Money and Love Go Hand in Hand, Survey Says

When it comes to love, people prioritize fun and adventure at the beginning—but once things get more serious, money comes into the picture.

A new survey from Discover showed that when people are first starting a relationship, the most important factor is fun and stuff, followed by how good-looking the person is, with financial stability taking third place.

Forty percent of respondents said fun and adventure was the number one thing they look for when starting a new relationship, while 29% said physical attraction was the most important factor. Nineteen percent put financial stability in first place, and the desire to have kids was the number one priority for 12% of those surveyed.

However, once people having been dating a while, finances play a bigger part. Fifty-nine percent of folks in a serious dating situation consider financial stability to be “very or extremely important.” When people get engaged, it’s even more of a big deal. Eighty-two percent of engaged couples said their partner’s financial standing was of utmost importance.

Let’s talk about money, honey

People who are planning to get married are also more likely to talk about their financial situations with each other than folks who are dating casually or not engaged. Forty-four percent of engaged respondents said they talk about money at least once a week, while only 11% of people who are just dating talk about money on a weekly basis.

The survey, which polled 2,023 people ages 18 and up, was conducted in January 2016. It also asked folks about gift-buying habits, particularly in regards to Valentine’s Day, earlier this month.

Millennials planned to spend double what Baby Boomers spent on V-Day

For Valentine’s Day 2016, younger folks might have unwrapped more gifts than their Baby Boomer counterparts. That’s because Millennials said they were planning to spend more than twice as much as Boomers. The 18-34 set said they’d spend an average of $185 on their sweethearts for the romantic February holiday. Boomers (those 55 and older, for the purposed of this survey) only planned to spend an average of $70 for Valentine’s Day.

And how did people plan to pay for those gifts, dinners, flowers, and candy? Credit cards won the day, with 49% of survey respondents saying they’d use their credit cards to cover their Valentine expenses. Forty-four percent planned to pay with cash, 43% said they’d put it on their debit card, and 10% planned to redeem credit card rewards toward their Valentine’s Day costs.