[VietnamLover]

Teens spend like there’s no tomorrow: survey

Some 25 percent of elite Ho Chi Minh City students spend around VND500,000 (US$28.59) a day, or VND15 million ($857.88) per month, while the country’s average annual income was just VND17 million ($972.26) last year, according to a Tuoi Tre survey.

Over half of the 100 respondents said spending VND1 million ($57.19) in a single outing was “normal.”

Those same teens said such purchases “required no consideration.”

Hanh, one of the 13-18 year-old students surveyed at elite HCMC schools, says she doesn’t hesitate to spend big on her favorite products.

Holding a tube of Givenchy lipstick at District 5’s Parkson Hung Vuong Plaza, one of HCMC’s premier department stores, the eleventh-grade student from Asian High School says she buys the make-up whenever a new style arrives.

She sometimes borrows money from her friends to buy the newest lipstick when she doesn’t have enough because she feels “uncomfortable without it.”

Only 10 percent of the students interviewed had part time jobs, while the rest were given money from their parents.

Forty-four percent of the students spent all of their allowances shopping, while 35 percent used some for food or entertainment. Only 21 percent used the money for school-related activities or materials.

A ninth-grade student from Asian High School said her friends only buy brand names and never wear the same piece of clothing twice.

“I spend over VND400,000 ($22.88) everyday on average,” she said.

“We never wear clothes a second time... It’s really embarrassing if you’re seen wearing an outfit twice!”

Other than clothes, jewelry, perfume, make-up, and cosmetics, mobile phones also topped the list of most-bought products by the teens surveyed.

The biggest spenders interviewed said they were in the habit of spending over VND10 million ($571.92) on a single shopping trip.

Every weekend, and increasingly on weekdays after school, droves of teenagers crowd the Diamond Plaza, NowZone, and Parkson shopping centers, flashing all their new purchases. Nguyen Trai and Nguyen Dinh Chieu streets are also popular shopping spots for teens.

Hong Anh, an assistant at a Converse shop at Diamond Plaza says: “Most of our customers are teenagers... some buy several pairs of shoes each time they visit.”

More than 40 percent of the surveyed students said they sometimes have to borrow money from friends after running out of money given to them by their parents.

“They buy brand name goods as status symbols,” says an eleventh-grade student at Le Quy Don High School, adding that at least eight of the 30 pupils in her class spend money “liberally.”

Some 74 percent of the teenagers surveyed said their parents had never complained about their spending.