The cyber savers

Lu Meiting arrives early at her office job to check e-mails and daily work arrangements before logging onto her favorite daily routine.

She reaches a website and types in her personal expenditure, such as taxi fares, superstore sprees and dinner bills. After clicking the "finish" button at the bottom of the screen, she is shown two detailed lists of her income and expenses. Below each list are pie charts illustrating the proportions of different categories and their changes in weeks. She then clicks the "dinner" link.

On a new page, she uploads photos of the dishes she enjoyed with friends. In a few minutes, messages flood in commenting on her taste and the restaurant.

"Some suggest I should eat out less if I want to save more. While some others say I should be rewarded a decent dinner since I have done a lot to enrich my bank account," Lu says as she browses through the feedback.

"I can't believe that I was struggling on the poverty threshold only a year ago," she jokes, referring to her then poor fiscal situation.

"I was a yue guang (or "the moonlight clan", a Chinese pun meaning people who spend all their monthly earnings) and ka nu (slave of credit cards, people who have formed a habit of building up huge overdrafts). I had nothing in my bank account."

The 21-year-old native of Hefei, capital of Anhui province, works in a foreign trade company, and earns 2,000 yuan ($275) a month. The single woman, who still lives with her parents, pays little for rent, but was broke by the end of every month in the first six months of her first job. She had no idea where her money went and sometimes had to borrow from her parents to pay off her credit cards.

Last Spring Festival, Lu discovered www.qian8ao.com, a website that helps people balance their budgets. She registered at once.

"It is quite convenient. The website will automatically generate diagrams based on the items and statistics I type in. I can clearly see how I have spend my money every day," she says.

After keeping her cyber accounts for several months, she finally balanced her budget and now she is tuo guang, meaning she has savings in the bank and is no longer part of the "moonlight clan".

Lu is part of a new breed of young people who keep their daily financial accounts on the Internet.

"A lot of us saw parents recording household expenses in books in childhood," says Yu Zhan, co-founder of www.qian8ao.com.

"This is because our parents were born and grew up in a time of short material supplies. They had to spend the little money they had carefully."

As living standards in China improve, 20-something professionals don't think it necessary to keep accounts any more. These young people are a major driver of the consumption market, but have become the hotly discussed phenomenon of the overspending "moonlight clan". Even college students have joined the clan.

"Many sense the urgent need to optimize their financial status, so that they can better handle the pressure of housing and raising families in the future," Yu says.

"And the booming sale of personal wealth management products is another stimulant. We think, to safeguard people's wealth, people should start from keeping daily accounts."

In 2006, he opened the website, which now has 180,000 users. It has triggered the emergence of similar sites.

Lin Hao was one of the first cyber savers. A Beijing-based businessman in the luxury trade industry, he earns much more than his peers but no matter how much he earned, he would always spend more.

"A customer took out all his cash and used six credit cards, some of which he borrowed from relatives and friends, to buy a luxury product," he says.

"I suddenly saw myself in him. I had also exhausted my earnings on things that were far out of my reach. Not until that moment did I see myself incapable of wealth management."

Ever since he started keeping accounts on the Internet he found transportation and eating out were his major areas of spending.

"For instance, I spent 500 yuan a month on taxi. It was because I got up too late to catch the bus. Now I try to take the bus or subway more often and dine in less expensive places to save money," he says.

Lu Meiting controls her monthly expenditure - no more than 1,000 yuan - by limiting the use of credit cards.

She was shocked when she browsed through her first month's cyber accounts, she says.

"I had run up too many credit card debts on dresses, cosmetics and things that I seldom use. A considerable proportion of my purchases were irrational and unnecessary," she says.

"Even my applying for a credit card was a matter of impulse just because I liked the cartoon pattern on it. But now, before purchasing products, I will think through whether I really need them and how many items I've already kept in today's and this month's accounts."

Lu saves one third of her salary in a bank account and invests a certain amount of money in funds every month.

Both Lu Meiting and Lin Hao had tried to keep accounts in books before.

"It was boring. And I was too tired after work and often forgot to record the expenses in time," Lu says.

"But on the Internet, other users will inform me if I forgot to do it. I make friends and we often discuss wealth management and share financial intelligence.

"It is interesting that you can search out thousands of accounts of how to earn or invest even only 20 yuan. And you will be more firm in cutting down your expenditure when you are making efforts with many companions."

Yu Zhen says online account keeping is like a themed blog, on which people talk about issues concerning money.

Some people not only share their household accounts, but also showcase their life style.

A female user once showed that she made 160,000 yuan a month by opening a shop on the Internet, and many other users followed her example.

Yet for those who don't use cyber account services, privacy is a major concern.

"I don't keep accounts partly because I have almost the same expenses every day." says Shen Yang, a Beijing-based yue guang. "The second reason is an account-keeping website revealed my friend's basic information without permission."

(China Daily 01/15/2008 page20)