Young Russians are ready to spend money for home staff or put them aside for a large purchase. Retired persons prefer saving money for a rainy day or spend them on medical treatment.

MOSCOW, February 4, 2013. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) and Applied Sociology Chair of the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation  present the data describing the most popular financial strategies of Russians. The study is based on the answers to the question “How would you spend an additional sum of 45-50 thousand rubles?” The answers were divided into five groups according to different financial strategies such as consumption, insurance, saving, loan and debt behavior and investing (the classification is obtained during the all-Russian monitoring of financial activity of Russian population conducted by Zirkon Research Group).

Consumption is one of the key strategies of Russian population. Remarkably, in the pre-crisis period the number of those who adhere to this strategy was increasing year by year (66% in March 2004, 81% in June 2008). Then this share started to go down; now it makes up 57% including 28% of those who would buy home stuff if they had an additional 45-50 thousand rubles; 8%would make a large purchase adding more money; 13% would invest money in education; other 8% would spend money on entertainment. Less popular are several consumption strategies such as spending money to buy home stuff (from 38 to 28%), on education (from 24 to 13%), adding more money to make a large purchase (from 14 to 8%), spending money on entertainment (from 11 to 8%).

The second most common type of financial behavior is insurance strategy (41%): 28% would store up; 12% would spend money on medical treatment or health insurance (1%).  This behavior was popular in 2007 (47%).

The share of Russians who opt to invest is lower (19%): 14% would put money in the bank or purchase securities; 4% would invest in a private business; 2% would spend money on retraining.  Putting money into the bank accounts or securities got more popular (from 6 to 14% over six years).

Saving is less popular (14%): only 12% of Russians would put out money for large purchases, other 2% would buy jewelry or gold.

Least of Russians would choose loan and debt strategy: 11% would pay off debts if they had additional 45-50 thousand rubles.

Finance strategies of Russians differ according to the age groups. Young respondents prefer consumption strategy: 34% would spend money for home stuff; 13% would add some money to make a large purchase; 17% would choose entertaining. Russians of pre-retirement age tend to choose insurance: they would store up this sum of money (47%) or spend it on medical treatment (21%).

The initiative Russian opinion polls were conducted on January 12-13, 2013. 1600 respondents were interviewed at 138 sampling points in 46 regions of Russia. The margin of error does not exceed 3.4%.

*Total response percentages may exceed 100% since multiple responses were allowed.

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