Aging and spending patterns

FROM TOYS TO TOMBSTONES: How The Spending Patterns Of Americans Change Throughout Their Lives

Excerpt:

HS Dent, an economic forecasting firm, compiled Census data spending behavior and presented them as demand curves, which measure average annual expenditure for a given product over age.

HS Dent's charts couldn't be more simple, but we can't stop looking at them. They offer an elegant glimpse into how spending really evolves over time.

What are some things we learned? Well, as we mature we use a lot less plastic cutlery.

But our towels get a lot older and cheaper. Not surprisingly, alcohol consumption is pretty steady from ages 20 to 70.

And it looks like we do all of our vacationing long before retirement.

Comment: View article for charts. What I've noticed:

• Becoming an empty-nester really impacts expenses. When the kids move out (and it's been over 10 years for us), the phone bill (we used to have 2 lines!), utilities, groceries, and auto expenses really go down.
• Auto insurance is probably the # 1 saver for us!
• Auto expenses: We once had three cars. Now 2. (I think we could live with one but I don't want to get rid of my truck!)
• Groceries is right up there
• Clothing is in the mix too!
• On restaurants ... we rarely eat out unless we are traveling. We bag lunches to work

In Marriage, Who Spends the $$?

Who Makes the Call at the Mall, Men or Women?

Excerpt:

Several recent surveys suggest that men have nearly equal say on spending, and that when men and women live together, both participate in spending decisions. In a survey conducted last year of nearly 4,000 Americans 16 and older by Futures Co., a London consulting firm, just 37% of women said they have primary responsibility for shopping decisions in their household, while 85% said they have primary or shared responsibility. The respective figures for men were similar: 31% and 84%.

Comment: My guess is that Kathee spends most of our money - she is the primary shopper.

Americans: epic consumers

No, You Can’t Get an Upgrade

Excerpt:

For decades, Americans have been known as epic consumers, but it would be more accurate to call us epic upgraders. During all those years of packing up and moving, we were headed to a bigger house, at a better address, perhaps for a higher-paying job. We were trading up, and that urge — to acquire something bigger or better, preferably something bigger and better — is a quintessentially American urge. It is so neatly woven into the double helix of our DNA that we hardly notice it.

When we buy a television, it’s rarely because we lack a TV. We want a thinner TV, or a bigger TV, or a TV with features that sound beguiling even if we have no idea what they do. Like the DynaLight Dynamic Back Light Control on the latest Toshiba high-definition set. What is that? We don’t know. But we’ll take two.

Or we would if we could afford them. To fully understand our collective shock over our pulse-less economy, take a good look at the upgrade cycle that we’ve been gleefully riding for at least three decades. Until last year, if you were living the 2.3 version of Life, you had your eyes on version 2.4 and odds were pretty good that you’d get it. Maybe on an overextended credit card, or from a loan that you really couldn’t afford. But you’d get it.

Now, if you’re living Life 2.3, your ambition is to avoid Life 2.2.

Forget the upgrade. The game now is avoiding the downgrade. This is grim and troubling, in part, because so much of our consumer culture is built around the enticements of the Better.

Comment: Stuff does not satisfy!

Savers are "dead weight" for the economy

When Consumers Cut Back: An Object Lesson From Japan

Excerpt:

The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy.

Comment: HT from the Woot blog ... more below:

New York Times: Thrifty Consumers Are "Dead Weight"

Excerpts:

Scoop! The current economic crisis isn't the fault of unregulated lenders making bad decisions, or of financial traders leveraging themselves too heavily with phony paper wealth. It's because millions of people have banded together in a conspiracy not to spend money on things they don't need.

That's according to a New York Times piece on Japan's "lost decade" of low growth. These "misers" are "dead weight on Japan's economy" because they "tend to shun conspicuous consumption", "to disastrous effect". Horror of horrors, sales of Louis Vuitton handbags are down as "Young Japanese women even seem to be losing their once-insatiable thirst for foreign fashion."

...

And it's no excuse for the irresponsible actions of Tokyo housewife Hiromi Kobayashi, whose family "has not gone on vacation in two years and still watches a cathode-ray tube TV." (Wait a minute - that describes me exactly. I'm a traitor and I didn't even know it! Somebody arrest me, for my own good!) Kobayashi says she plans to buy a flat-panel TV, but this dastardly fiend is scheming to "find a bargain, then wait until it gets even cheaper." And yet, at press time, Japanese authorities allow this monster to walk the streets.

Comment: Nice to be called a eco-consumer-terrorist!