Is Your Teen a 'Conscientious Consumer' or a 'Stylish Spender'?

Financial literacy efforts are growing in popularity in recent years. Those tasked with the job of developing curriculum to teach children, however, still have a significant challenge on their hands.

This type of education simply does not exist in any formal way, or it didn't until recently – it needs to be developed, virtually from scratch, but also in a coordinated way. Then there's the task of trying to make it seem interesting.
The Investor Education Fund (IEF) commissioned a study recently to help this development effort, titled the Youth Financial Literacy Study.

It looks at the different ways students like to learn, and examines who they turn to and trust most when they have a question about personal finance. (Dear parents, believe it or not, teens say they turn to you first for information about money; they turn to the internet only about one-third as often, and they don't trust any other source as much as they trust information from their parents.)

The study found that students tend to fall into one of three psychographic segments: the "conscientious consumers," "trendy techies," and the "stylish spenders."

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Conscientious consumers make up 28 per cent of those surveyed. These students tend to be traditional and cautious, researching items before they buy, to find value for their money. These students also aim to buy from companies that are environmentally and socially responsible.

Trendy techies like to have the latest gadgets, and are more likely to buy on a whim at times. These students believe it is important to treat themselves on a regular basis.

Finally, the stylish spenders simply love to shop. (As the name implies, style is very important.) These students believe that what they wear says a lot about them.
Curriculum developers appear to be in luck when it comes to reaching each of these groups: Almost 70 per cent of all students surveyed thought it was important to know about managing personal finances, up from 64 per cent who said the same thing in 2009.

They say websites and school courses are the most common ways they learn about financial topics. The majority also prefer to learn from these sources.

Just like adults, many students are particularly focused on learning about things that will affect them in the short to medium term. (And although though less than one-third of those surveyed said they were actually saving for their post secondary education, responses suggest there is a high amount of interest in the topic.)

"Typically, gaps between knowledge and interest indicate learning opportunities," say the report's authors. "Looking just at high levels of interest and knowledge, we find gaps of 25 per cent or more for (topics such as) the living cost after college or university, buying a car, saving to move out of the family home, investing money safely and building a financial plan."


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Kate McCaffery is a freelance writer, editor and former urbanite, now living somewhere in between the lake, the ski hill and some farmer's cow path. Visit mccaffery.ca/kate2.0/ for more information.