If you're between 18 and 24 years old, I hope you had a great Valentine's Day last year. You should have. Remember how you spent an average of $154.65 on all that candy and flowers, those gifts and evenings out?
Not this year. This year, as you cut your spending back to an average of $83.50, members of the older generation are opening up their wallets and taking over the hearts and flowers, according to the National Retail Federation. This year, the 45- to 54-year-olds (who spent an average of $88.96 last year) are planning to splurge, spending an average of $118.11.
Something's wrong at the pump -- the gas pump, not the heart.
At least that's how Phil Rist explains young adults cutting back so dramatically when overall Valentine's spending is as high as ever. The end of romance, he says, is definitely not at hand.
Rist is vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, which did the 2005 Valentine's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, published last week by the NRF. He was struck by the way young adults were curtailing their spending, as were the NRF people.
"It's gas prices," he says. "We've been watching gas prices for the last year, and one of the questions we've been tracking is purchase deferral based on fluctuating gas prices."
Rising gas prices, he says, tend to hit young adults hard. They have less income in general and may be in college or settling into a first job and paying rent on a first apartment. When gasoline prices go up, they have to cut back.
Apparently, chocolate, roses and a night on the town are the first to go.
Rist thinks the older generation feels in need of a treat, which is why that cohort is planning to spend more. "If you look back," he says, "it's been a tough couple of years . . . terrorism, the economy, the stock bubble. We need our little luxuries. They're important. They should be cherished."
Maybe that's why consumers are going to be spending $13.19 billion for Valentine's Day, which racks up the third-largest amount of money spent on any time of the year, behind Christmas and the back-to-school rush and just ahead of Easter.
