Budget categories: the complete list, and how to set the amounts
A budget is only as good as its category list. Too few and every surprise breaks it; too many and you stop filling it in. This is the working list — fixed, variable and sinking funds — plus how to set the grocery number, the one category almost everyone gets wrong first.
By Mouad Louhichi · Reviewed
Monthly expenses: three layers, not one long list
Categories fail when they mix costs that behave differently. Sort every expense into one of three layers first, and the amounts become much easier to set.
- Fixed: the same amount every month and hard to change quickly — rent, school fees, loan instalments, insurance, subscriptions.
- Variable: you control the amount, and it changes week to week — groceries, transport, phone top-ups, eating out, clothes.
- Sinking funds: large or irregular costs you save for monthly so they never arrive as a shock — car maintenance, Eid, back-to-school, annual insurance, dental work.
The full category list, monthly bills included
Start from this list, delete what does not apply to you, and split anything where a single limit would hide a problem. In SmartJib each of these becomes an envelope inside needs, wants or savings, so the fifty-thirty-twenty split and the itemised detail coexist.
- Housing: rent or mortgage, building charges, property tax, home repairs.
- Utilities: electricity, water, gas, internet, mobile, waste collection.
- Groceries: the weekly shop, the corner shop, the market run. Split “groceries” and “eating out” — they are the two categories people most often merge and most often regret merging.
- Transport: fuel, bus and tram, taxi and ride-hailing, car insurance, maintenance, parking, driving licence renewal.
- Health: pharmacy, doctor and dentist visits, glasses, chronic medication, health insurance or mutuelle.
- Family and education: school fees, transport to school, books, tutoring, childcare, support sent to relatives.
- Personal: clothes, haircuts, phone apps, hobbies, sport.
- Debt: consumer credit, credit card balances, buy-now-pay-later, informal loans.
- Giving: zakat, sadaqah, family obligations, gifts.
- Savings: emergency fund, retirement, a specific goal (car, wedding, travel), sinking funds.
- Work: if you are self-employed or freelance, keep business costs in their own categories and out of the household budget entirely.
How to budget groceries: measure, then set the limit
Groceries are the category where a guessed number does the most damage: too low and the month “fails” in week two for no real reason. Measure before you set a limit.
- For one month, record every grocery purchase — the big shop and the small ones — without changing what you buy.
- Add the total. Divide by the number of weeks in the month to get your real weekly rate.
- Set the envelope at that real number, then move it in one direction only: down by 5 to 10 percent next month, never by 40 percent on a wave of optimism.
- Withdraw the week’s grocery money in cash and treat the envelope as the limit. When it is empty, the week is over — that is the whole mechanism.
- Re-check once a quarter, not once a week. Prices move, household size moves, and a limit set two years ago is just a number.
Worked example: two Moroccan households
Amounts below are illustrative examples for 2026, not averages. Use them as a shape, then replace each number with your own.
Salary 6 000
- • Rent 2 000 · Utilities 400
- • Groceries 1 100 · Transport 400
- • Phone 100 · Personal 400
- • Family support 300
- • Savings 500 · Giving 100
Salary 12 000
- • Rent 3 500 · Utilities 700
- • Groceries 2 400 · Transport 900
- • School 1 200 · Health 500
- • Family 600 · Personal 700
- • Savings 1 200 · Giving 300
Sinking funds
- • Eid clothes and gifts
- • Zakat al-fitr
- • Travel to family
- • Already funded monthly
- • No borrowing needed
The four mistakes that show up in every audit
- Too many categories: past roughly fifteen envelopes, the review stops happening. Group the small ones.
- No sinking funds: an annual insurance bill or Eid is not a surprise, it is a known future cost. Divide it by twelve.
- Business costs inside the household budget: mixing freelance invoices with the family budget makes both numbers meaningless.
- Setting limits from aspiration rather than measurement: the first month should describe your life, not the life you plan to have in March.
Frequently asked questions
How many budget categories should I have?
Between eight and fifteen for a household, plus a separate set if you are self-employed. Fewer than eight hides costs inside each other; more than fifteen means the weekly review takes longer than the budget is worth, and it stops.
What percentage of income should groceries be?
There is no universal number: household size, city and whether you cook at home decide it. A practical approach is to measure your real monthly total first, then set the envelope there and reduce it by 5 to 10 percent a month rather than picking a percentage from an article — including this one.
Should rent be under 30 percent of income?
Thirty percent is a common planning guideline, not a rule. In several Moroccan cities it is not achievable on a single income, and forcing the ratio only hides the real trade-off. What matters is that housing plus credit instalments leave enough room for food, transport and a small buffer — if they do not, the budget has to address rent or income, not cut the grocery line.
Where does zakat go in a budget?
Two places, deliberately separate. Zakat on wealth is a yearly obligation calculated on savings and gold above the niissab, so it belongs in a sinking fund. Zakat al-fitr is a fixed amount per person at the end of Ramadan, so it belongs in a Ramadan fund. Both are giving categories, but they are funded differently.
How do I budget with irregular income?
Budget from your lowest recent month, not your best one, then treat everything above it as savings or a buffer rather than as normal income. Zero-based budgeting works well here: every unit of currency that actually arrived gets a job, and no month is planned on money that has not landed yet.
Educational content, not financial advice. Figures are worked examples; verify rates and rules with the official source. Editorial policy.