Teenagers today have amounts of money that most of your teachers and parents couldn't have dreamt of at your age. But the responses of the students surveyed by The Irish Times suggest, perhaps, that you're spending too much time earning it.

Bearing in mind that the respondents were Transition Year students, and so didn't have the same study pressures as fifth- and sixth-year students, the figures are still striking. (And, after all, it's hard to imagine a teenager who's got used to earning £60 a week happily sacrificing that money in order to have more time to study.)

Two-thirds of the students surveyed were doing paid part-time work. Of those who were working, nearly half worked for 15 or more hours every week. Girls were somewhat more likely to be working such long hours than boys were; students living in Dublin worked longer than those living elsewhere.

Considering their long hours, students' earnings are no great shakes; most Transition Year students, it seems, work for low wages. One-fifth of respondents earned up to £20 per week; 26 per cent earned between £20 and £60 a week; a substantial 19 per cent earned between £60 and £100 per week; then there's the lucky 3 per cent who said they were earning more than £100 per week. The balance of students were either not working or didn't choose to state what they were earning.

And with all that cash coming in, all the students said they received some pocket money too. However, these payments represent very small amounts in comparison to the money earned in work: nearly two-thirds said they were getting £5 a week or less in pocket money. More than one in five were reportedly getting from £6 to £10 in pocket money, with 15 per cent saying they got £10 or more.

The responses to the pocket money question showed little or no difference between boys and girls and between one region and another.

What do you spend your money on? Well, considering how little the survey suggests respondents were reading, magazines figure fairly high up the list, with nearly a fifth of students, girls more than boys, saying their weekly pocket money typically went on magazines. Clothes, sweets and entertainment, however, featured more prominently.

The main sex differences when it comes to spending are obvious from the chart: boys are much more likely to spend money on computers and sports equipment and events; girls hugely exceed boys in their spending on health and beauty products, with smaller margins in relation to such things as clothes and attending discos.