniture, Spotify, Netflix, etc. The total is $387.11 or 6.6 percent of my income per month on average. I’d like this to be $250 a month, though. 

7. Health/beauty

This is $380.67 or 6.5 percent of my monthly income. This includes chiropractor and doctor appointments, medical treatments, supplements, and beauty products. Again, I’d like to see this lower, also $250. 

8. Travel

I only traveled once this year. It came to $214.71 or 3.7 percent of my income per month which is part of the average. It was a big-spend area for me in 2022. Every year I do at least one or two trips. 

9. Dogs

My sister and I have two dogs together so I send her a little money every month as “dog support” for food, insurance, dental care, etc. On average per month it is $207.14 or 3.5 percent of my income.

10. Car/transportation

This includes my car, gas, car washes, car maintenance, and insurance. I do not have any car payment because I already paid off my car debt. I barely get gas, maybe once a month because I work from home and barely drive.

This comes to $138.37 or 2.4 percent of my income per month. I used to pay $400 a month to finance the car, which is a lot of money.

11. Donations

This comes to $82.98 for this year or 1.4 percent of my income. Typically I donate to animal rescue causes. I like to donate $50 a month. But I recently had a foster dog which bumped this number up a bit. 

12. Phone

My phone is just $40 a month, or 9.7 percent of my monthly income. I am on a family plan (Verizon) which has unlimited everything. My phone is paid off and I don’t have phone insurance.

Average spending per month

That’s how I spend my $5,867.27 of income a month. How much money do you end up spending per month and how do you break down expenses? Let me know in the comments below.