Apr. 23: What People Spend Their Money On

April 23, 2026

Where do we spend all our money?

Everything you hear, see or read about saving for retirement implores you to cut back on spending so you can stash some cash away for your future.

But to do that, we have to be aware of what we are spending our loonies on. To that end, Save with SPP took a look around the Interweb to try and find out what our hard-earned cash is being used to buy.

Let’s give our first words to Statistics Canada, who last spring released a summary of the latest data on Canadian household spending, from 2023.

On average, the article notes, Canadian households spent $76,750 in 2023. That worked out to $24,671 on shelter, $12,046 on food and $12,090 on transportation.

Next, the article continues, Canadians spent $9,404 on “household operations, furnishings and equipment,” $5,231 on recreation, $4,947 on healthcare and personal care, and $8,361 on “other.”

So, based on these numbers, if you were able to save $1 of every $100 spent, you’d contribute $767.50 to long-term retirement savings. Ramping up to $5 of every $100 would net you $3,837.50, and making it a tenner per $100 yields double that, or $7,675.

Stats Canada dives a little deeper on some spending categories.

We spent $1,200 on air travel in 2023, on average, and about the same on package trips. About $400, the article says, per person was spent on restaurant alcohol, and over $3,000 on restaurant meals. Is there an opportunity to cut back, even a bit, there and direct the difference to savings?

The folks at the Fortunly blog takes at how that spending measures up in aggregate.

The blog notes that in 2024, “consumer spending in Canada grew to $1.4 trillion.” We spent, that same year, a collective total of $774.608 million on credit cards, and “personal spending on the food services and drinking subsector grew to $8.1 billion in 2024.”

The blog notes that Canada “ranks 22^nd among the world’s most expensive countries in 2025,” with 65 per cent of Canadians (in 2024) feeling “worse off” because of inflation. Visits to food banks have jumped by “90 per cent since 2019” the blog adds.

On the more positive side, the blog reports, the savings rate among Canadians grew to “7.1 per cent per household” in 2024, and salaries were expected to rise by 3.4 per cent as of last year.

Citing stats from TD Bank and Ipsos, the blog reports that “83 per cent of Canadian citizens have concerning expectations over the impact of inflation on their grocery budgets. The expected rise in food, rent, and gas prices is among their primary concerns.”

“Lower-income individuals and older people tend to be more worried about the costs of groceries and rent,” the blog states, while “younger people are generally more concerned about house prices, which makes sense, as millennials can expect to pay a third more for their homes than older generations.”

If there is a takeaway to all of this, it is that the only way we may be able to figure out how to save money is by knowing where we are already spending it. Tracking your cash flow, reports the Get Smarter About Money blog, “can give you valuable information about your financial habits. It can also show you where you might be able to adjust your spending. Use this tool to compare your money coming in, and money going out, and look for ways you could adjust if needed.”

The site provides a handy calculator to help you get going on cash flow tracking.

And once you know what you’re spending, a budget is fairly easy to create – Get Smarter About Money provides step-by-step instructions on how to get that going.

If you can live on 99 per cent of what you earn, and save the rest, you are on your way to building long-term retirement savings that can augment your income when you’re no longer willing or able to work. Start small and then ramp up when you can.

You can figure out how your Saskatchewan Pension Plan retirement savings are growing by using the plan’s handy Wealth Calculator (Wealth Calculator | Saskatchewan Pension Plan).

SPP is a made-in-Saskatchewan savings plan that’s open to any Canadian with available registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) room. You decide how much to contribute and SPP does the rest, investing your hard-saved dollars in our low-cost, professionally managed pooled fund. At retirement, your income choices include a lifetime monthly annuity payment or the more flexible Variable Benefit

Check out SPP today!

Fortunly, Get Smarter about Money, Statistics Canada

---

---