Household costs

A deposit at a bank. The balance does not fall with markets; it earns the bank's rate.

Cash swept by a brokerage to program banks. The balance does not fall with markets.

Lending to the US government at TreasuryDirect.

The household buys stocks and funds itself. The value rises and falls with markets.

The provider invests in a portfolio of funds for the household. The value rises and falls with markets.

Small automatic amounts invested in a portfolio, for a fixed monthly fee. The value rises and falls with markets.

Buying crypto-assets. The value can fall to nothing; no government insurance applies.

Estimate. Motor fuel per month = miles per week ÷ miles per gallon × the latest EIA weekly retail price for the state (or its PADD region where EIA does not publish the state) × 52 ÷ 12. Electricity and utility gas = the quantity entered × the BLS average price for the state's Census region. Heating oil and propane = gallons × the EIA residential price for the survey area. Where a regional price is not on file the US average is used and named as such; an item with no price at all is left out and the total is marked incomplete. Groceries = the weekly amount entered × 52 ÷ 12. The next-year grocery figure is the ERS food-at-home forecast turned into a CPI level for the year (the method below) and compared with the latest monthly CPI level, the same calculation as the outlook; its range applies ERS's two annual intervals in turn, an H-α transformation rather than an interval ERS states. The comparison figures price the same quantities at the prices published the chosen number of calendar months earlier (one month to three years); for groceries, the weekly amount is scaled by the change in the BLS CPI for food at home (not seasonally adjusted) over the same months. Where a source published nothing for that month (BLS published no October 2025 figures), the nearest earlier published price is used.

Outlook, food. ERS forecasts the annual change in the CPI for each food category. The page applies that forecast to the category's own CPI (BLS, not seasonally adjusted): the average the months still to come must have for the year to land on ERS's figure is (12 × last year's average × (1 + forecast) − the months published so far) ÷ the months remaining, computed for the midpoint and both ends of ERS's interval. Rising or falling is stated only when the whole range is on one side of zero. The farm and wholesale stages ahead of each item are ERS's producer price forecasts (transmission from farm and wholesale to retail: Meyer & von Cramon-Taubadel 2004). Buying ahead is noted only for storable items, and only when the category or its upstream points up. The outlook word is the retail range alone: rising or falling when the whole range is on one side of zero, otherwise no settled direction; the farm and wholesale stages are reported beside it, not in it. BLS published no October 2025 CPI. ERS estimated that month for its food forecasts with an ARIMA model it has not published; this page fills it with the mean of September and November, an H-α approximation of ERS's baseline (the neighbouring-month mean is what ERS used for non-food CPI). With that fill the reconstruction of ERS's 2025 changes is shown in the table below; a category whose stored index is not the BLS series named for it, or that does not reproduce ERS's figure within 0.5 points, is not used. A call whose period has ended is not shown.

Outlook, fuel and energy. The months ahead are EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook as published. The three-week fuel call is the rule set out in the motor fuel outlook; its band (the interquartile range of the pump–wholesale gap) is H-α's choice and is marked as such.

Household inflation. The quantities entered are held fixed and priced at the latest published prices and at those published twelve calendar months earlier; the rate is the change in that cost, a fixed-basket (Laspeyres) index over the household's own items, the construction of Hobijn & Lagakos (2005) and of the ONS personal inflation calculator. The forward rate carries each item to the next calendar year's average: groceries by the ERS food-at-home forecast against the latest CPI (as in the estimate), each energy item by the ratio of EIA's STEO national monthly path, averaged over the months of that year it publishes, to the STEO value for the month of the price used. Applying a national path's ratio to a regional price is an H-α choice. The range is the grocery share's ERS interval only: the STEO table publishes no interval for retail energy prices, and the energy items enter the range at their point path.

Runway. Months covered = savings set aside ÷ the monthly cost of the items entered. At next year's prices, the savings grow at the interest rate entered (none if blank) to the middle of that year and are divided by the monthly cost carried forward at the household's forward rate, so the figure is in months of the same quantities, in the household's own inflation. The items priced here were 14.4% of average household spending in 2024 (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey: food at home $6,224, gasoline and other motor fuels $2,645, electricity $1,833, natural gas $493, fuel oil and other fuels $125, of $78,535); for a household at those average shares, months of total spending covered are about one-seventh of the runway shown.

Measured saving. Two actions the page names are logged as calls in the same ledger as the forecasts and scored by the same scorer: buying a storable item ahead when the page favours it, and filling a heating-oil or propane tank in the month EIA's path is lowest. A purchase in month m saves, per unit, the mean realised price over the months from m to the end of the call's period less the realised price in month m, against buying the same quantity evenly over those months (the stockpiling comparison of Hendel & Nevo 2006). Realised prices are the BLS US city average price for the item and EIA's weekly residential survey for the household's survey area; they are not the household's receipts. A saving is counted only when the whole period has closed and every month is published; a loss is counted as a loss. Storage and the interest forgone on money spent early are not deducted. A purchase is recorded in the month the household records it and only against a call open in that month. The amount is reported with its effect on the runway; the page does not say where the money should go.

References. Borenstein, S., Cameron, A. C. & Gilbert, R. (1997), “Do Gasoline Prices Respond Asymmetrically to Crude Oil Price Changes?”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 112(1), 305–339. USDA ERS, Food Price Outlook, documentation and forecasting methods. BLS, CPI average price data, fact sheet. Meyer, J. & von Cramon-Taubadel, S. (2004), “Asymmetric Price Transmission: A Survey”, Journal of Agricultural Economics 55(3), 581–611. EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook, Table 2. Hobijn, B. & Lagakos, D. (2005), “Inflation Inequality in the United States”, Review of Income and Wealth 51(4), 581–606. Hendel, I. & Nevo, A. (2006), “Measuring the Implications of Sales and Consumer Inventory Behavior”, Econometrica 74(6), 1637–1673. BLS, Consumer Expenditures in 2024 (USDL-25-1586, 19 December 2025).