How Much Should We Spend?

There are many rules of thumb for how much to allocate for specific items in your personal budget. For instance, it is often said that a consumer should set aside 10% of their income towards savings and/or investing. For some this will work just fine, for others (such as those of us who did not save enough early in our working life), this amount may be too small. The truth is there is no definitive answer to the question of how much should you spend and save. Your budget allocations will depend on your personal goals,  circumstances, and stage in the life cycle. However, it may be helpful to consider some general guidelines and national consumer trends before you dive in and evaluate your own budget.
Housing: The guideline is to keep the amount spent for  housing expenditures (mortgage loan principal & interest, taxes, and insurance) to about 25-29% of your income. Insurance and tax expenses tend to increase each year. So if housing expenses start off at a high percentage of income they may increase to an unaffordable level if your salary does not keep pace.
 Transportation: The 2011 Consumer Expenditure (CE) survey reported that US consumers on average spent about of 16.7% of their income on transportation. This included gasoline and other transportation related expenses.
Food: In 2011, spending on food averaged about 13.0 % of income. This included 7.7% for food at home and 5.3% for food away from home.
Debt: The general rule is that non-mortgage debt repayments should consume 15% or less of take-home income. 
Planned Saving: As mentioned, there is a general 10%  rule of thumb. But if debt repayment is a priority you may need to allocate more for debt and less for saving. The key point is to find a savings amount that is achievable and making this a regular fixed allocation.
The goal with budgeting is to cover all the necessary allocations and some non-discretionary items such as entertainment and vacations. High spending in one area may necessitate reductions in other areas.