Periscope
Plan for a rich future
On personal expenses, some students say their bills have soared after entering university.
A year-one accountancy student, Christine Tsue Ka-shan, said her financial pressure increased. ˇ§I spend more on meals, transport, textbooks, hostel activities and club membership fees, which total HK$2,400 a month,ˇ¨ she said.
Sources of income
To support themselves and to solve their money problems, many students take up part-time jobs, run a business or make investments in the financial markets.
For example, student Lam Lik-hin spends 20 hours on teaching violin each week. He also gives violin performances at shopping malls, wedding parties or big events.
The 21-year-old environmental science student at the Chinese University said he had to earn enough money from his part-time jobs to pay his tuition fees and to support the expenses of his music study exchange programme in the United States later this year.
Isabella Poon Yun-kwan, a year-one student at the University of Hong Kong, works as a part-time model. She said she had been doing commercial photos for advertisements and modeling agencies since she was 14. She can make ˇ§several thousands (Hong Kong) dollarsˇ¨ for each job, she said.
Joe Wong Cho-yiu, a year-one student of China business at City University of Hong Kong, meanwhile, gives half of the HK$14,000 he gains from teaching drums at his fatherˇ¦s music shop each month to his mother and spends the rest on his daily expenses, savings, insurance and investment.
ˇ§I have earned HK$1,000 from the stock market, like buying the shares of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited at its initial public offering last year,ˇ¨ he said.
A form six student of Caritas St. Joseph Secondary School, Siu Chi-keung, is investing in a small boutique with his friends to sell womenˇ¦s clothes in Sham Shui Poˇ¦s Apple Mall. He said he wanted to accumulate business experience besides trying to make some money.
While many young people earn and save their money conventionally, some others try to make their incomes from the stock market.
An opinion poll done by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups in January shows 41.9 per cent of the interviewees aged between 18 and 39 considered that buying stocks could earn them easy money.
