Blog: Weddings, Marriage and Money: Then and Now

In July 2015, along with research company Qualtrics, Credit Karma surveyed 500 Millennials (ages 18-34) and 500 Baby Boomers (ages 50-65) in America to compare their beliefs and behaviors toward getting married and building a future. Here’s what we found:

Breaking the Bank to Tie the Knot: Millennial weddings carry a higher price tag

  • Fifty-six percent of Millennial couples spent more than $5,000 on their wedding, while 30 percent spent more than $10,000. In comparison, almost half (49 percent) of Baby Boomers spent less than $1,000 on their wedding (roughly equivalent to $3,000 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
  • As wedding costs rise, more people are chipping in to meet the cost. Forty-two percent of Millennials had parents who helped foot the bill, compared to 30 percent of Baby Boomers.
  • Paying for Millennial weddings was nearly three times more likely to send someone into debt than Baby Boomer weddings.

Financial Skeletons: Married couples are sharing finances but keeping secrets

  • The majority of couples of both generations said that they felt the need to check in with their spouse before making major purchases. More than 50 percent of all couples said they would check in with their spouse before spending more than $100.
  • Yet, 15 percent of Baby Boomers and 17 percent of Millennials said they hid purchases from their spouse.
  • More than 10 percent of Millennials said they had a bank account or credit card their spouse wasn’t aware of.

Credit Score Shyness: Married couples are revealing a lot of other information before sharing their credit score

  • Millennials were more likely to know how many sexual partners their spouse has had than what their credit score was.
  • In contrast, Baby Boomers were more likely to know their spouse’s credit score than how many notches their spouse has in their bedpost.
  • Despite the massive impact of credit scores on a person’s financial life, married couples from both generations were more likely to know their spouse’s salary, weight and how they liked their eggs than their credit score.

Sharing the Purse Strings: For Millennials, marriage isn’t much of a lifestyle change

  • Millennials are more likely to have lived together and shared finances prior to their wedding day than Baby Boomers. Over 80 percent of Millennial couples say they lived together before marriage, compared to 57 percent of Baby Boomers.
  • Among the couples of both generations that had lived together before marriage, Millennial couples had cohabitated for a much longer time than Baby Boomers. Millennial couples were nearly twice as likely to have lived together for over a year before marriage.
  • Half of Millennials had joined their finances prior to exchanging wedding vows, either combining their accounts entirely, or sharing at least one bank account, while two-thirds of Baby Boomers had no joint account prior to marriage.
  • Before saying “I do,” Millennials were 50 percent more likely than Baby Boomers to split all of their finances evenly. Furthermore, getting married had little impact on how Millennials divided their bills.
  • Couples of both generations were less likely to share a credit card than a bank account, both before and after marriage. Sixty-four percent of Millennials and 83 percent of Baby Boomers had no shared cards prior to their wedding day. About one third of married couples in each generation still don’t share a credit card.

Not That Different After All: Millennials and Baby Boomers have more in common than some might guess

  • The number of couples who share a last name has barely changed between generations: 88 percent of Baby Boomer couples surveyed shared a last name, compared to 84 percent of Millennials.
  • Millennials and Baby Boomers had nearly identical attitudes toward managing finances as a married couple. Over 80 percent of both Millennials and Baby Boomers discussed finances before tying the knot and continue to do so regularly.
  • More than 70 percent of both Millennials and Baby Boomers surveyed felt that buying a home was a marker of financial success. Ninety-two percent of Millennial couples who don’t already own a home plan on buying one.
  • Eighteen percent of Millennial couples and 19 percent of Baby Boomer couples confessed to finding it difficult to talk about finances with their spouse.