Sample of Budget Percentages Copyright © by BetterBudgeting.com
Necessities:
	Housing	30%
	Food	10%
	Loans, Debts	5%
	Medical	5%
	Insurance	5%
	School-Childcare	5%
Expenses:
	Auto	10%
	Clothing-Gifts	5%
	Entertainment	5%
	Savings	10%
	Giving	10%
Total:		100%

My question is... how close to this are you?  I am at about 50% for my mortgage and hoa dues alone.  There is now way I can do 10% for groceries, and I am sure my credit card debt is way over too.

Am I the only one who is off kilter on this? 

resource: http://www.betterbudgeting.com/articles/budgeting/financialcrisis.htm

I have some expenses that I couldn't shoehorn into one of their categories and some of their expenses are way out of line with mine. 

 I think budgets and budget percentages are very personal things. Everyone has their own set of unique circumstances. The key is to know your own percentages (and to make sure they don't go over 100%!). 

Our budget wasn't like this either. We don't have kids so that makes a huge difference. But our budget takes up 72% of our income. The remaining 28% is discretionary spending. 15-22% of that is currently going into a special account to buy a car in August.

I agree with Pat. As long as your precentages add up to 100% (and you are not so far out of line on certain areas) then what works for you should be what you use. Also keep in mind you should use "net" income when doing a budget or else you have to budget for everything that is pulled out of your paycheck (ie, taxes, insurance, retirement, etc).

I did a breakdown with the sample budget. We are below 30% housing but above 5% in childcare (5% is very unrealistic these days IMHO). We are at 2% for auto expenses (no car loans).

I questioned the medical and insurance catagories. I am guessing medical is out of pocket medical and health expenses but not health insurance while insurance would be home/life/auto. But then couldn't auto insurance also go under auto expenses? It was a little confusing to me. Would your utilities for your home be lumped under housing? And wouldn't 30% be low for mortgage/insurance/taxes/utilities? There isn't a catagory for those expenses. That's why my numbers were much lower. I didn't know what was included in every catagory.

I would have more catagories, and I do with my personal budget. But for someone looking for the first time at expenditures, this could be a good "starting" tool to gauge how he/she is spending money. 

OMGosh, you are right.  I took a second look at the % and child care is way under, depending of course on your income, but there is now way.  My percentage would have been for ONE WEEK when my dd was in daycare before she started school fulltime!

I was just curious about this type of percentage budget, I knew my housing was at around 50%.  I know that is high, but my HOA is close to 350.00 alone.  And I include my taxes in my payment as well, so that jacks it up some.

Well, it is interesting to see where we all stand  at a basic sheet like this anyway.  I know I lose!  ;-)

 These percentages seem to be way off base as far as my figuring goes. I don't think they are even close to reality.  The 30% figure could be a good goal for housing if you aren't already committed to a mortgage payment. On our income (pension) a car payment and expenses would be about $320.00, that definitely isn't a reality.

There is also cost of living in different regions to consider. Housing in Calif. for years was much higher than some place like the Midwest. We also pay high sales tax, gas tax and state income tax. The only saving thing we have here in Calif. is a lower property tax rate than most states. If we had to pay what other states pay for property we couldn't live here, even not having a mortgage. Edey

It also depends quite a lot on whether they mean amount due, or actual payment; for example, my house payment is abotu 32% based on the actual payment - but it's 40% based on what I actually pay.  I'm saving about 13%, but I have no kids, so no childcare (and from what my friends say, 5% is way too low.  My loans/debts are about 1.7% if I paid the minimum, but with what I'm paying, it's about 10% - but it's student loan debt and will be paid off in about a year, instead of in 15 when the loan term is due.  My insurance (life and car) are about 2% - the homeowner's is perhaps another .5% more, but is included in the mortgage at the moment.

If you look at larry Burkett's family Financial Workbook, he has several sets of percentages based on Income levels, because obviously if you are making 25,000 or 30,000 a year, food and housing is going to be a larger percentage than when you are making 45,000 or 50,000 a year!

I think a budget is unique to everyone's personal situation and priorities.

After all, be it in a family, a corporation, or a government (local, state or federal) a budget is about negotiating priorities. That's why there's always so much media coverage and discussion over the federal budget and locally, the state and county budgets. It forces people to define numerically the question "What are your highest priorities?"

Percentagewise, we spend half the average on housing, but twice the average on food, which in our case includes everything bought at the grocery store including cleaning supplies and such just to make the accounting easier for us. But we also spend very little on travel, and haven't paid for a hotel room in years.

My numbers are very different.

With insurance costs down here and having only one real income in the house, we couldn't hope to reach 30% of our income for housing. One and two bedroom places fall into that range for us. I feel ill each time I look at our expense on this, I assure you.

Our auto expenses are higher as well. My husband doesn't just travel to and from work. His job calls for him to be on the road so he puts in some high mileage which equals expense. Due to needing insurance to cover a work vehicle, that costs more.

We have no actual debt so that percentage goes elsewhere like housing.

I used the format for budget and percentages you shared and indeed we are using 100% of the average income. That's not counting anything for savings. I can save when he makes more than the average, blech.