This week, bill pay service doxo released The Bill Pay Economy™ 2024. In the report, shared exclusively with CNBC Make It, doxoINSIGHTS found that Americans spend close to $3.35 trillion per year on the ten most common household bills.
Using data sourced from bill pay activity on the doxo platform, and rent and mortgage numbers from the U.S. Census, they analyzed costs across the 50 largest cities in the country to rank the most — and least — expensive.
The key household bills categories examined for this year's ranking were:
- Mortgage
- Rent
- Auto loan
- Utilities (electric, gas, water & sewer, and waste & recycling)
- Auto insurance
- Health insurance
- Cable, internet
- Mobile phone
- Alarm and security
- Life insurance
The average U.S. household spends $2,126 monthly and $25,512 annually on bills. Liz Powell, Senior Director of Insights at doxo, says it shouldn't come as a surprise that many of the cities where residents pay the most for expenses like rent and insurance are on the West Coast. Four of the top 10 are in California.
"The biggest indicator of an expensive place to live is housing," Powell says. "People spend the most on where they live, whether that's mortgage or rent."
San Jose is the most expensive large U.S. city for average cost of monthly bills
Money Report
San Jose came in at the top of the list. The doxo report found that residents of the California city spend an average of $3,695 a month, or 32% of their household income on bills.
"The average mortgage in San Jose is 83% higher than the national average. That's a lot," Powell says.
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Residents there spend the most in the top three categories highlighted in the report: housing, utilities and auto loans, she adds.
A part of the Bay Area, San Jose is one of the most expensive cities in America. Cost of living there is 78% higher than the national average, according to PayScale.
An August analysis by mortgage analytics firm HSH found that a household needs to earn a salary of $463,887 to afford a median-priced home in the area.
The average San Jose, CA home value is $1,423,994, up 8.9% over the past year, according to Zillow.
10 large U.S. cities where residents spend the most on monthly bills
- San Jose, Calif.
- New York, N.Y.
- Boston, Mass.
- San Francisco, Calif.
- San Diego, Calif.
- Los Angeles, Calif.
- Seattle, Wash.
- Washington D.C.
- Miami, Fla.
- Portland, Ore.
Over on the other side of the country, New Yorkers are spending nearly just as much on their monthly bills — the city came in at No. 2 on the list. Residents spend an average of $3,639 a month, which is 38% of their household income.
Like in San Jose, "the cost of living and utilities, especially, are pretty high," for New Yorkers, Powell says. They spend $626 a month on electricity and gas, which is $264 more than the national average of $362.
New York is a pretty expensive place — the city's cost of living is 130% higher than the national average, according to PayScale.
The average household needs to earn a salary of $186,123 to afford a house there, and the median home price is $659,200, according to the report from mortgage analytics firm HSH.
Median rent for all bedroom counts and property types in Manhattan is up to $4,308, according to Zumper.
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