This comprehensive research was conducted by two academics from Swadaya Gunung Jati University (UGJ) in Cirebon, West Java: Pemilia Mega Yuliani and Ario Purdianto. The findings of their study provide a crucial snapshot of how technological convenience collides with day-to-day spending habits among regional residents attempting to manage their personal income. This scientific report is highly significant as it underscores a pressing real-world dynamic: while cashless payments accelerate local economic circulation, they simultaneously introduce severe financial risks unless tempered by robust personal self-control.
Lifestyle Emerges as the Dominant Driver, Outweighing Education
The most striking revelation from Yuliani and Purdianto's findings is that lifestyle has emerged as the single most dominant factor driving the financial behavior of the Kuningan Regency population. In the structural equation modeling used for this study, lifestyle registered an impact coefficient of 0.374—the highest statistical weight compared to both intellectual financial knowledge and technical payment adoption.
Daily activity patterns, personal interests, and social opinions—particularly local hangout trends and the prestige of owning branded goods—largely dictate where residents' money flows. The relentless pressure of social media trends, which aggressively promotes consumerism, frequently forces individuals to alter their financial priorities. Funds that should ideally be directed toward savings or long-term investments are instead funneled into short-term lifestyle expenses. This phenomenon has increasingly been identified as a primary trigger for debt accumulation and credit dependency among the productive age brackets.
Financial Literacy: The Fortress Safeguarding Personal Wallet Stability
Even though lifestyle trends exert the strongest pull, the research confirms that financial literacy serves as an indispensable internal defense mechanism. The impact of financial literacy on public financial behavior remains highly positive and significant, recording a statistical coefficient of 0.320.
Kuningan residents with a strong command of fundamental financial concepts demonstrate far greater discipline in tracking daily expenses, establishing emergency funds, and recognizing the long-term utility of insurance and investments. This capacity to distinguish between core, vital needs and impulsive, consumerist wants leads to rational financial decisions, allowing personal and household budgets to weather the storm of aggressive digital promotions.
QRIS and E-Wallets: An Instant Convenience That Can Deceive
The third core variable examined in this study is the actual utilization of digital payment technologies (including QRIS, mobile banking, and e-wallets), which logged a path coefficient of 0.264. The integration of contactless payment systems represents a double-edged sword for the regional community.
On one hand, payment digitalization drastically streamlines transactions, optimizes market efficiency, and automates digital expense logging. On the other hand, this friction-free experience generates what behavioral economists term an "illusion of wealth." Operating without physical paper cash lowers the psychological barrier to spending, making individuals highly prone to impulsive shopping and driving up overall transaction frequencies without conscious oversight.
Simultaneously, the combination of lifestyle management, financial literacy levels, and digital payment usage accounts for an impressive 84.8% of the variance in the financial behavior of the Kuningan Regency public. The remaining 15.2% is explained by external variables outside the scope of this research model.
Policy Implications and Public Education Needs
The empirical insights provided by Swadaya Gunung Jati University carry an urgent message for local municipal governments, financial institutions, and community leaders. There is a clear need for coordinated financial literacy campaigns that target local communities and younger generations. The structural convenience provided by financial technology firms must be aggressively counterbalanced by public risk management education to protect regional households from destabilizing, consumerist spending habits.
Author & Researcher Profiles
Pemilia Mega Yuliani is the lead researcher and an academic at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Swadaya Gunung Jati University (UGJ), Cirebon, West Java. Her research focuses on behavioral finance, public financial literacy, and the regional adoption of financial technology.
Ario Purdianto is a senior lecturer and researcher at Swadaya Gunung Jati University (UGJ), Cirebon, West Java. His areas of expertise encompass marketing management, consumer behavior, and statistical modeling for regional business and economics.
Scientific Reference Source
Journal Article Title: The Influence of Financial Literacy, Lifestyle, and Digital Payments on the Financial Behavior of People in Kuningan Regency
Authors: Pemilia Mega Yuliani & Ario Purdianto
Journal Name: Indonesian Journal of Advanced Research (IJAR)
Volume & Issue: Vol. 5, No. 5, Year 2026 (Pages 715-726)
Official DOI: https://doi.org/10.55927/ijar.v5i5.16570
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