Monthly Expenses List: How to Sort Essentials vs. Lifestyle Spending
By Filipe de Castro, founder of SetBucks · · 7 min read
A monthly expenses list is simply every place your money goes in a typical month, written down in one spot. Below is a complete checklist for a US household, plus a simple way to sort each item into essentials, lifestyle and saving so you can see where your money actually goes. You don't need a budget for any of this. You only need to look.
The complete monthly expenses checklist
Go through each group and note what applies to you. Skip what doesn't. The point is to catch the costs you'd otherwise forget, not to fill in every line.
Housing
- Rent or mortgage payment
- HOA or condo fees
- Property taxes (if not included in your mortgage payment)
- Renter's or homeowner's insurance
- Storage unit
Utilities
- Electricity
- Gas or heating oil
- Water, sewer and trash
- Internet
- Cell phone plan
Food
- Groceries
- Takeout and delivery
- Restaurants and coffee
- Work lunches and snacks
Transportation
- Car payment or lease
- Gas or charging
- Parking and tolls
- Public transit or rideshare
- Car washes and routine maintenance
Insurance
- Auto insurance
- Health insurance premiums (if not taken out of your paycheck)
- Life insurance
- Disability or umbrella coverage
Health
- Copays and prescriptions
- Dental and vision
- Therapy or counseling
- Gym or fitness classes
Debt payments
- Payments on credit card balances you carry from month to month
- Student loans
- Personal loans
- Buy now, pay later installments
Kids and pets
- Childcare or daycare
- School lunches, supplies and activities
- Allowances
- Pet food, vet visits and grooming
Subscriptions
- Streaming services
- Music and podcasts
- Cloud storage and apps
- News and magazines
- Memberships like warehouse clubs
Personal and household
- Clothing and shoes
- Haircuts and personal care
- Cleaning and household supplies
- Home goods and small repairs
- Hobbies and entertainment
Giving
- Donations to charities or your place of worship
- Gifts for birthdays and occasions
- Money sent to family
Saving and investing
- Transfers to a savings account
- Emergency fund contributions
- Retirement contributions you make yourself
- Other investing
One note on credit cards: if you pay your card in full every month, the payment itself isn't an expense. The groceries and gas you bought with the card are. Counting both would double your spending on paper.
Essentials vs. lifestyle vs. saving
A long list is useful, but it's hard to read. Sorting each item into one of three groups turns it into something you can understand at a glance.
Essentials are the costs you'd still have if you cut everything optional: housing, utilities, groceries, insurance, getting to work, minimum debt payments, childcare and basic health care. These are the "needs" in the usual needs vs wants split.
Lifestyle is everything that makes life more comfortable or fun but could shrink if it had to: dining out, takeout, streaming, shopping, hobbies, travel, upgrades. These are the "wants."
Saving and investing is money you set aside for later. It's worth keeping in its own group because it isn't really spending. It's money you're paying to your future self.
Some people use the 50/30/20 rule as a rough reference point: about half of take-home pay on needs, 30% on wants and 20% on saving. It's a common rule of thumb, not a verdict. Plenty of households in expensive cities spend more than half on essentials, and that's just the math of rent.
The gray areas
Some expenses don't fit neatly, and that's fine. A few common ones:
- Phone plan. Having a phone is essential for most people. A top-tier unlimited plan with the newest phone on installments is partly lifestyle.
- Groceries vs. takeout. Groceries are essential. Takeout is food too, but it's the lifestyle version of it.
- Car. Getting to work is essential. The difference between a basic car and a nicer one is lifestyle.
- Gym. For some people it's health care. For others it's a membership they mean to use.
Pick a rule for each gray item and stick with it. Consistency matters more than getting the label perfect, because what you're really watching is how each group changes over time.
Fixed vs. variable expenses
There's a second way to look at the same list: by how much each cost moves from month to month.
Fixed expenses are the same amount every time: rent, a car payment, insurance premiums, most subscriptions. You know them before the month starts.
Variable expenses change with how you live that month: groceries, gas, dining out, utilities that swing with the weather, shopping.
| Expense | Group | Fixed or variable |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | Essentials | Fixed |
| Electricity | Essentials | Variable |
| Streaming | Lifestyle | Fixed |
| Restaurants | Lifestyle | Variable |
| Savings transfer | Saving | Fixed (if automatic) |
Both views help, in different ways. The essentials and lifestyle split tells you what kind of spending you do. The fixed and variable split tells you how predictable it is. Fixed costs are the floor your month starts from. Variable costs are where most of the month-to-month difference comes from, so when a month runs higher than usual, that's usually the first place to look.
The expenses people forget
The monthly list above misses a whole category of costs: the ones that don't show up every month. They're easy to leave out because in most months they're zero. Then they arrive all at once.
Common ones:
- Car registration and inspection
- Insurance premiums paid once or twice a year
- Amazon Prime and other annual memberships
- Software or app subscriptions billed yearly
- Holiday gifts, travel and birthdays
- School fees, camps and back-to-school shopping
- Home maintenance (HVAC service, gutters, a new water heater eventually)
- Car maintenance beyond oil changes (tires, brakes, batteries)
- Professional fees like tax preparation
To see what these really cost you, divide each yearly amount by 12. Say your car insurance is $1,200 a year, your registration is $120 and you spend about $900 on holidays. That's $2,220 a year, or $185 a month. It doesn't show up on your monthly list, but it's part of what your life costs every month.
Adding that monthly weight to your list gives a more honest picture. It also explains the months that seem to go wrong for no reason. Often there was a reason. It was just billed once a year.
Compare this month with last month
One month on its own tells you something. Two months side by side tell you much more.
Once your expenses are sorted, put this month next to last month and look at each group. Say the number, then the direction: "Lifestyle was $1,100, up $180 from last month." That's a fact you can do something with, or simply notice.
What the changes can tell you:
- Essentials went up. Often a utility bill (summer cooling, winter heating), a rent increase or a new insurance rate. Worth checking whether it's a one-time swing or the new normal.
- Lifestyle went up. Usually a few specific things: a trip, a birthday dinner, a new subscription. Look at the categories inside the group rather than the total.
- Saving went down. Sometimes that's on purpose. Sometimes it's what gave way when everything else went up.
- Nothing changed much. That's useful too. It means your typical month is fairly predictable.
Keep in mind that a single month can be misleading. A month with a quarterly bill or a holiday will look high. Looking across several months, if you can, smooths that out and shows your real average.
What "what's left" tells you
Every month comes down to one simple line: money in minus money out. The result is what's left.
If it's positive, you spent less than you earned. That leftover is what builds savings, pays down debt faster or gives you room next month. If it's negative, you spent more than came in, and the difference came from savings, a credit card balance or money carried over from before.
The end of the month is the natural place to check this, because that's when the picture is complete. Midway through, the number can look better than it will be. Rent may already be paid, but the utility bills and the weekend groceries haven't landed yet. Looking at the full month gives you the real answer.
Watching what's left over time is often more telling than any single category. If it's steady, your spending is in balance with your income. If it's shrinking month after month, something in your list is growing, and the comparison with last month will usually show you what.
Seeing it all in one place
You can do everything in this article with a spreadsheet and your bank statements. It works. The hard part is keeping it up month after month, sorting every transaction and lining up the numbers.
See your own month this clearly.
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