While they may not be necessary for basic needs, certain recurring subscriptions could also be included as fixed expenses in your budget. But these costs can fluctuate from month to month, depending on your usage and the rates your provider charges. Water, gas and electric bills technically fit under the umbrella of basic living expenses. Health, disability or life insurance premiums.Renter’s insurance or homeowner’s insurance.Some of the most common fixed expense samples include: Examples of Fixed Expensesįixed expenses can include essential expenses, such as those needed to maintain a basic standard of living each month. If you budget by paycheck or schedule automatic bill payments, having bills due at roughly the same time can help with avoiding late payments and the fees that go along with them.

Again, the advantage here is that planning out your budget may be easier to do with recurring bill payments. That can make using certain budgeting methods, such as zero-based budgeting or the 50/20/30 budget, easier.Īside from being roughly the same amount each month, fixed expenses may also be paid on or around the same date each month. Since these expenses are more or less constant, budgeting becomes more predictable. Having one or more fixed expenses in your budget is a good thing from a planning perspective. You can simply carry over those amounts from last month’s budget. When you sit down to make your monthly budget, you don’t have to guess how much you’ll pay toward fixed expenses. A fixed expense just means an expense in your budget that you can expect to stay the same, or close to it, over time.

Variable expenses examples