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Take the Time to Talk About Money

#ResearchWednesday Family Communication, Resources, and Income in Adolescence and Financial Behaviors in Young Adulthood Quick Summary: Researchers Szendrey and Fiala at Walsh University looked at the relationship between family communication and resources related to financial management behaviors of young adults ages 18 to 34. They found that parents act as...

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#ResearchWednesday: Financial Advice and Other Desirable Financial Behaviors

Research brief contributed by Keith MorelandExciting Findings:The most exciting findings of my paper1 are that obtaining financial advice is associated with improved (more productive) financial behaviors, such as avoiding bank overdrafts, paying credit card balances on time and in full, establishing a retirement account, and checking credit scores/reports. Further, this association is...

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Behind the Numbers: Understanding the Survey of Consumer Finances

Research is not about numbers but rather, telling a story. In family economics it often is about the relationship of household characteristics such as income and education, to investment decisions, retirement adequacy, and general household well being. A frequently used source of data is the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) conducted by...

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#ResearchWednesday: I Think I Can Get Ahead

Perceived Economic Mobility, Income, and Financial Behaviors of Young AdultsResearch brief contributed by Julie SzendreyThis study is one of the first to investigate the relationships between perceived economic mobility (Yoon & Wong, 2014) of young adults and their financial management behaviors, specifically cash management, credit management, and savings and investment (Dew &...

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#Friday Follow: “Communicating Family Finances”

Ashley LeBaron is a family finance researcher at the University of Arizona. As a researcher, she runs statistical tests and writes papers focusing on how money influences couple relationships and how parents teach their kids about money. She and her colleagues were recently published in the latest issue of the...

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#ResearchWednesday – Serving Underserved Populations: The Incarcerated

Though there is much attention paid to overcrowded prisons, criminal justice reform, and recidivism, little has been done to address how men and women who have experienced incarceration relate to money. There is so much not known that it’s difficult to know where to start the conversation. In my recent...

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#ResearchWednesday – Associations of Health and Financial Resources With Stress

The Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education® (AFCPE®) recently released results from a study examining the association of health and financial resources with stress. Published in the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning (JFCP) as part of the special issue on health and finances, the study revealed that perceived accumulation and loss...

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#ResearchWednesday – Identifying Bankruptcy Triggers with Medical Debt

The rising costs of health care and/or lack of insurance coverage may cause many households to build up medical bills to the point where they cannot pay them. A recent research study of bankruptcy filings found significant medical debt serves as a trigger, rather than a fundamental cause, of bankruptcy....

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#ResearchWednesday – Financial Education as an Intervention for Health

Financial education programs may increase financial knowledge and improve financial behaviors, but a study at Creighton University found that financial education can also improve health.  The study found significant improvements in health related quality of life that were sustained two years after participation in the education program. Single, low-income women...

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Research Reflections: Rethinking the 3 to 6 months Rule of Thumb

I have a confession to make: I hate cash. And beyond that, I do not practice many of the behaviors I have heard preached from financial pulpits over the past several years. For example, I do not keep 3-6 months of living expenses in cash or equivalents. This paper began...

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Naughty or nice: Is there a financial reward for acting ethically?

It is almost Christmas time, and the song “Santa Claus is coming to town” keeps playing over and over. For me, the key lines of this jingle are “He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.” The implications of this are clear: Good kids will get...

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