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Housing dominates spending

THE average weekly household net expenditure was $956 for the year ended June 30, 2007, with housing-related costs making up the largest component, Statistics New Zealand have said.
Results from the three-yearly Household Expenditure Survey show that 23 per cent ($224) of the average weekly household expenditure was on housing-related costs such as mortgage and rent payments, council rates and energy costs.
Households in the Wellington region had the highest proportion of household expenditure on housing and energy costs, at 27 percent.
Nationally, the next largest components of average weekly household expenditure were food (16 percent) and transport (14 percent). Average household spending on food was $156 per week, with 44 percent of this expenditure going on grocery items.
Transport costs averaged $136 per week per household. Petrol was the single largest item of expenditure within this group, accounting for $38 of transport costs.
Expenditure estimates in this release cannot be compared with those in previous releases due to changes to classifications and methodology since the 2003/04 survey.
Other survey results showed that average household income increased 10.2 percent in the three years since the last Household Economic Survey in 2003/04. The average annual income for the 2006/07 year was $67,973. The increase was driven primarily by wages and salaries, investment income and government benefits.
The survey also showed that most people (75 per cent) reported they were satisfied or very satisfied with their material standard of living, regardless of their geographic location or level of income.