Sales, trade-ins and refunds: what NZ households spend per week
Almost nobody knows whether what they spend on sales, trade-ins and refunds is normal. You know your own number, because it comes out of your account every week, but there is nothing to compare it against, and the figures that circulate in news articles are usually national averages stripped of the context that would make them useful. This page is the comparison. It uses the Stats NZ Household Economic Survey, which asks a large sample of New Zealand households what they actually spent, and breaks sales, trade-ins and refunds spending down four ways: by how many people are in the household, by region, by whether the household owns or rents, and by household income. Those four cuts matter because a single national average hides almost everything: a one-person household in Wellington that rents and a family of five in Auckland that owns are both in the national figure and neither is described by it. Enter your own weekly spending below and the page will tell you where you sit against households like yours rather than against the country as a whole.
The survey splits sales, trade-ins and refunds into 9 sub-categories, which are listed further down with their own figures. That breakdown is often more useful than the total, because it shows which part of a category is actually driving a household above or below the average.
How to read these figures
Three things decide whether a number on this page means what you think it means.
It is an average, not a median. The Household Economic Survey publishes average weekly household expenditure. Averages are pulled upward by a small number of households spending a great deal, so being below the average does not mean being below typical. For most categories the median household spends less than the average shown here.
It is a survey, so every figure has a margin. Stats NZ publishes a sampling error with each number, and the whiskers on every chart show it. Where that error exceeds 30 per cent of the figure itself, no bar is drawn and the page says so instead, because a precise-looking number that could be a third out either way is worse than no number.
It is 2023 money unless labelled otherwise. The survey runs every three years and 2023 is the most recent. Where a figure is adjusted to today, it is labelled as adjusted and uses the all groups CPI series to the 2026.06 quarter. An adjusted figure is our arithmetic, not a Stats NZ statistic, and it is never presented as one.
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By household size
Sales, trade-ins and refunds spending scales with the number of people in a household more predictably than with anything else on this page, which makes this the most useful comparison for most readers.
The survey records this category as negative expenditure, because it is money coming into the household rather than going out. Bars show the amount received.
$0$52.88
Not shown, because the survey sample was too small to report reliably: 1 person, 3 people, 4 people, 5 or more people.
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
Regional differences reflect both prices and what households in each area actually buy. 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.
The survey records this category as negative expenditure, because it is money coming into the household rather than going out. Bars show the amount received.
$0$48.34
Not shown, because the survey sample was too small to report reliably: Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, Rest of South Island.
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 changes far more than its housing costs. It correlates with age, income and household composition, so the differences below are not caused by tenure alone.
The survey records this category as negative expenditure, because it is money coming into the household rather than going out. Bars show the amount received.
$0$57.70
Not shown, because the survey sample was too small to report reliably: Owned, no mortgage, 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. Spending on sales, trade-ins and refunds across those groups shows how much of it is discretionary: a category that barely changes between decile 1 and decile 10 is close to a necessity.
Every figure in this breakdown has a sampling error too large to report reliably, so nothing is shown. That usually means few surveyed households reported spending in this category.
Sub-categories within sales, trade-ins and refunds
All New Zealand households, 2023, average weekly expenditure. The adjusted column applies no adjustment, as this category has no CPI counterpart to the 2026.06 quarter and is our calculation rather than a Stats NZ figure.
Each sub-category with enough data to report has its own page, linked from the table below, carrying every survey year back to 2007 and what the category does and does not include.
The survey records this category as negative expenditure, because it is money coming into the household rather than going out. Bars show the amount received.
$0$22.87
Not shown, because the survey sample was too small to report reliably: Clothing Resales, Household Contents Resales, Sales and trade-ins for communication, Recreation Equipment Resales.
Nothing to chart for Sales and trade-ins of property and materials for property improvement and maintenance, Sales, trade-ins and refunds for health (excluding insurance claims), Sales and trade-ins for communication, Refunds for education, because the survey recorded no spending in this category there at all. That is a measured zero rather than a figure withheld for uncertainty.
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.
| Sub-category | 2023 published | Adjusted to today | Sampling error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales of clothing and footwear | not reported | — | sample too small |
| Sales and trade-ins of property and materials for property improvement and maintenance | $0.00 | — | 0% |
| Sales and trade-ins of household contents | not reported | — | sample too small |
| Sales, trade-ins and refunds for health (excluding insurance claims) | $0.00 | — | 0% |
| Sales and trade-ins of vehicles, vehicle parts and accessories | $-16.60 | — | 21.2% |
| Sales and trade-ins for communication | not reported | — | sample too small |
| Sales, trade-ins and refunds of equipment for recreation and culture | not reported | — | sample too small |
| Refunds for education | $0.00 | — | 0% |
| Sales, trade-ins and refunds of miscellaneous goods, cash receipts from insurance claims | $-17.30 | — | 27.1% |
How it has changed since 2007
Each bar is a separate survey, three years apart, for all New Zealand households. Spending on sales, trade-ins and refunds moved from $-25.60 a week in 2007 to $-38.90 in 2023, a change of -52 per cent in the money of the day. Some of what is left is prices and some is households buying different things, and the survey cannot separate the two.
The survey records this category as negative expenditure, because it is money coming into the household rather than going out. Bars show the amount received.
$0$61.81
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. Bars in a pale fill are survey years whose sampling error is above the level at which this site normally withholds a figure. They are drawn here because the direction of a series is worth seeing even where the level is not reliable enough to quote, and the table above gives the error on each one.
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Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page is from the Stats NZ Household Economic Survey, 2023, retrieved through the Aotearoa Data Explorer. 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. Figures are rounded as published.