News 2004
The True Price of Friendship
01/06/2004
- Virgin Mobile report reveals how much it costs us to keep our friends -
- Each friend costs £1.28 per day (1)
- People in the UK have an average of eight friends each
- Daily total spend on friends is £10.24
- Yearly total spend on friends is £3737.60
- Total UK spend of £139.7 billion per year on socialising with friends (2)
- Men spend more than women on their friends
Have you ever thought how much money you spend on your friends? The average cost to each of us per day to maintain a friendship in 2004 is £1.28. Add in the fact that each of us has an average of eight friends, and this figure jumps to £10.24 a day, or a whopping £3737.60 per year – meaning we should choose our friends as carefully as we would any other costly commodity.
The study into how and where we socialise, and how much we spend on our friends, was commissioned by Virgin Mobile, the fastest growing mobile communications provider in the UK for the 12 months ended 31 March 2004, to reveal the importance of the role that the mobile phone plays in modern day friendships. Some fascinating insights into social interaction in the UK were revealed.
The research shows that the average person in the UK has eight friends and sees at least one of these friends on twenty days of the month – leaving only a third of the month for us to devote solely to partners and family. This amounts to a massive total of £139.7 billion per year spent on socialising – in the pub, on presents, on meals out, on keeping in touch and on entertaining at home.
Most surprising of all is the fact that men spend more money on being with their friends than women do (£1.38 versus £1.19 per day) – putting to rest the myth that women are the more extravagant of the sexes and proving that men are the true social ani-males! When you consider the fact that each man has an average of nine friends, this amounts to a whopping £4,533.30 spent per year on his mates – over £1,000 per year more than females, who have seven friends, and spend just £3,040.45.
Perhaps in an effort to keep control of this expenditure, entertaining at home comes out on top of the places to socialise – with the average person spending seven nights a month doing so.
However, in the true spirit of worrying what the neighbours may think, we don’t scrimp on the cheese and nibbles, with an average spend of £16.05 per person while entertaining guests at home. Scots are the most house proud, with half (50%) likely to entertain in the home at least once a week. On the other hand, if you are visiting friends in London then you are more likely to be ushered out the door and down the road, with only 42% entertaining at home at least once a week.
The pub is still our favourite ‘external’ place to socialise, with an average of five trips a month per person. Despite changes in attitudes, it is still the social preserve of the male, with men going on average nine times a month, compared to four times for women, and men spend an average of £19.65 during each visit. The pub is the most popular place to socialise if you live in the North East and Yorkshire – where nearly six in ten go at least once a week. In contrast the Scots, are the least likely to go to the pub with their friends – with less than four in ten going more than once a week.
On average we eat out twice a month, showing that restaurants are still a very popular place to socialise – despite the greater cost (on average each person spends £38.73 per visit). However, over three-quarters of million of us (2% of the population) claim to eat out at least every third day. It still seems that men are picking up the tab, as they spend nearly 25% more than women when out at a restaurant (£41.11 against £33.65), with 55-64 year olds being the most likely to eat out with their friends. Londoners and those from the North East and Yorkshire are most likely to eat out, with nearly one in six doing so five times or more per month.
Nearly one in five of us (19%) would be totally lost without our mobile phone – claiming that it is our ‘life manager’ and that we organise all our socialising with it, while a further 53% use it frequently to organise their social lives. There is little difference between the sexes, although females spend slightly more per month on social calls on their mobile phone (£19.69 compared to £16.87).
Steven Day, corporate affairs director at Virgin Mobile, said: “With so many people to keep in touch with and so many demands on our time, it is no wonder that people are turning to technology to help them cope. It begs the question, ‘How on earth did we cope without them?’ It is fair to say that the mobile is a true essential for modern day living.”
