Examining Separate Financial Behaviors as Predictors of Both Spouses’ Personal Financial Satisfaction Among Different-Gender Couples in Early Marriage

Abstract Scholars have primarily relied on an aggregate score of many financial behaviors to predict financial well-being using cross-sectional data from one respondent in a family unit. Although there are benefits to using an aggregate score, it does not reveal which financial behaviors may be most salient. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal, dyadic data from 1,088 different-gender couples in early marriage, we examined both spouses’ reports of five financial behaviors (i.e., paying bills on time, staying within a budget, paying off credit cards each month, beginning/maintaining emergency savings, and saving for the future) as separate predictors of both spouses’ personal financial satisfaction and assessed gender differences in these associations. Cross-sectionally, responsible credit card behavior and saving money for the future were positively associated with husbands’ and wives’ own financial satisfaction; wives’ reports of budgeting and emergency savings behaviors were also positively associated with their financial satisfaction. Further, wives’ responsible credit card behavior was positively related to husbands’ financial satisfaction. Longitudinally, responsible credit card behavior predicted better financial satisfaction two years later for both spouses; wives’ budgeting and emergency savings behaviors also positively predicted their own financial satisfaction two years later. The only financial behavior related to better financial satisfaction (for wives) five years later was (wives’) emergency savings behavior. Overall, wives’ reports of financial behaviors were stronger predictors of financial satisfaction than husbands’ reports. Couple relationship education and other resources for couples in early marriage might do well to emphasize responsible credit card, emergency savings, and budgeting behaviors.