Report: Generational spending habits may have changed thanks to recent recession

Americans born in the early 1980s – also known as the "millennial" generation – have seen their spending habits drastically reshaped by the recent recession, spurring a need for debt consolidation, according to Northwestern University’s Medill Reports.

FD International’s senior vice president of Americas, Brent McGoldrick, told the publication that "the early evidence is that it [spending habits] have changed and it will continue to change. They understand that things might not get better." The Medill Reports story also cites a recent poll showing that Millennial’s confidence in their ability to earn a living is quite low.

Americans of this age group are much more focused than previous generations on keeping themselves out of debt and managing what debt they are forced to take on with skill and responsibility, the Medill Reports story said.

For free-spending young people who were caught off-guard by the sudden economic downturn and found themselves in a surprise economic hole, debt consolidation and counseling could be a necessary step on the road back to financial stability.