Tuesday, September 30, 2008

It's not just women who hide their spending

Update on Pat’s puppies




Last week I wrote about a colleague who lost out on half her birthday present because she hid its cost. Apparently, this is a very human failing, as a recent survey by Virgin Money highlights. This showed that more than three-quarters 80% of respondents admitted to hiding purchases from a spouse or partner.


It can also be damaging: 4% claimed that their other half left them once they found out about the sneaky spending.



Perhaps it’s not surprising that most women (76%) said their secret shopping was for shoes (and this season, it's gladiator sandals that are all the rage, says our fashion ed, like this one from www.ninewest.com


Another 11% said it was for jewellery, 4% for handbags (like this one from http://guccicomte.wordpress.com/ ), 4% for naughty bedroom toys and 3% for perfume. And 2% said they bought for cars and apartments without their partner knowing.



Don’t quite understand where they hid that new car .. you can’t really scrunch up the packet it came in and throw it in the back of the wardrobe, now can you?


Where it gets interesting is the areas where men lied: nearly half of them were hidden techno-freaks, with 41% of men spending on stuff like big screen TV’s (yawn ... when will guys just get over this TV fixation?). Then, there were quite a few (19%) who said it was spent on clothes, 16% claimed sporting goods and 9% admitted to adults magazines and movies. Just like the girls, 9% of the boys owned up to buying cars and apartments without telling their other while 6% bought gifts for the mistresses.


Now that I find interesting, did you notice any figures for us women buying gifts for our hidden toyboys? Nup, didn’t think so ...

1 comment:

Suzi-k said...

yes, how DO you hide a new car? (just curious, you understand, not looking for ways to do it!) Maybe you give it to the toyboy to drive, thus the glaring ommission in the research figures!