The Average American Family Spends $48,700 a Year (Not Counting Housing). Here’s the Breakdown

Leave out rent or a mortgage, and the average American family spent $48,700 over the year before Federal Reserve interviewers sat down with it. That number comes from the Fed’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, and it makes a handy benchmark. Most families, though, spend well below it. The median family spent $33,700, and the space between those two figures shows where the money in this country really gets spent.

A New Way to Measure What Families Spend

The question on total nonhousing spending is new to the 2025 survey. The survey already asked about food, housing, and cars. It now also asks families what they spent in total, and on vacations, over the 12 months before their interview. Add up every family in the country and you get $6.61 trillion in nonhousing spending.

The Fed says this figure lines up generally with the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. It comes in lower than the national accounts measures. Think of it as a good yardstick for comparing yourself with other households rather than an exact accounting of the economy.

Why the Average Runs Higher Than the Median

The median is the family right in the middle: half spend more, half spend less. The average is different because one big spender can move it a lot. Imagine a room full of families on modest budgets. Now one high-income household walks in. The average jumps. The median hardly changes.

Spending in America works the same way. A fairly small group of families spends a lot, and that raises the average to $48,700. If you spend closer to $33,700, you are right in line with the typical household. You are not falling short.

Where the Grocery and Vacation Money Goes

Groceries show the smallest gap. The average family spent $7,700 on food at home, and the median was $6,000. Every household has to eat, and a rich family can only buy so many groceries. That keeps the two numbers close together.

The gap gets bigger at restaurants. Spending on food away from home averaged $3,500, compared with a median of $2,400. Eating out is a choice. Families with extra money do it more often, which pulls the average up.

Vacations have the widest gap of all. The average was $4,200, but the median was just $1,000. One reason: 39% of families spent nothing on travel at all. Most of them were younger families, households with limited income and wealth, and people dealing with health problems.

Among families that did take a trip, spending averaged $7,000, with a median of $3,500. The Fed found that vacations take up a bigger share of the budget as income and wealth rise, while food takes up a smaller share. Economists call that luxury spending.

Spending Climbs Steeply at the Top

Average total nonhousing spending ranges widely across the groups the Fed highlights, from $17,600 for the bottom fifth by usual income and $23,400 for the bottom fifth by wealth to $68,700 for families in the 80th to 90th percentile of usual income and $138,800 for the top 10% of usual income.

Spending rises gradually through most of the list, then jumps at the top. The highest-income tenth of families spent nearly double what the group just below them spent. Together they made up 28.5% of all spending. That concentration is why the national average sits so far above what a typical family spends.

At the other end, families in the bottom income quintile made up only 7.2% of overall spending. For these households, most of the money goes to essentials, and there is little left over for anything else.

How to Check Your Own Number

Gather 12 months of bank and credit card statements. Take out rent or mortgage payments, then add up everything else. Compare your total with the $33,700 median rather than the average. If you are well above the median, find which categories account for the difference.

Next, look at food. If your grocery spending is well above the $6,000 median, planning meals and comparing store brands are simple places to start. Restaurant spending above $2,400 needs the same look, since that money is usually the easiest to cut.

For travel, set up a separate savings account and put in a fixed amount every month. That way a trip gets paid for ahead of time instead of landing on a credit card. Also check whether your discretionary spending looks like a top-decile household’s when your income does not.

What the Benchmark Tells You

Most families spend well below $48,700. That figure mostly reflects the high-income households that account for more than a quarter of all spending. A typical family spends far less, puts most of it toward groceries and other everyday costs, and often skips vacations. The data shows what families did spend and leaves out housing, which is the largest bill for most households. The next triennial survey will show whether spending at the top keeps pulling away from the middle.

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