In retirement planning, you can provide a valuable service by helping clients estimate how much money they'll spend monthly on essential needs such as food, clothing, housing and utilities. The average U.S. household spends about 8-10% of its income each month on home utilities including electricity, phone, television, natural gas and high-speed Internet.

To help clients budget average monthly costs for each of these services, you can use The WhiteFence Indexes for the U.S. as a whole, and also for 21 major U.S. metros at: www.whitefenceindex.com

WhiteFence currently shows that New York City has the highest average total utility costs of all major metros ($371.40 per month) and Los Angeles the lowest at $228.11. For clients who are interested in relocating, you also can use the indexes to compare cost differences (by utility) among all 21 cities.