Intermittent vs. Discretionary Expenses: Can One Expense Be Both?
They are not competing answers
When a worksheet asks you to label an expense fixed, variable, intermittent, or discretionary, it reads like a four-way multiple choice with one right answer. It isn't. Two of those words describe timing and two describe necessity, so a single expense can honestly carry one label from each pair.
- Fixed / variable / intermittent answer: how often does this arrive, and is the amount predictable?
- Discretionary / non-discretionary answer: could I stop paying this without serious consequences?
So yes — an expense can be both intermittent and discretionary. A weekend trip you take twice a year is a clear example: it skips most months (intermittent) and nobody has to take it (discretionary).
What intermittent actually means
An intermittent expense is one that does not show up every month. It may be scheduled — an annual fee, a semiannual premium — or genuinely unpredictable in timing, like replacing a worn appliance. The defining trait is that a 12-month plan built only on monthly bills will miss it.
That is why extension educators treat these costs as a funding problem rather than a labeling problem. Utah State University Extension's guide to budgeting for non-monthly expenses describes adding up the yearly cost and dividing by 12 so the money accumulates before the bill lands. Penn State Extension's Building a Budget sets out the same set-aside approach for periodic and occasional costs.
For how this term relates to its near-synonym, see intermittent vs. periodic expenses.
What discretionary actually means
Discretionary spending is what is left after the obligations: the things you choose, not the things that are contractually or practically required. The dividing line is not about cost or about frequency — a $12 subscription is discretionary and a $600 tax bill is not.
Michigan State University Extension's Spending Plans material frames the same split as needs versus wants, which is the plainest version of the idea. Penn State Extension's Budgeting with Irregular Income points at the overlap directly when it lists memberships, subscriptions, and personal care among the costs that are not required every month.
The full treatment of that pair is in discretionary vs. non-discretionary expenses.
The four combinations, with examples
Thinking of it as a grid rather than a list makes the labeling almost automatic:
- Intermittent and non-discretionary — annual vehicle registration, a semiannual insurance premium, a required professional license renewal. You cannot skip them; they just don't bill monthly.
- Intermittent and discretionary — holiday gifts, a yearly vacation, a hobby purchase, concert tickets. Optional and non-monthly.
- Monthly and non-discretionary — rent, utilities, a loan payment, basic groceries.
- Monthly and discretionary — streaming plans, a gym membership, regular takeout.
Two useful observations fall out of the grid. First, the intermittent/discretionary square is where most budgets quietly fail — these are the costs people neither plan for nor feel obligated to, so they get paid out of whatever happens to be in checking that week. Second, an expense can move between squares when your circumstances change, which is why there is rarely a universally correct label.
Why the distinction is worth keeping
The two labels drive different decisions:
- The timing label tells you whether a cost needs a monthly set-aside. Intermittent costs do; monthly ones are simply paid.
- The necessity label tells you what gets cut if income drops.
A budget that only tracks necessity leaves you ambushed every spring. A budget that only tracks timing gives you no priority order when money gets tight. Keeping both is why four-label worksheets exist in the first place — see the four types of expenses for how the complete set fits together.
If you are labeling something and genuinely stuck between these two, the honest answer is usually "both," and the follow-up question is: does this need a monthly set-aside, and would it be first on the chopping block?