Non-Monthly Bills by Age and Income: What U.S. Households Spend (2024 BLS Data)

By Jordan Avery · Updated 2026-10-03

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Five large spending lines that often arrive as annual, semiannual or term bills (property taxes, vehicle insurance, vehicle repairs, life insurance and education) added up to $7,859 for the average U.S. household in 2024. That is about $655 a month, or 10.0 percent of average spending. The total depends heavily on life stage and income. Households headed by someone aged 45 to 54 spent the most, $11,477, or about $956 a month. Households in the highest income fifth spent $16,194, almost five times the $3,345 spent by the lowest fifth.

The figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE), which report annual spending per “consumer unit,” roughly a household. This page uses the 2024 tables by age of the reference person (Table 1300) and by income before taxes (Table 1101). The 2024 data are the latest published; BLS has said the 2025 annual tables will be released on October 29, 2026.

Non-monthly bills by age of householder, 2024

The age is that of the CE “reference person,” the first household member named as owning or renting the home. Each figure averages over all households in the column, including those that paid nothing for the item.

Annual average	All	Under 25	25–34	35–44	45–54	55–64	65–74	75+
Property taxes	$2,738	$229	$1,591	$2,729	$3,653	$3,307	$3,003	$2,767
Vehicle insurance	$1,993	$1,251	$1,888	$2,155	$2,609	$2,252	$1,723	$1,323
Vehicle maintenance and repairs	$984	$537	$855	$1,064	$1,263	$1,154	$934	$643
Life and other personal insurance	$575	$54*	$254	$596	$771	$726	$665	$547
Education	$1,569	$2,652*	$1,418	$1,445	$3,181	$1,856	$482	$354*
Total of these five lines	$7,859	$4,723	$6,006	$7,989	$11,477	$9,295	$6,807	$5,634
Monthly equivalent (÷12)	$655	$394	$500	$666	$956	$775	$567	$470
Share of average annual spending	10.0%	10.0%	8.1%	8.8%	11.4%	10.9%	10.4%	10.1%
Average annual spending, all items	$78,535	$47,283	$74,475	$91,229	$100,327	$84,946	$65,354	$55,834
Homeowners	65%	10%	44%	60%	70%	76%	79%	77%
Own or lease at least one vehicle	89%	73%	87%	91%	92%	91%	90%	82%
Income before taxes	$104,207	$48,514	$102,494	$128,285	$141,121	$121,571	$75,460	$56,028

* Relative standard error of 25 percent or more. BLS says these estimates “should be used with caution.”

Source: BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys, Table 1300, 2024. The “65 and older” group is shown as its two published subgroups, 65–74 and 75+.

What changes with age

Under 25. Only 10 percent of these households own their home, so average property tax is just $229. Vehicle insurance is still $1,251 a year, or 2.6 percent of their $47,283 average spending. That is about the same share as older groups, which spend far more in total. Their education average ($2,652) is the second highest, but it has a relative standard error above 25 percent, so treat it as rough.

25 to 44. Homeownership rises from 44 percent to 60 percent, and property tax nearly doubles, from $1,591 to $2,729. Life insurance more than doubles, from $254 to $596.

45 to 54. This is the peak for all five lines. Property tax ($3,653), vehicle insurance ($2,609), vehicle repairs ($1,263), life insurance ($771) and education ($3,181) are all the highest of any age group. The five lines come to 11.4 percent of spending. Education here likely reflects college costs for children, though the CE tables do not identify who the student is.

55 to 64. Totals fall to $9,295 as education spending drops. Homeownership reaches 76 percent.

65 and older. Property tax stays high: $3,003 for ages 65–74 and $2,767 for 75 and older, because 79 and 77 percent own their homes and most own them without a mortgage. Vehicle insurance falls to $1,723 and then $1,323. For households 75 and older, property tax alone is about half of the five-line total. For retirees on fixed incomes, the property tax bill is often the largest single non-monthly payment.

Non-monthly bills by income, 2024

The income table divides all households into five equal groups (quintiles) by income before taxes.

Annual average	All	Lowest 20%	Second 20%	Middle 20%	Fourth 20%	Highest 20%
Property taxes	$2,738	$1,054	$1,643	$2,155	$3,003	$5,816
Vehicle insurance	$1,993	$895	$1,679	$2,028	$2,518	$2,840
Vehicle maintenance and repairs	$984	$394	$693	$950	$1,174	$1,707
Life and other personal insurance	$575	$174	$305	$435	$618	$1,339
Education	$1,569	$828	$407	$749	$1,353	$4,492
Total of these five lines	$7,859	$3,345	$4,727	$6,317	$8,666	$16,194
Monthly equivalent (÷12)	$655	$279	$394	$526	$722	$1,350
Share of average annual spending	10.0%	9.5%	9.4%	9.4%	9.6%	10.8%
Average annual spending, all items	$78,535	$35,046	$50,054	$66,900	$89,972	$150,342
Homeowners	65%	43%	58%	62%	74%	88%
Own or lease at least one vehicle	89%	68%	88%	93%	96%	97%
Income before taxes	$104,207	$16,658	$42,925	$74,474	$121,548	$264,510

Source: BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys, Table 1101, 2024. None of the values used here has a relative standard error of 25 percent or more.

What changes with income

Spending on every line rises with income, but at different rates. Property tax in the highest fifth ($5,816) is 5.5 times that of the lowest fifth ($1,054). Education is the most unequal line: $4,492 in the highest fifth against $407 in the second fifth. Vehicle insurance is the least unequal. The highest fifth spends $2,840, about 3.2 times the lowest fifth’s $895, even though it has 2.7 vehicles per household against 1.0.

Relative to income, the burden runs the other way. The five lines equal 20.1 percent of income before taxes for the lowest fifth, compared with 6.1 percent for the highest fifth. Part of that gap reflects how the survey works: in the lowest fifth, average spending ($35,046) is about twice average reported income ($16,658). Some of these households are retirees drawing on savings, students or people with temporarily low income. Compare shares of spending as well as shares of income.

The lowest income fifth also contains many owners without a mortgage. Thirty-one percent own their home outright, the highest share of any income group. Those owners pay property tax directly rather than through a lender’s escrow account, so the bill arrives as a lump sum or in installments.

How to use these averages

These are averages over every household in a group, including those that paid nothing. The average property tax for 25- to 34-year-olds ($1,591) mixes 44 percent of households that own and pay the tax with 56 percent that rent and pay none directly. An owner in that age group typically pays much more than $1,591. The same applies to education: most households spend little or nothing in a given year, and a few spend a lot.

So use the tables as a checklist and a rough scale, not a target:

Check which lines apply to you. If you own a home, have a car, carry life insurance or pay tuition, list each bill with its actual amount and due date.
Use your own bills for the amounts. Your tax bill, insurance declarations page and tuition statement are the figures to plan with.
Convert each one to a monthly set-aside. Divide each bill by the months until it is due. For property taxes, see median property tax in every state; for auto insurance, see car insurance cost by state.
Look at the timing, not just the total. Two or three of these bills landing in the same month can leave you short even when the yearly average is covered. Budgeting for your worst month explains how to test for that.

The annual bill calendar maps each bill by its due date, reports the long-run monthly contribution and finds the starting balance your schedule needs. The national all-household version of these figures, with 15 bill lines and regional averages, is in what U.S. households spend on non-monthly bills.

What the CE lines include

Property taxes are taxes on the owned home the household lives in (BLS path: Housing › Shelter › Owned dwellings). Taxes on vacation homes are a separate line not shown here.
Vehicle insurance covers all insured vehicles in the household.
Vehicle maintenance and repairs is irregular rather than billed, but it behaves like a non-monthly cost.
Life and other personal insurance excludes health insurance, which is usually paid monthly or through payroll.
Education is the CE category as a whole, which includes tuition, books and supplies. The age and income tables do not split tuition out from the rest.

Interview data in the CE are collected quarterly and annualized by BLS. Averages include households that did not report the item. The relative standard error (RSE) is the standard error as a percentage of the estimate; BLS flags RSEs of 25 percent or more.

Data were retrieved on October 3, 2026. Every figure on this page was read from the published spreadsheets; the totals, monthly figures and shares were calculated on this page from those values.

Sources

Figures on this page are general-information estimates, not professional advice. Check the stated assumptions and any linked sources, and use a qualified professional where the decision requires one.