Household Spending by Census Subdivisions

Question
A professor at Mount Saint Vincent University wants to create a course module in which the students will have to locate household expenditures for various census geographies in Nova Scotia including census subdivisions. Spending Patterns in Canada (62-202) provides stats for the province as a whole and Halifax. Canadian Demographics, a Financial Post annual, provides stats for municipal districts and CAs. Is there a DLI survey where I can define small areas? Would the Survey of Household Spending files provide more detail than Spending Patterns in Canada?

Answer
The Survey of Household Spending microdata files only provide data by province and a rural/urban breakdown. It does not contain any data at the CMA, CA, or census subdivision levels.

The detailed tables (aggregate statistics) from the Survey of Household Spending give summary expenditure statistics by province and for 17 CMAs (including Halifax) in the 62F0031XDB tables. You can access these tables via the DLI FTP and Web sites:

FTP: /ftp/dli/shs - Survey of Household Spending
Web: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/shs.htm

My next step would normally be to ask the author division if CSD-level expenditure data is available as a custom tabulation, but I wasn't sure if that would be helpful given that it is for a course module. Please let me know if you would still like me to enquire about the possibility of a custom
tabulation.