---
title: "Not Stingy with Money but \"Stingy\" with Goods: A New Consumption Trend"
description: "Young consumers are becoming more rational and practical, focusing on quality and need rather than price alone. They seek the best value, avoid waste, and embrace green consumption, reflecting a shift from mere frugality to a deliberate rejection of excess."
author: "点外卖的DT君"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2022-04-30"
language: "en"
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# Not Stingy with Money but "Stingy" with Goods: A New Consumption Trend

> Young consumers are becoming more rational and practical, focusing on quality and need rather than price alone. They seek the best value, avoid waste, and embrace green consumption, reflecting a shift from mere frugality to a deliberate rejection of excess.

When ordering takeout, they carefully select small portions; before Double 11, they make lists and calculate cost-effectiveness like solving math problems; when buying cosmetics, they look for affordable alternatives and samples; at 8 p.m., they rush to bakeries for discounted near-expiry bread...
Contemporary young people seem to be becoming "stingy."
Job changes, emotional shifts, ongoing pandemic, sudden public events... Today's youth are a generation living in uncertainty, and their consumption concepts and decisions are influenced by these uncertainties.
In uncertain times, are young people's consumption views returning to conservatism? What do they truly care about when consuming?
Recently, we conducted a survey on contemporary youth consumption with Meituan Waimai, and 2,100 friends contributed their answers. Among them, post-00s, post-95s, and post-90s accounted for 70% (69.5%), so you can consider this a consumption observation of young people aged 18-32.
******Young consumers care about price
**But in two cases, they won't order even with huge discounts.
Despite social media jokes about young people being "stingy," this survey shows that young people are not really stingy; they are becoming more rational and practical, no longer "wasting" money on non-essential elements.
When asked "What aspects of a product or service do you usually care about when ordering?" over 70% chose "quality," which ranked first in all age groups except post-00s. Among post-00s, "I need it" had a slightly higher vote and ranked first.
Young consumers do care more about "price" than previous generations, but it only ranks third among all factors. For them, if the quality is poor or they don't need it, cheapness is not attractive.
Product popularity and celebrity influencer effects are losing influence among young people, ranking as the least important factors for post-00s when ordering. After all, this generation lives in a social media era where overwhelming marketing often creates fake trends, and various influencer reviews often mislead.
This is also reflected in young people's thoughts on the meaning of consumption: consumption is first of all "useful" to oneself, with over 70% agreeing, followed by buying healthy and safe "life security" (64.6%) and meeting spiritual needs (55.8%). Few people blindly consume to prove their economic level or social class.
In this survey, we also conducted a simple consumption personality assessment and identified four mainstream consumption personalities prevalent among young people today (each chosen by more than one-third, with some having multiple):
"Rational Analyst" (56.6%), "Practical Practitioner" (53.1%), "Perfectionist" (34.8%), and "Zero Waste Advocate" (33.0%).
Although consumption patterns differ, overall, young people's consumption is returning to "rational pragmatism"—what determines whether to order is whether the product or service itself is good and truly needed, not to seek bargains, compete, or follow influencers.
******Not Stingy with Money but "Stingy" with Goods
****70% of people hope not to leave leftovers when eating**
In daily life, young consumers' rational pragmatism is shown in two ways: on one hand, they use various means to find the "best product" they need before consuming: survey data shows over 60% do research before shopping, and 50% actively seek coupons, balancing quality and price to get the best value.
On the other hand, they try not to buy too much or wrongly, and properly dispose of "excess" to achieve "zero waste."
In other words, what they are truly "stingy" about is not money but the 100% utilization of goods.
Data shows that people dispose of "excess" items bought in bulk or by mistake through returns (38.5%) and second-hand sales (29.3%).
Last Double 11, post-00s Xiao Zhang sold her idle items on Xianyu, including clothes worn only once and figurines she bought but no longer liked. In her view, these items, though not expensive, still have value: "Throwing them away directly is wasteful; they just don't fit me here."
In terms of quantity, young people also strive to "buy just right," with many sharing purchases (49%) and buying samples (38.4%) to avoid overbuying. In daily dining, 70% tend to order dishes that suit their portion size, trying not to leave leftovers.
Meituan Waimai data shows that from April 2021 to March 2022, orders for "small portion dishes" increased month by month, with year-on-year growth of 195% and 127% in February and March this year ("small portion dishes" refer to smaller options encouraged by Meituan for takeout merchants, providing convenience for young people eating alone or on business).
Among these, "braised chicken small portion + rice" became the most popular small portion dish due to its affordability and nutrition. Italian meat sauce pasta, Super Supreme pizza, and sauerkraut fish are also popular.
******The Younger, the Greener**
"Garbage is not waste, but items not properly placed"
On the other hand, we also found that post-95s and post-00s are the groups with the strongest "green consumption awareness." They care about grand issues like global warming and melting glaciers, shed tears for homeless polar bears in documentaries, and put environmental awareness into concrete consumption.
During consumption, they cannot tolerate poor quality (70.5%) and being charged "IQ tax" (58.3%), and they refuse unhealthy or non-eco-friendly products (34.9%)—the proportion who cannot tolerate this even exceeds those who dislike "price drops right after purchase."
Lin Zi (pseudonym), a post-95s eco-conscious consumer, told DT Jun that "environmental protection" is not difficult; her environmental efforts are reflected in daily life: for example, when ordering takeout, she checks "no cutlery" and uses her own; when drinking milk tea, she uses biodegradable paper straws; when ordering coffee, she uses a "bring-your-own cup"; when going out, she takes the subway or rides a shared bike, which is cheap and avoids traffic jams.
Additionally, some items can be reused: towels that should be thrown away can be kept to wipe the floor again; glass wine bottles can be washed and used for flower arrangements; large cola bottles are excellent containers for storing grains...
She believes that much garbage is unnecessary because "they are not useless waste, but items not yet properly placed."
******How to Understand the Rational Pragmatism of Young Consumption?**
Based on the above, we believe that young people's consumption is moving towards "rational pragmatism": being thrifty, rational, and within means.
First, pragmatism about "quantity": buy as much as needed, not wasting money or goods; second, pragmatism about "quality": value the product's attributes, including whether ingredients are eco-friendly, and reject brand premiums; third, pragmatism about "choice": buy only if needed, refuse to follow trends or be brainwashed by ads.
Therefore, the core of "rational pragmatism" is not frugality or stinginess, but rejecting excess and waste, and establishing one's own standards for goods.
We can explain this consumption concept as follows:
We are in an era of material abundance. "In a time of scarcity, people focus on absorption. In a time of surplus, the problem is how to reject and refuse." **Thus, in current consumption, what matters is not how to obtain an item, but how to filter out the appropriate one from dazzling options.**
"Rational pragmatism" hits this mindset.
It returns goods to their use value, which does not change with brand, endorsers, or social aesthetics.
It also makes people see their "inner needs": a product may be "a bit expensive but good quality and durable," or "second-hand but cost-effective." What matters is that it is one's own need, not others' or consumerism's.
This explains why young people are "both stingy and generous": they compare prices and haggle over a few yuan, but they won't buy a takeout portion too large to finish just because it's cheap; they search the internet for "dupes" of luxury cosmetics, but are willing to buy a cloth bag for dozens of yuan instead of using free plastic bags.
**"Stinginess" is being vigilant against desire and keeping waste out; "generosity" is seeing inner needs clearly and pursuing quality of life.**
As Thoreau said in *Walden*: "My life at least has this advantage over those who have to go outside for entertainment, to society or the theater, because my life itself is entertainment, and it is always new."
Rational pragmatism is not consumption downgrading but a "return to simplicity" in consumption. In this environment of material abundance, complex choices, and much waste, we can still see our desires clearly, and we still have the ability to anchor our own lives.
Source: DT Finance (ID: DTcaijing)
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