Parents' Spending on Teens 1
Donna Davis2
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In a recent study from Teenage Research Unlimited, researchers reported that teens spent $159 billion in 2005 (Teenage Research Unlimited 2005). My own experience raising three teens led me to believe that many of them spent their parents' money in 2005.
According to the USDA's 2005 report on expenditures on children by families, today's middle-income parents will spend approximately $11,000 per teen each year. This figure is based on expenses of housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care, and education, and miscellaneous goods and services for youth ages 12 to 17. And the pressure on parents to keep up with cars, cell phones, sports, music, and arts, and the other demands of teen living can add up and take a financial toll.
What may interest many parents is the study's finding that teen's spending was down by 6% from 2004, with teens reporting that nearly all of the decrease was a result of "less access to other people's money." The researchers suggest that parents may be more cautious about spending money on their children compared to previous years because of rising gas prices and fears of unemployment or layoffs. Yet teens were not as skeptical. Nearly half of the teens surveyed believe they'll spend more this year, with only 17% reporting they expected to spend less! Hang on to those checkbooks and credit cards!
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References
Jump$tart! Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy: Financial Smarts for Students. [accessed April 18, 2012] http://www.jumpstart.org
Teenage Research Unlimited. (2005). "TRU projects teens will spend $159 billion in 2005." [accessed 28 August 2012] http://www.teenresearch.com/pressrelease.cfm?page_id=378
United States Department of Agriculture. Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. (2005). http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/ [accessed 28 August 2012].
Footnotes
This document is FAR 1209, one of a series of the Family Youth and Community Sciences Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Broadcast as program 455. Created June 2006. Published on EDIS March 2012. In the interest of time and/or clarity, the broadcast version of this script may have been modified. Visit the EDIS website at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.
Donna Davis, senior producer, Family Album Radio, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.
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