Bachelors, have you ever wondered why you’re going deeper and deeper into debt while your married friends seem to always be buying the latest cars, houses, or electronics?
It’s not because of the “Marriage Tax” or the deductions that their brood of kids gives them.
No, it’s because those married men aren’t wasting their financial resources on dating. Sure, there are other monetary obligations that arise from a serious relationship, but overall you can expect that you’ll spend less money when you’re devoted to a single woman than you will when you’re hounddogging around town after every piece of tail that’s out there.
Dating Up: Dump the Schlump and Find a Quality Man
That’s the conclusion reached by researchers in a paper entitled FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF TOO MANY MEN, which looks at the effects that the ratio of women to men in a location can have on saving, borrowing, and spending.
The quick answer is that when there are too few women competing for a man’s affections, men will spend money — often way more money than necessary – as a way to win a gal’s heart over the other men that she may be seeing.
Paying more for engagement rings is an oft-cited example.
The study offered men in differetnt locations various dollar amounts — such as $35 now, or $50 in the future. Men who lived in cities with fewer men tended to take the immediate money rather than wait for the money to be offered 30 days down the road.
The same held true in situations where the topic was on saving and borrowing amounts. Men — by a huge degree — would save significantly less money when women were scarce vs what they would save when women were plentiful in their neck of the woods. Less competition means less requirement to impress a date to win her over.
Think this is just the way dating happens to be? Researchers took the same locations and asked women the same questions — and the women’s responses were more level-headed and financially responsible. They would save or borrow, more or less, the same amounts regardless of whether there was a high women-to-men ratio in their town or not.
It didn’t matter what topic was presented that showed men were just stupid money people: engagement rings were more expensive when fewer women were around, dinner entrees were more expensive, valentine’s day gifts were more expensive.
So let’s bring this discussion back to our reality: what’s the most you’ve ever spent on what was going to be a regular, casual date in order to impress the lady (special occasions aside, of course), and do you believe it led to a continued relationship, or did she dump you immediately after? Leave your Moment of Financial Ruin in the comments below…