Column one: what you actually spent last quarter (an hour of honest scrolling through bank and card statements). Column two: the survival version. The gap between the columns is your lever. For scale: the average US household spent about $78,535 in 2024 (about $6,545 a month) against about $104,207 average pretax income; housing and transportation together were about half of average spending, the two lines hardest to move quickly.
| Line | Survival-budget question | Actual last quarter $/mo | Survival minimum $/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | Can it change in under 90 days? (Usually no. Keep it, defend it.) | ||
| Utilities | What is the minimum livable? (Level-pay plans; suspend extras.) | ||
| Food | Cooked-at-home honest number? (Grocery floor, near-zero delivery.) | ||
| Transportation | What does the household actually need? (Insurance reshop, pause a car if possible.) | ||
| Health coverage | What is the real monthly number? (Provisional number below; decision date inside the sixty-day window.) | ||
| Debt minimums | Minimums only, no extra paydown. | ||
| Everything else | Does it keep you functional? (One-hour subscription and recurring audit.) | ||
| One joy line | Keep something small that makes life livable (one dinner out a month, one hobby line) | ||
| Survival budget total (the denominator of your runway) | $ | ||
Reference figures from the claims ledger: 2025 employer-plan premiums averaged $9,325/yr single and $26,993/yr family, with workers contributing about $6,850 toward family; COBRA charges up to 102% of the full premium, ballpark about $790/mo single and about $2,300/mo family; the Marketplace with subsidies that scale with your now-lower income frequently costs far less, sometimes not if your doctors anchor you to the employer network.
Provisional monthly number entered this week: $ Decision date (before the sixty-day window closes):
1. Protect the four walls and the things that make you employable: housing, utilities, food, core transportation, insurance, the phone and internet your job search runs on.
2. Keep something small that makes life livable. A budget with zero joy in it is a budget you will break loudly in week six.
The subscription and recurring audit done: ☐ (an hour with your statement commonly shakes loose a hundred or two hundred dollars a month; the highest hourly wage you will earn this month)
Seen and agreed by: Date: