Household spending › Recreation and culture
Sports, Toys and Pets: what NZ households spend per week
Stats NZ publishes this category as Other recreational equipment and supplies, within Recreation and culture. It is called Sports, Toys and Pets here because that is what it is, but every figure on this page is the official category.
What this category covers
The everyday side of recreation: bikes and accessories, sports clothing and equipment, camping and tramping gear, fishing and hunting equipment, toys and games, musical instruments, craft and hobby supplies, pets and pet food, and veterinary care.
What it does not cover
Major items such as boats are major recreational equipment. Gym memberships, club subscriptions and lessons are recreational and cultural services. Sports clothing is sometimes recorded as clothing depending on what it is.
Those boundaries are set by the survey's own classification, not by us. They matter because a figure read against the wrong definition is worse than no figure: it looks precise and it answers a different question. If you are comparing your own spending against this page, check the exclusions above first.
How to read the figure
Pet costs are the part of this category most people do not expect to find here, and for a household with animals they can dominate the line. Over half of households record something, so the figure is reasonably firm, but check the household size breakdown before comparing: this is a category that scales with children.
Every survey year
The Household Economic Survey runs every three years. This is other recreational equipment and supplies in each survey since 2007, for all New Zealand households.
Read the two money columns together. The published column is the money of each survey year itself, so comparing 2007 with 2023 across it compares two different dollars. The adjusted column restates every year in 2026.06 dollars using the Recreation and culture CPI series, which is the column to use for a real change. That adjustment is our arithmetic, not a Stats NZ statistic.
The reporting column is the share of surveyed households that recorded any spending in this category at all: the lower it is, the further the average sits from what a household that does spend here actually pays.
| Survey | Published per week | In 2026.06 dollars | Sampling error | Households reporting | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | $19.40 | $23.71 | ±8% | 69.2% | — |
| 2010 | $20.20 | $24.86 | ±8% | 67.7% | +4% |
| 2013 | $20.50 | $25.96 | ±8% | 65.6% | +1% |
| 2016 | $25.00 | $31.96 | ±9% | 63.3% | +22% |
| 2019 | $28.50 | $36.08 | ±17% | 50.5% | +14% |
| 2023 | $32.10 | $34.76 | ±8.7% | 53.7% | +13% |
Sports, Toys and Pets over time
Each bar is one survey, restated in 2026.06 dollars so the six are comparable. In real terms, spending on other recreational equipment and supplies has moved up 47 per cent since 2007. In the money of the day it went from $19.40 to $32.10 a week, and most of that difference is prices rather than behaviour, which is exactly why the chart is drawn on the adjusted figures.
$0$43.90
The dark line with a cap at each end shows the sampling error Stats NZ publishes with that figure: the survey is confident the true value lies within it. A long line means a less certain number.
By household size
Household size explains more of the variation in most categories than anything else on this page.
$0$54.48
The dark line with a cap at each end shows the sampling error Stats NZ publishes with that figure: the survey is confident the true value lies within it. A long line means a less certain number.
By region
The survey groups the country into five broad regions rather than cities, so Auckland is a region and Hamilton is part of the rest of the North Island.
$0$50.12
The dark line with a cap at each end shows the sampling error Stats NZ publishes with that figure: the survey is confident the true value lies within it. A long line means a less certain number.
By tenure
Whether a household owns or rents correlates with age, income and household composition, so a difference here is not caused by tenure alone.
$0$49.55
Not shown, because the survey sample was too small to report reliably: Renting, no rent, Family trust, Trust, mortgaged, Trust, no mortgage.
The dark line with a cap at each end shows the sampling error Stats NZ publishes with that figure: the survey is confident the true value lies within it. A long line means a less certain number.
By household income
Deciles split households into ten equal groups from lowest income to highest. A category that barely changes from decile 1 to decile 10 is close to a necessity.
$0$86.31
Not shown, because the survey sample was too small to report reliably: Income group 1, Income group 4, Income group 5.
The dark line with a cap at each end shows the sampling error Stats NZ publishes with that figure: the survey is confident the true value lies within it. A long line means a less certain number.
The rest of recreation and culture
These are the other components of the same top-level category. They add up, with this one, to the total on the Recreation and culture page.
- Computers and TVs
- Boats and Major Equipment
- Streaming, Gyms and Events
- Books, News and Stationery
- Accommodation
- Flights and Accommodation
Related calculators
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page is from the Stats NZ Household Economic Survey, retrieved through the Aotearoa Data Explorer, for survey years 2007 to 2023. Inflation adjustments use the Stats NZ Consumers Price Index to the 2026.06 quarter. Stats NZ data is used with attribution; the survey figures are theirs and the adjustments are ours.
Household Economic Survey figures are averages of weekly household expenditure and carry the sampling errors shown. They are averages rather than medians, so they are pulled upward by the highest spenders. Figures are rounded as published.