For many families, life is a balancing act. Between sports practices, club meetups, music lessons and everything else on the calendar, there’s no shortage of places to be… and as families know too well, it all comes with a price tag!
Every two years, the Survey of Household Spending releases detailed data on average household expenditures in Canada across various goods and services, broken down by household type and other characteristics. While the latest data are from 2023, they still offer a useful picture of how households spend their money, even if costs have changed since then.
For most of the spending categories listed in this article, households with couples with children spent more than the average household, and in nearly every instance, they spent more in 2023 than they did in 2021.
Sports, recreation and culture
Households with couples with children living in the provinces spent an average of $641 in 2023 on dues and fees for sports and recreational activities and athletic and recreational facilities, and $84 on contributions and dues for social clubs and other organizations. Lone-parent households paid $308 and $21, respectively.
Personal interest courses and lessons (excluding driving lessons) set back couples with children another $462 for their households, and lone-parent households spent $198, on average.
Couples with children spent $110 on admission fees to museums, zoos and other sites, while lone-parent households spent $54.
Getting the kids to those activities (or anywhere!)
Getting kids to their activities can come with extra costs, including parking. Households with couples with children spent an average of $355 on parking in 2023, and lone-parent households spent $296. These amounts exclude parking fees included in rent, as well as traffic and parking tickets.
Couples with children also spent an average of $313 on public transit, $143 on peer-to-peer ride services and $69 on taxis in their households, while lone-parent households spent $349, $135 and $69, respectively.
Time for those teens to drive themselves to their activities? Couples with children spent $96 on driving lessons for their households, and lone-parent households spent $83, on average.
We don’t have data on how cold those arenas are at 6 a.m., but dress warmly!
To learn more
Check out our Survey of Household Spending: Data visualization tool. Data for 2025 will be released in spring 2027.
Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).