This paper examined the expenditure differential patterns of food and non-food items in rural and urban South-East Nigeria with emphasis on
poor and non-poor households as subdivided by the Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics’ Household Expenditure Survey Data of 2009/2010
(NBS_HhExp_2009/2010). Descriptive statistics and Econometric models were used to profile the pattern of household expenditure on food and non
food items, expenditure patterns of food and non-food items across poverty status and an estimation of the effects of household characteristics on food
and non-food expenditures. Household characteristics included age, sex, sector (rural/urban), living status of spouse. Mean per-capita expenditure for
the non-poor in the urban area is greater than that of the non-poor in the rural area; mean per-capital expenditure for the non-poor was greater in
relation to non food items than food items. The mean per-capita food and non-food expenditures in the urban area was ₦77, 181.27 while the mean
per-capita expenditure of households in the rural area was ₦67, 621.61. Disaggregating the data into core/moderately/non-poor, the mean per-capita
food and non-food expenditures was ₦21, 866.55k; ₦38, 949.09k and ₦1,100, 88.00k respectively. There is need to up scale the living standards of
the rural poor and enhance the productive capacities of the able bodied age groups to reduce the disparity observed as in relation to food and nonfood
expenditure differences among poor and non-poor households of south-eastern Nigeria.