Americans Spend Nearly $25k A Year On Household Bills — Here’s How They Break Down
This article was originally published by GOBankingRates
One of the most important parts of personal finance is setting a monthly budget and sticking to it. Ideally, you’ll budget in such a way that you can put 15% to 20% of your income toward savings after all the bills are paid.
That’s not always easy when the bills suck up a bigger percentage of your income than they should. Unfortunately, this is a problem for many Americans.
Median earnings for full-time workers in the U.S. are $1,194 a week or $62,088 a year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That equals $5,174 a month.
Meanwhile, a new report from bill-pay service doxo found that the typical American spends $24,695 a year or on household bills, or about $2,058 a month. Based on the BLS numbers, household bills take up about 40% of the typical monthly income — and that doesn’t even include purchases for food, groceries and clothing.
For its 2025 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report, released on April 3, doxo analyzed tens of millions of bill payments across 97% of U.S. zip codes and all U.S. income and regional demographic segments. Researchers looked at household bills across 13 expense categories to determine the median bill in each.
Here are the typical household expenses across all 13 categories, according to the doxo study (keep in mind that households will have either a mortgage payment or rent payment, but not both):
- Mortgage: $1,775 per month
- Rent: $1,453
- Auto loan: $470
- Cable & internet: $121
- Electricity: $120
- Auto insurance: $105
- Mobile phone: $96
- Water & sewer: $86
- Alarm & security: $74
- Health insurance (consumer direct portion): $72
- Gas: $71
- Waste/recycling: $70
- Life insurance: $60
These figures differ from other studies of household bills, mainly because doxo used median rather than average costs and did not include costs for food, entertainment and other items.
A Motley Fool analysis of BLS data pegged the average household’s monthly expenses at $6,440. But that total includes food and entertainment costs as well as miscellaneous expenses like transportation, apparel, education and personal care products.
Where you live will also have a big impact on your household bills.
For example, doxo found that mortgage payments are highest in California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Massachusetts and New York, respectively. Rents are highest in Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, New York and Washington. West Virginia is the most affordable state for both mortgages ($1,019/month) and rent ($870/month).
Here are other regional highlights from the report:
- Median auto loan payments are highest in Nevada ($559/month) and Hawaii ($520/month) and lowest in Vermont ($395/month) and West Virginia ($165/month).
- Electric bills are highest in Hawaii ($197/month) and Rhode Island ($184/month) and lowest in New Mexico ($89) and South Dakota ($79/month).
- Cable and internet bills are highest in Delaware ($157/month) and Rhode Island and lowest in Arkansas ($99/month) and Florida ($96/month).