HouseholdSpend is commonly used to identify trade area purchase trends, spot cross promotional opportunities and identify category spending potential. This wide-ranging database provides current estimates of annual expenditures for 463 variables, spanning 18 categories of goods and services used by Canadian households—everything from fashion apparel and household furnishings to cellphones and charitable donations. HouseholdSpend enables users to analyze potential expenditures by both average dollars per household and total dollars spent for any geographic level—from all of Canada to a small trade area—regardless of where the consumer made the purchase. It is produced using data from DemoStats and the Survey of Household Spending administered by Statistics Canada.
The 2022 vintage of HouseholdSpend incorporates the latest available source data from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending (SHS). As a result of this update, HouseholdSpend 2022 will have some changes to the variables list because of Statistics Canada’s changes to the SHS questionnaire. In addition to the changes in the questionnaire and the survey methodology, we have made enhancements to our modelling approach to accommodate these changes to the source data. As a result, this vintage of HouseholdSpend is not directly comparable to prior vintages. To see a complete list of these changes, please refer to the Variable Change List found below.
Below you will find a video (3:49 mins) that covers product details, sources, methodology, applications and key questions about this product. Watching this video will provide you with an overview of the product and give you some ideas for how it can be used in your own work.
Following the video, there are some additional resources linked for your reference: release notes, variables list, metadata, and technical document.
Note: The video contains information on both FoodSpend and HouseholdSpend. If you are only interested in HouseholdSpend, we recommend you watch between 0:11 - 2:06 mins.
Additional Resources
HouseholdSpend Release Notes
HouseholdSpend Variables List
HouseholdSpend Variable Change List
HouseholdSpend Metadata
HouseholdSpend and FoodSpend Technical Document