Japan's squeaky clean youth doesn't like to squander

TOKYO, Aug 22 (Reuters) More young Japanese are saving their money, filling their weekends with household chores instead of buying cars and going out drinking, according to an online newspaper survey of 1,207 men and women in their 20s.

Reflecting sliding sales in Japan's domestic automobile market, only 13 per cent of the 20-somethings polled by the Nikkei business daily said they own a car, down from 23.6 per cent in a 2000 survey.

And just over a quarter of them say they want one, compared to nearly half of the respondents in the earlier poll.

More than one third of those surveyed said they drink less than once a month, with 29.6 per cent saying alcohol was a ''waste of money''. Forty-three per cent of respondents said they spent most of their weekends at home, filling their spare time with chores such as laundry and cleaning.

Despite this frugality, the average disposable income of twenty-somethings increased by 4,000 yen (34.78 dollar) from 7 years ago to 64,400 yen per month.

REUTERS RKM RAI1019