"Frugal" Teens Explain Fall In Prom Spending - Another Perspective Setter?

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Frugal Teens, Fewer Proms May Explain Fall In Prom Spending This Year
By Meagan Clark
April 11 2014

Rhonda Bagby remembers her senior prom in Fort Worth, Texas well. It was 1981. She had carefully selected the pattern and black material for an asymetrical halter dress with a Marion sash belt, which her grandmother then sewed for the occasion.

This spring, her daughter Randi will attend prom, but the business has changed a lot in 30 years. The mother-daughter duo worked and saved to buy a dress from WhatchamaCallit, a popular fashion botique in North Texas, for $800. Adding shoes, jewelry, a limousine rental, ticket, hair-do and her date's boutonierre, the total expense comes to just over $1,000.

"Since we aren't rich, Randi truly appreciates all of this and the sacrifice made for her," Rhonda said. "Her 18th birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and she said she didn't want anything because she had already received the prom dress of her dreams."

American high school seniors and their parents spent increasinly more on prom from 2011 to 2013, but this year they are spending slightly less, indicating what analysts are calling a new frugality in how teens shop as well as a falling interest in the glitzy rite of passage.

The average family with a high school senior in the U.S. will spend $978 on prom this spring, down 14 percent from last year’s average $1,139, according to a nationwide survey by Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) released Wednesday.

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