Your money personality impacts almost every financal decision you make. Therefore, it must be the first step to determining your financial health. The way you handle money, whatever way that may be, can be helpful but also can block your progress to achieving your financial goals. More often than not, we cling to beliefs about money without even thinking about where they stem from or why we hold them.
Our personality may be based on our money history – up and until now, how have you been handling your money?
Experts have defined several money personalities types and below are some examples of the these various types:
Money Personality Types
Here are six different types of money personalities types – the saver, the spender, the secruity seeker, the risk taker, the giver and the flyer. These money personality types will help you understand your money habits and philisopies. This way, you can increase your chances of building wealth and get rid of habits that sabotage your chances in the first place.
See if you spot yourself amongst them.
#1 The Saver
Savers are big on saving that they forget to live a little.
You are a saver if you:
- Get get excited about saving money and also, source out ways to get great dreals for something you wanted for less.
- Are extremely organized, responsibile and trustworthy when it comes to money. Savers are very disciplined and won’t tap into savings to pay for anything that isn’t a need.
- Rarely spend money outside your budget or shop impulsively. Savers typically scour the internet for great deals, plan thoroughly and make sure they have enough money on hand before making a purchase.
- Typically avoid credit cards like the plague. Savers hate debt and paing interest, therefore pay off bills on time and in full right away.
With all this in mind, you will quickly notice that as savers can be quite a wet blankets. They are typically only focused on achieveing financial goals, obsessive about money and are generally quite cheap.
Tip for Savers: Allocate a small portion of your income to cater to purely guilt-free spending. Since a saver is the least likely to get into debt and have financial fuilfillment, it is imperative to intentionally plan for some excitement.
#2 The Spender
Spenders are all about living in the moment and tend to forget about tomorrow.
You are a spender if you:
- Don’t think about the future and focus on the now. Spenders are willing to spend money to make life great and great memories today. Therefore, might have less money in the future.
- Tend to buy things for others – giving gifts, helping others and treating others on the weekends is a spenders joy.
- Get a kick out of spending – price doesn’t matter. It’s the fun of buying that counts.
Overall spenders can be quite impractical and impulsive buyers as they tend to go shopping without limits or even lists. They buy without a thought about their buying decisions or even research to find great deals. As such they tend to also be filled with regret about their thrills as they may end up with exorbitant bills afterwards or alot of wants catered to and little needs handled. Overall, the often always break the budget if they have one which can lead tem into serious, life-altering debt to cater for basic needs.
Tip for Spenders: Pay yourself first. Set aside 10-30% of your income before catering for your bills and other expenses. This way, you won’t mindlessly spend every shilling you earn.
#3 The Security Seeker
The security seeker is all about building wealth for secutrity. They are very careful and tend to be big on saving and taking up insurance.
You are a security seeker if you:
- Are a great researcher and never invest in anything without doing thorough due diligence.
- Typically very trustworthy and rarely risk it all. They won’t gamble their lifes’ savings or dig into their savings to invest in a multi-level marketing compnay.
- Are willing to sacrficie in order to have a better future. Secruity seekers won’t spend money until they know they have put enough away to ensure that they are taken care of in the future.
- Always prepared for anything. Security seekers always have a plan and contingencies for their plans hence, they rarely are caught up in a financial crisis.
Being a security seeker does come with its own set of challenges. Security seekers can be overly negative by nature. They get quite nervous about taking financial risks and so they will say “no”, alot or get stuck researching options. As such they can be very controlling and always want to foolproof every opprounity. They are also unwilling to explore their own financial dreams. Their need for security ultimately becomes all-consuming, strifles their creativity and thus hardly look for alternative possibilities for their future.
Tip for Security-Seekers: Keep reminding yourself that life is more than just amassing wealth – it is also about living richly in values, most important of them is family.
#4 The Risk Taker
Risk-takers are get a kick out taking risks with their money – not the potential huge payout at the end of it. They are always willing to risk it all.
You are a risk-taker if you:
- Are always seeking out the next great oppourtunity. For risk takers no idea is too big or too abstact for them. Their sense to explore their financial dreams is what draws them in.
- Trust your instincts. Which helps them alot when a deal doesn’t feel right and with the same breath, if it feels right they are all over it.
- Are conceptual thinkers and thus aren’t worried about the details and therefore, aren’t hung up on how something is being done. Once they get weed of a new oppourtunity – business, investment, real estate – they get on it quick.
- Aren’t afraid of making decisions and hope onto the next big idea as quickly as they can. In a perfect world of money, this can be a great positive since time and timing is everything.
As much as risk takers have a great sense of adventure, they are also quite vulnerable to cons and scams. The thrill of the deals and the desires for wealth create a bad combination that blinds them to the possibility of loss. Their impatience and decisiveness further compounds this risk as risk takers like to make decisions without consulting, weighing the impact or considering other peoples feelings.
Tip for Risk Taker: Stop and seek out a second and third opinion about any investment you make. In everything you do, investigate a little before betting your life on it.
#5 The Giver
Givers believe that their is a fixed amount of wealth to go around. Therefore, they will give and give because they believe they have more than others.
You are a giver if you:
- Genuinely enjoy helping others and being charitable. This stems from an internally held belief that they have too much money than others don’t have enough, also refered to as the Fixed-Pie Fallacy.
Being generaous is a great quality but then when its over done it can serious hinder your chances for achieving your financial goals.
Tip of the Giver: Focus on getting your financial foundation set before starting to give away your money. Also seek to automate transfers to move a set percentage of your income to designated charity accounts every month. This way you can give without compromising your own financial goals.
#6 The Flyer
Flyers are simply clueless about money and believe they dont have what it takes to handle their own finances.
You are flyer if you:
- Are generally content with life. It doesn’t matter what station of life they are in, flyers don’t care as long as they are independently making their own choices and are happy.
- Often put relationships and connections above money.
- More than happy to delegte money responsibilities to someone else who enjoys making money decisions.
- Aren’t motivated by money and thus end up living exactly the lives the want. Flyers make decisions based on what they want not what will make them the most money.
Flyers tend to not really not think about money which unfortunately is a big part of life. Therefore, flyers also tend to simply react to life’s challanges as they won’t pay attention to bills or their own looming retirement. As such, when flyers make decisions it comes from a place of fear because they feel inadequate in skills needed to solve money issues. This may make them seem unresponsible but they are actually hardly ever think about money issues hence, they don’t plan.
Tip for the flyer: Find someone to keep you accountable for your money such as a spouse, business partner, or a personal accountant to help you keep track of your money.
Do you spot yourself?
If you see yourself in any of these money personality types, make a plan to build on your strenghts and subseqently balance out your weaknesses. If not, ask a friend, spouse or simply someone who knows you very well, to help you identify your money personality. They are more likely to spot it more clearly from the outside what you do not see.
Image credit: Top by Godisable Jacob via Pexel.
See Also:
- 10 Money Mistakes to Avoid in Your 20s
- 5 Amazing Personal Finance Apps that Make Life Easy
- How to Save Money in 14 Painless Ways
- How to Invest: A Step by Step for Beginners
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