IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/beexfi/v49y2026ics2214635026000249.html

The price of peace of mind: The credit card debt puzzle, precautionary savings, and financial stress

Author

Listed:
  • Sobolev, Daphne

Abstract

Do individuals who co-hold credit card debts and savings experience higher or lower levels of financial stress than others? Analyzing the results of a survey of U.S. residents, this study shows that when individuals co-hold debts and savings that may be insufficient to handle emergencies, they experience higher stress levels than those, who have neither debts nor savings. However, when individuals have debts and emergency savings, they experience lower stress levels than those who have neither. In particular, co-holding debt and emergency savings is significantly related to reduced appraisals of lack of money and control. Furthermore, reduced stress occurs in financially-resilient individuals, even if they have credit card debt. These results suggest that co-holding could be psychologically maladaptive when precautionary savings are unavailable, but is associated with lowered stress levels when they are on hand.

Suggested Citation

  • Sobolev, Daphne, 2026. "The price of peace of mind: The credit card debt puzzle, precautionary savings, and financial stress," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:49:y:2026:i:c:s2214635026000249
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635026000249
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101162?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:49:y:2026:i:c:s2214635026000249. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.