Final consumption expenditure

Final consumption expenditure of households includes all goods and services acquired by the household from Finland and abroad for its private consumption during the survey period, including own and received gardening and collected products and imputed housing expenditure. In addition, included are goods and services received from other households and current transfers comparable to consumption. Repayment of housing and consumption loans is not included in consumption expenditure. Consumption expenditure does not either contain direct taxes, investments (e.g. purchase of a dwelling), expenditure of business activities and products bought for other households. The consumption concept does not include benefits gained from households' use of public welfare services (e.g. health care and education).

Households' final consumption expenditure is formed as follows:

+ purchases of consumption goods and services
+ own products (agricultural, gardening and collected products)
+ imputed dwelling income from an owner-occupied dwelling and a dwelling provided as a benefit in kind
+ goods and services received
+ current transfers comparable to consumption (e.g. church tax and labour union membership fees and interest on consumption loans)
= total consumption expenditure

The classification of consumption used in the Household Budget Survey is based on Eurostat's COICOP-HSB consumption classification (Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose).

The COICOP handbook can be browsed on the Internet at www.tilastokeskus.fi/tk/tt/luokitukset/popup/coicop.pdf (Handbooks / Statistics Finland, 41).