How will you spend the day after Thanksgiving? Here’s some research that might influence your decision. In our 2015 survey of affluent Americans–a group that represents the top wealth holders in the United States–we asked how many times they participated in in-store Black Friday shopping in the past five years. Only 2% said they had participated each of the past five years, 14% said they had participated once or twice, and 3% said they had …
As you make your way into midlife you will inevitably encounter a growing number of peers who are on the verge of or who have already dissolved their marriages. For many of these couples, the self-reported cause of marital discord is disagreement over finances. In fact, financial disagreements are stronger predictors of divorce than other marital disagreements, based on research from Kansas State University. The researchers studied over 4,500 couples and examined a variety of marital and financial factors. Assuming a …
Always a teacher, my father loved uncovering hidden trends in the economy, in consumer behavior, and in marketing research, and then sharing them with others. He loved reading articles in newspapers, cutting them out, making notes all over the margins, and then turning those findings into essays on how individuals approach money. I would share articles and summaries from academic journals with him, and (after grading them) he would relate their scientific findings to …