People Who Are Happy About Their Money Are More Likely to Make 5 Money Moves

What separates people who are happy with their personal finances from those who are not? It's not always just a simple dollar amount. A new survey from Wells Fargo and The Female Quotient (The FQ) found that people who are happy about their financial situation are more likely to achieve certain financial outcomes and make certain money moves.

If you're struggling with your personal finances, or just want to have a more prosperous financial life, you might want to shift your priorities based on the examples of these financially-happy people.

Let's look at a few insights on which money moves and achievements can be most important for financial happiness.

1. Earning enough money to support myself/my family

The survey from Wells Fargo and The FQ found that the biggest gap in financial happiness was between people who can comfortably support themselves and their families, and those who cannot:

• 58% of people who are "happy" with their financial situation said that in the past year, they had experienced "earning enough money to support myself/my family."
• But only 20% of people who are "unhappy" with their finances could say the same. This represents a gap of 38%, the biggest difference in the survey.

If you are struggling to make ends meet, making a budget and cutting your spending can be a good first step. The survey also found that people who are happy with their finances are more likely to have created a budget.

But other people might need to make aggressive moves to increase their incomes. Getting a side hustle can help you make extra money when you're not working at your regular job. It feels incredibly empowering to earn extra cash and watch that number in your bank account grow.

2. Having a good credit score

Having a good credit score is one of the biggest difference-makers in financial happiness. According to the survey, 65% of people who are "happy" with their personal finances said that they have a good credit score, compared to only 29% of people who are "unhappy" with their financial situation. That's a difference of 36 percentage points!

Your credit score is important to your personal finances for many reasons. Good credit helps you reduce your borrowing costs by qualifying for lower-interest loans. It can help you get credit cards with better deals on rewards and other perks. And good credit can even help you get better rates on auto insurance, get hired for a job, or qualify to rent an apartment.

Want to increase your credit score? Start by signing up for a credit monitoring service to learn more about the factors that affect your credit. Or you can sign up for a credit-building product like a secured credit card.

3. Having an emergency savings fund

Among people who are happy with their financial situation, 48% said that they had experienced "having an emergency savings fund" in the past year. The survey found that only 11% of "unhappy" people had emergency savings.

Many Americans have depleted their savings in recent years of high inflation and post-pandemic spending. If you want to save more money in 2024, rebuilding (or newly establishing) your emergency savings can be a good place to start. Get a budgeting app, or choose a bank that offers automatic savings tools.

For example, Ally Bank offers an easy feature called "Surprise Savings" that analyzes your spending patterns, and then moves small, safe amounts of money automatically from your checking account to your savings. It happens automatically behind the scenes, within the limits of your monthly income and spending. You don't have to make any complex decisions or stick to a plan -- just live your life, and let your bank do the work.

4. Regularly investing money

According to the survey from Wells Fargo and The FQ, 44% of people who are happy with their finances said that they had been regularly investing money in the past year. Only 12% of people who were unhappy with their finances were regular investors.

Here's why making regular investments can improve your financial happiness: it lets you buy stocks with the power of dollar-cost averaging. If you invest $200 per month into the stock market, month after month, you'll be likely to buy more shares of stock when stock prices are lower, and fewer shares of stock when prices are higher. And over the long run, you're likely to accumulate more shares of stock at lower prices -- and earn better returns compared to timing the market.

Buying stocks can be a good strategy to save for retirement -- and hopefully make you happier about your personal finances.

5. Not having any debt

Being debt free is a big cause of financial happiness. According to the Wells Fargo/The FQ survey, 38% of people who were happy with their finances said that in the past year, they experienced "not having any debt." Only 12% of financially unhappy people could say the same.

Not all debt is "bad." But paying off credit card debt and other higher-interest debt can relieve your financial worries and put more money in your bank account. Try a debt payoff app to see how soon you can get out of debt. Or if your credit score qualifies, consider applying for a 0% APR balance transfer credit card to help pay off credit card debt faster.

Bottom line

Seeing how financially happy people manage their money can help others prioritize their money goals. Based on the survey from Wells Fargo and The FQ, if you're unhappy with your personal finances, increasing your income and improving your credit score should be your top priorities.