When planning your children’s savings, factor in £383 per year for technology – for everything from computer games, music downloads, and mobile phone costs, says Halifax in a new survey published this week.
The nationwide average of £383 includes £140 for computer games or equipment, closely followed by a massive £138 per year for music downloads, and £104 per year in mobile phone bills.
If you wish to know what your children’s savings this year will be spent on, then bear in mind that we live in the gaming generation, Halifax adds. Over 95% of boys, and 87% of girls now own a games console, with boys contributing more of their savings to games-related spending, totalling £3.77 per week compared to £1.47 for girls.
Almost three-quarters of children (70%) now own either an iPod or an MP3 player, with ownership highest in the 12-15 year old age group, Halifax said. Children are now downloading, on average, 3 music tracks per week, but in terms of allocating portions of their children’s savings for music, patterns differ wildly throughout the country, Halifax said. London children are most active in spending their children’s savings on music, devoting £4.37 per week to fill their iPods and ears with sound, while Welsh children spend only 99p per week on downloading music.
The average phone bill for children is £8.67 per month, but this rarely comes out of their children’s savings, as 74% of children leave their parents to cover their mobile phone bill, and only 17% foot the bill themselves.
The need for saving for children and children’s investments by parents was highlighted recently by Zurich Assurance, who calculated that the cost of raising a child from birth until age 21 is now £194,000, of which over £50,000 relates to the cost of university. Zurich’s estimates for the category of hobbies and toys, which would cover tech toys data from Halifax above, was a general figure of £10,313.
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*Sources: Halifax Research on 1202 UK children aged 8-15, Nov 2009
