The Scotsman - Business - Parents splash out to fill void after children flee nest

re: noticing the obvious, i.e. parents tend to make changes - sometimes drastic ones - after their kids grow up and go away. The news is that today's empty nesters are collectively spending more, and more. "...Dr Hodson's comments were echoed by analysts at Datamonitor, which said empty-nesters spent £38.4 billion on consumer goods in 2003, but were forecast to splash out as much as £46 billion by 2008. It said their annual disposable income is expected to have risen 8.5 per cent to £17,872 from less than £14,000 a year ago, and that sudden increase in wealth often sparked some highly indulgent spending on everything from travel, new homes and new cars, to high quality food, fine drinks and pampering personal care..."...