The impact of materialism and anti-consumption lifestyles on personal debt and account balances

We investigated how anti-consumption lifestyles and materialism correlate with personal debt and account balances. The data collection was conducted in partnership with a financial institution which provided a representative sample of account holders and theirs personal debt and account balances. We found that the happiness dimension of materialism correlates positively with personal debt and negatively with account balances. Additionally, we found that the success dimension of materialism correlates negatively with personal debt and positively with account balances. We also found that frugality correlates positively with account balances and voluntary simplicity correlates negatively with personal debt. Finally, we explored how the interaction between the anti-consumption lifestyles and materialism dimensions correlates with account balances and personal debt. The implications of the findings for theory development, policy makers and transformative consumer research are discussed.