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Many people have already started the Christmas shopping: gifts for family and friends
Christmas decorations, ingredients to bake biscuits and so on ...
Thus, it is easy to lose track of your expenses.
But this problem doesn't only occur during the Christmas season.
Especially young people easily fall for ads and buy things they don't really need at all.
Pupils attending the 10th grade of a secondary school (Marienschule) in Lingen have approached their own consumer behaviour.
They were guided by Gabi Krings. She explains what the pupils can learn from the project:
Well, the pupils have already learned that being in debt at a young age can be a big problem.
Furthermore, they will discuss the reasons for getting into debt,
they will learn how to avoid debt traps
and they will find out how people in Lingen and sourrounding mangage their money.
So over the last two weeks, the pupils developed a questionnaire on this subject.
Yesterday the pupils interviewed people in the town centre of Lingen.
The answers will be evaluated within the next two weeks and after that the results will be published.
However, the project not only focuses on the consumer behaviour of others.
The main focus will be on the pupils' own behaviour and
thus they will learn to become fully aware of what things they buy and why they do it.
This definitely is our aim! The actual point is that young people can get into debt very quickly.
Temptation is everywhere, advertising plays a big role.
and thus every 5th young person under 25 is over-indebted and doesn't know how to manage and repay their debt
In order to prevent them from ending up in such a situation,
the pupils are going to look into this subject for 4 weeks.
After that the latest mobile phone or another pair of jeans might remain in the shops, as tempting as it might be to buy them though.
Madita A. who attends the Marienschule in Lingen takes part in the project too.
Will she from now on avoid buying things she doesn't need?
Yes, I think that I will think about it more seriously,
because now I know that many young people are in debt.
Yes, I really think I will.