Your monthly budget in San Antonio.

San Antonio had 1,526,621 residents in 2024, a median household income of $66,176 and a median gross rent of $1,389 a month, according to the Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey. It is also one of the busiest visitor cities in Texas. Visit San Antonio, citing a Trinity University study, reported 39 million visitors in 2024, a record $23.4 billion economic impact and about 150,000 people employed in tourism and hospitality.

For those 150,000 people, the calendar is the paycheck. A convention fills the hotels for a week, then leaves. Fiesta in April brings about 2.5 million visitors and more than $340 million to the local economy, according to the Fiesta Commission as reported by Texas Public Radio in 2025. Summer brings families to the River Walk and the theme parks, and then the heat and the back-to-school weeks slow everything down. Rent, the car note and the phone bill do not follow the calendar.

This page is for the server, bartender, housekeeper, front-desk clerk or tour guide whose income is made of hourly wages, tips and shifts that depend on who is in town, and for households where one paycheck is steady and the other swings. By the end you will know what your slow month really costs, how much of a busy month to keep, and what is truly free to spend.

A paycheck that follows the visitors

Hospitality income has three layers: a base hourly wage, tips that can be larger than the wage, and shift counts that rise and fall with occupancy. In a convention week a server might take home double; in a slow August week, half. The trap is to treat a strong week as the new normal, sign a bigger lease, and then meet the slow season with less margin than before.

The fix is to plan the month on your worst recent month and send the extras to specific jobs as they arrive. Monthly does the arithmetic once the numbers are in.

What Texas takes, and what it does not

Texas has no personal income tax, so your stub shows only federal withholding, Social Security, Medicare and any benefits. Reported tips are part of taxable wages, which is why a tip-heavy paycheck can look thin. Sales tax in San Antonio is 8.25%, according to the Texas Comptroller, which matters on larger purchases such as a car repair, a new phone or furniture.

The utility you cannot shop

Unlike Dallas or Houston, San Antonio does not have a retail electricity market. CPS Energy, owned by the city, supplies power and gas, and SAWS provides water. You cannot switch plans to save money, so the useful step is to plan for the summer. Find last July’s and August’s bills, average your year, and either budget that average every month or build a summer goal starting in spring.

The fixed list in San Antonio

• Rent or mortgage, and renters or homeowners insurance.
• CPS Energy and SAWS bills, with the summer air-conditioning peak.
• Car payment, insurance and gas, or VIA bus passes.
• Phone and internet.
• Work costs that are yours: non-slip shoes, uniforms, parking downtown.
• Childcare, which is harder and more expensive with nights and weekends.
• Debt: credit cards, a personal loan, a payday-style loan if you have one.

Each item goes into Monthly with an amount and due date. Reminders arrive before it is due, and installment payments advance month by month.

Weekends when you work weekends

If you work in hospitality, Saturday is usually a work day. Your weekend might be Monday and Tuesday, or a single day off between doubles. In Monthly the weekend reserve is simply the amount you decide to spend on your days off, whenever they fall: tacos with friends on the West Side, a Spurs game, a trip to the coast. Set it at the start of the month, and lower it for the slow season when you can see it coming.

Example one: a River Walk server through the year

The figures in both examples are illustrative. Gabriela serves at a restaurant on the River Walk. In her slowest recent month, wages plus tips came to $2,700 after taxes. In a convention or Fiesta month, she takes home about $4,200.

Fixed costs: rent for a one-bedroom $1,250, renters insurance $18, CPS Energy and SAWS averaged over the year $185, car payment and insurance $430, gas $120, phone and internet $110, credit card minimum $90. Total: $2,203. Days-off reserve: $180.

Slow month: $2,700 minus $2,203 minus $180 leaves $317 of real free money.

Busy month: $4,200 minus the same $2,203 and the $180 reserve leaves $1,817. Before Fiesta, Gabriela sets a savings goal of $2,400 for the summer slowdown and sends $1,200 from each of the two busiest months. She keeps $617 free in those months. In August, when tips drop below her plan, she draws from the goal instead of the card.

Enter your slowest month of wages and tips, and see what a busy season needs to save for the slow one →

Example two: a two-job household with one steady paycheck

Luis works the front desk at a downtown hotel and takes home $2,500 a month, plus about $300 a month in tips that vary. His wife, Teresa, is a medical assistant at a clinic with a steady $3,100 net.

Planned income, counting only the steady parts: $2,500 plus $3,100 equals $5,600.

Fixed costs: mortgage on a house on the South Side $1,450, homeowners insurance $160, CPS Energy and SAWS averaged $240, two cars with insurance $820, gas $230, phone and internet $150, after-school care $420, personal loan $260. Total: $3,730. Weekend reserve: $300.

$5,600 minus $3,730 minus $300 leaves $1,570.

Luis’s tips are logged as variable income when they come in. They set the rule in advance: the first $150 each month goes to a savings goal for car repairs, and the rest goes to the personal loan until it is paid off. The household plan never depends on how many guests checked in.

Manual on purpose

Monthly is a free, manual budgeting app for the web and Android. It does not connect to your bank, does not move money and does not give investment advice. You type in income, tips, fixed costs, installments and debts, and it shows the free money left. Savings goals live under Patrimonio with amounts, dates and logged contributions. For more on irregular pay, the guide to apps for tracking irregular or seasonal income compares approaches, and the features page lists everything the app does.

Real free money and your next step

In San Antonio the busy seasons are reliable even when individual weeks are not. Real free money is what is left after fixed bills and your days-off reserve are subtracted from a cautious income figure, with busy-month extras sent to goals before they are spent. With that number, a cancelled convention or a hot, empty August is a stretch you already planned for.

Set up your slow month and your busy month in Monthly, and see how much of the season to keep →