Teenagers Save the Holiday Shopping Season

The holidays are coming! And with them a host of hand-wringing and anxiety about what the outcome will be. Studies are being conducted, predictions are coming out daily and, in general, speculation is everywhere.

Most of it, however, is pretty bleak (which, by the way, isn't helping--so knock it off!). But, I was thrilled to track down some good news regarding the holiday spending season.

Junior Achievement recently released their 2008 Teen Holiday Spending poll, and found that 76 percent of teens plan to spend a whole lot more this year than they did in 2007 on holiday gifts. Hooray! Finally, something we can all be happy about. And it gets better.

Forty-seven percent of teens said they planned to spend at least $100 on gifts, which is a 4 percent increase from last year. Now, some of the negative Nellies--that's a technical term--out there might think that the kids are all-talk, and will instead squander their parents' hard-earned money. Oh, how wrong they are (and you do know who you are). These kiddos have money themselves.

While multiple responses were used, 87 percent of teens did plan to use their own money, with 49 percent using money from their parents, 19 percent using a parent's debit/credit card (who are these crazy parents?!) and 16 percent using their own debit/credit card. Turns out that job at Dairy Queen pays pretty well after all.

Unfortunately, though, our worries do still rub off on our kids. Forty-eight percent reported feeling concerned about the U.S. economy. And who can blame them?

The fantastic news is they're still planning on spending money for the holiday season. Looks like we could take a lesson from our kids these days, eh? I say, we all pretend like we're 16, and go out there and spend some serious cash for the holidays. Who's with me?!

Leave it to teenagers to provide us with increased retail sales for the holidays. Gotta love 'em!  Do you have some good predictions about the upcoming holiday season, or have an opinion about teens' retail spending? Leave your comments here.

--Heather Strang