Abstract This study explores the imagined interactions college students have with their parents about money and credit, their attitudes toward credit and money, the ways they say their parents deal with financial decisions, and the communication coalitions regarding finances they perceive existing within their family. Students’ imagined interaction pleasantness is greatest when parents jointly form a plan for paying off credit card debt and lowest when parents argue. When family coalitions exist, students report more frequent imagined interactions. Imagined interaction frequency and pleasantness are related to credit and money attitudes. Keywords Credit cards Æ Family differentiation Æ Imagined interactions Æ Money management patterns Æ Parent–teen communication M. W. Allen (&) Department of Communication, University of Arkansas, 417 Kimpel Hall, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA e-mail: myria@uark.edu R. Edwards Department of Communication Studies, Louisiana State University, 136 Coates Hall, Baton Rouge, LA, USA e-mail: edwards@lsu.edu C. R. Hayhoe Department of Apparel, Housing and Resource Management, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 101 Wallace Hall (0410), Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA e-mail: chayhoe@vt.edu L. Leach Family and Consumer Sciences Department, Northwest Missouri State University, 800 University Drive/312A Administration, Maryville, MO 64468, USA e-mail: lleach@mail.nwmissouri.edu 123 J Fam Econ Iss (2007) 28:3–22 DOI 10.1007/s10834-006-9048-1 ORIGINAL PAPER Imagined interactions, family money management patterns and coalitions, and attitudes toward money and credit Myria Watkins Allen Æ Renee Edwards Æ Celia Ray Hayhoe Æ Lauren Leach Published online: 16 December 2006 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC