Town-By-Town: How Much The Average CT Household Spends Per Month

CONNECTICUT — It's getting tougher to make ends meet everywhere, the politicians say. But how true is that in Connecticut?

doxo, a household bill aggregation and payment service, has released its 2023 report on how bills differ in towns and cities across the country. Their numbers indicate that, although Connecticut is among the most expensive places to live, residents' income often more than compensates for the hit.

The average Connecticut household pays $2,504 a month for the 10 most common household bills, which include mortgage, rent, auto loan, utilities, insurance, cable/internet, mobile phone and home security. That's 22.4 percent higher than the national average of $2,046.

These numbers make Connecticut the seventh most expensive state for household expenses. Slightly more expensive than Connecticut is Maryland, where residents pay $2,569 a month on average; a tad more affordable is neighboring New York, where residents pay $2,495. The most expensive state for household expenses is Hawaii, where residents' monthly bills total $3,070.

Note that the Health Insurance and Life Insurance expenses do not account for payments made by employers on behalf of employees, and the state and national bill totals take into account the percentage of households that pay a bill.

Only in the categories of Auto Loan and Alarm & Security did Connecticut household bills come in under the national average. Connecticut's typical auto loan bill of $446 is $21 less than the national average, and we pay $11 less for our home security services, when we install them. Just 17 percent of Connecticut residents are shelling out monthly for a security alarm service — but 92 percent pay for a mobile phone service, by far our most common expense.

The biggest discrepancies between Connecticut residents' monthly bills and the rest of America lay in housing and utility costs. Our average mortgage payment of $2,003 is a whopping 52 percent above the national average of $1,321. Connecticut residents spend $463 to stay lit, warm and hydrated, while the rest of the country gets by spending just $351 for utilities, a 32 percent difference.

doxo's analysts didn't just track what household expenses Connecticut residents were paying, but how and when we are paying them.

An overwhelming 72 percent of Connecticut residents pay their bills each month using a debit card, according to doxo, and 18 percent are putting their household expenses on a credit card. The remaining 10 percent pull the hit directly from their bank accounts.

And that sound you hear around 11 a.m. most Fridays is your neighbor whipping out that debit card to pay his bills. As the doxo diagrams above and below indicate, the time and day of bill-paying here in The Land of Steady Habits pretty much mirror the schedule across the rest of the country.

The town-by-town data reveal a significant dollar difference between the local municipalities with the first- and second-highest average monthly household bills.

Residents of Wilton pay out on the average of $3,905 at the kitchen table each month, $68 more than the second-highest monthly bill tally, in Westport.

Looking at the results county-by-county, there are no surprises to be found. The 13 towns with the highest monthly bills are all in Fairfield County.

Of course, how much a household pays in bills each month is a meaningful stat only when compared with how much revenue the family brings in. According to doxo's "percentage of household income" metric, Connecticut residents are making bank, relative to the rest of the U.S., and more than covering their monthly expenses.

On the average, Connecticut families spend just 34 percent of their income on household costs. Now compare that to West Virginia: although it is the least expensive state for bills in absolute terms, residents spend 38 percent of household income on bills.

The discrepancy is even more glaring when you compare the cashflow of West Virginia residents to those in Wilton, where families spend only 23 percent of their household income on bills, according to doxo.