Americans Confess to the Urge to Splurge
While Americans are finding it harder and harder to afford big purchases such as homes and cars, a new survey of household spending and savings shows that it's not the big-ticket items that get many consumers in trouble.
Instead, it's the little things that consumers admit they splurge on that often prevent families from reaching their savings goals. And surprisingly, the biggest culprit isn't frequent trips to the mall, according to the survey, released this week by the Pew Research Center. Many consumers admit that dining out at restaurants is the thing they "splurge on most."
What's more, consumers have drastically expanded the list of things they deem to be necessities of life. For instance, 68 percent of adults now believe that a microwave oven is an absolute necessity, up from just 32 percent a decade ago. Fifty-nine percent say they absolutely must have an air conditioner in their cars, up from 41 percent who thought so in 1996. And roughly half of all respondents say that a home computer and a cellphone are needed to function in day-to-day life.
Yet, when surveyed about their own savings goals, the vast majority of Americans describe themselves as thrifty. The Pew survey, based on telephone interviews conducted nationwide this fall, found that 77 percent of adults describe themselves as "the kind of person who always looks for ways to save money." Meanwhile, 67 percent say they are the kind of people who are "always aware" of how much they're spending. And 88 percent say they closely watch how much they spend.
When pressed on the issues, though, the large majority of respondents–63 percent–concede that they "should be saving more."
This seems to confirm the findings of a separate survey released this week by GfK Roper Consulting. That survey found that around 21 percent of Americans feel that their single most important financial goal this year is "just keeping up with the bills." And another 21 percent said their biggest task is to pay down debt. Meanwhile, other laudable goals, such as saving for retirement, putting kids through college, and purchasing a home, rank much farther down the list.
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