Not all people (or states) manage their money with the same success Some Americans are better at saving and investing than others. North Dakota, which is experiencing an oil boom, was No. 1 in a major study of how people manage their money in all 50 states and the District of Columbia carried out by personal finance site GoBankingRates.com. It was followed by New Hampshire, Utah, Minnesota, Virginia, South Dakota and New Jersey. And the worst states? The last on the list was Mississippi, ahead of Arkansas, Nevada, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Kansas. “The southern region of the country clearly lacks the resources needed for residents to take an active role in their financial well-being, and illustrates a need for Americans living in this region to proactively take steps to improve their money habits,” says Casey Bond, editor-in-chief of GoBankingRates.com. The study scored use of banking services, saving and investing behaviors and financial education policies within the state. It sourced data from the “2014 Urban Institutes’ Delinquent Debt in America” report, which measured rates of delinquent debt and debt in collection for each state, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) 2012 study on the rate of spending and saving in relation to household income; it also included the portion of households with retirement savings accounts, reported investments in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, the portion of households that reported having an emergency fund, and the rate of personal bankruptcies in each state in the second quarter of 2015 as reported by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. North Dakota regularly tops 24/7 Wall St.’s list of best-managed states in the U.S.It was No. 1 on the 2014 list of best-managed states as measured by debt per capita, credit rating (using Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s credit agencies), unemployment rate, median household income and poverty rate, helped by migration from other states and the thriving oil and gas extraction industry. Mississippi was third from the bottom of that particular list, falling just ahead of New Mexico and Illinois. Many residents also struggled to find work in Mississippi, the report found. New York was No. 33 on that list, helped by its prominent finance, insurance, and real estate industries, but the cost of living in New York City also among the highest in the nation. More from MarketWatch