Chinese New Year is considered the most important festival to most Chinese households. It’s also the season when Chinese tends to spend more on Ang Baos, new clothes and goodies, as well as having sumptuous reunion dinners at home or restaurants.

However due to the economic downturn, many enterprises choose to trim their budgets this year to remain stable and competitive. One obvious area that will be affected is the employee’s yearly bonus therefore many people may be more prudent with their spending this year. So how would the economic slowdown affect your spending patterns? MyMailMoment is running a series of polls to gather some viewpoints on this. In the poll “Economic downturn - if there's only 1 area you wish to save, what would it be?”, 25% of the total respondents of this poll choose to save on entertainment. 22% would save on clothing, followed by food (21%) and investment (18%). And the least people choose to save on transport at 13%. From the results we can see most respondents are finding the right balance in their spending priorities to fulfil their basic needs and wants during this period.

The other poll pertaining to “Ang Bao Money - to spend or to save?” yielded a result of 21% would give out the same amount of Ang Bao money as per last year. Though this may seem odd in these trying times, it could be partly due to the fact that some Chinese would retain the status quo to avoid ‘losing face’! However, 19% would reduce the amount of Ang Bao money they give out. 44% would save up as much Ang Bao money as possible and 14% would use all their Ang Bao money this year. This shows that most respondents are more keen on tightening up their purse strings on Ang Bao money giving and spending to prepare for the more challenging times ahead. So if more people are saving on their Ang Bao money this time around, how would this affect our long-held belief of Ang Baos as blessings?

Ang Bao has always been one of the key components during Chinese New Year celebrations. Normally the singles would receive Ang Bao from their parents and married couples during home visitations. Exchanging ‘good luck’ phrases are commonly practiced along with Ang Bao as a token of blessing. As time progressed, has the true meaning of Ang Bao changed according to the amount of money inside these little red packets? Does giving or receiving less Ang Baos means fewer blessings? Have your say here (Quick poll).

No matter how you choose to spend, MyMailMoment wishes you a happy and prosperous CNY celebration!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!