South African students spend more in disposable income than many adults make before tax in a year.
The average student’s disposable income is over R42 000 per year – more than that of a senior software developer, according to CareerJunction.
South African students spend 15% more than the average consumer, with big ticket spending falling on food and entertainment.
Youth marketing solutions provider Student Village released the 2013 South African Student Spending report earlier this week.
The views of 681 men and women students between 18 and 24 years old were sampled across several tertiary institutions and racial demographics.
Student Village found that the top spending brackets were rent, food, clothing, petrol and extra tuition. This was closely followed by spending on gadgets, entertainment and alcohol, toiletries and beauty products.
The highest value purchase amongst the 681 students surveyed was cellphones however, with Blackberry still being the number one brand.
Rhodes University students living in campus residences said they spent the majority of their allowances on entertainment. Jadene Reeves said she spent the majority of her allowance, about R850 to R1 000, on going out, food and cosmetics.
Rory Boon receives a monthly allowance of R1 000 and spends about R700 on food and alcohol.
The report found that women spent more than men generally.
“While 70% of the respondents feel they save for emergencies, we need to be cognisant of their definition of ‘emergencies’. Most students define this as sales at retail outlets and magazines,” Student Village reported.
Student Village CEO Ronen Aires said credit was particularly highlighted in the 2013 report.
“Students are becoming ever more ‘credit savvy’ as they are more aware of the risk of debt and see it as a negative thing – 20% of respondents indicated they have credit cards [down from 43% last year] and 24% have retail accounts,” he said.
“The results of this report show that with the access they have to disposable income, South African students are definitely a market to be noticed and watched,” Aires added. — michelles@dispatch.
By MICHELLE SOLOMON
Article Source: The Daily Dispatch