Kids’ online shopping habits a parent trap
PARENTS are being forced to pay for their children’s online spending mistakes, prompting a fresh warning for household budgets to be better explained to them.
Unapproved spending on smartphones, games and apps, music and video purchases are eating into more than half of parents’ incomes, a Financial Basics Foundation survey has found.
Mobile phone use and data are the biggest culprits, but one-third of children are
BUDGET BUSTER:
making in-game purchases, 26 per cent are buying clothes and make-up online and 15 per cent are doing the same to pay for food delivery, it found.
Financial Basics Foundation CEO Katrina Birch said society’s shift away from cash made it vital for parents to speak openly about the weekly family budget.
“Technology makes online shopping easy and a simple matter of hitting the ‘buy’ button on a screen from anywhere at any time, without really understanding the consequences,” she said.
Separate new research by Suncorp has found that 57 per cent of parents don’t talk to their children about family budgets.
Suncorp head of stores and specialty banking Jason Stephens said children were visual and often found it hard to recognise the value of money if they were not physically transferring it.
“When transacting online, it’s likely some children and teens may not even realise they’re spending money, especially when using streaming devices and online games,” he said. “As we shift further away from using cash, money conversations with kids which may have come up naturally, such as how they saw money being spent at the supermarket, may not be happening as regularly.”
Mr Stephens said that, just like adults, children should be able to identify if what they were buying was a “need” or a “want”.
“Before clicking ‘buy now’, ask yourself whether the item you’re buying is something you can live without,” he said.