Spending Patterns

I recently conducted a minor experiment in class where I asked my students: 

"What would you do if I gave you five hundred rupees right now?"

The sample size was 75 students.

The results yielded some interesting patterns, and not a small measure of memorable comments.  As expected the majority of the students wanted to eat out or save the money for a future time.  However, what was curious was the number of students who held debt or were spending money on betting on sporting events.  Only one student had "donate it" as their choice, and more than ten percent had "cigarettes" or "alcohol" as their choice of expense.

Figure 1 is a frequency chart of the data

Figure 1 - Choice Frequency Bar Graph

Figure 2 is a breakdown of the most common choices and ignoring outliers.

Figure 2 Choice Pie Chart

Here are are also some of the choice comments received:

• "Hide it under my pillow"
• "Save it till you get more, then spend bigger"
• "Give to friends as loans and charge interest"
• "Make a deodorant flamethrower"
• "Depends on my roommates financial condition"

Thank you all for participating in this exercise.

The source of this idea comes from an Open Space campaign.