I am sure you are familiar with personality types, at the most basic level there are introverts and extroverts. How familiar are you with money types? Similar to personality types there are also variety of money types that classify different types of individuals and their money attitude. According to Deborah Price, author of Money Magic: Unleashing Your True Potential for Prosperity and Fulfillment, there are several basic money types and most individuals fall somewhere between these. Several factors affect your money type, the primary one being your past experience with money.
- Who Are You?
Why Care About Money Type?
The Psychologist in me always wants to understand people’s behavior and thought process, I believe if you want to make changes and become a better person it is vital to fully understand (or at least try to understand) who you are and your mind set. Same concept applies to personal finances, if you want to make changes to your financial behavior and therefore financial life, you’ll need to understand who you are first. Plus it’s a fun little exercise.
The Money Types:
The Warrior: The Warrior is driven, powerful, competitive, disciplined, loyal, goal-oriented, financially successful, confident, calculating, generous, wise, discerning; a rescuer.
The Warrior has most likely had financially responsible parents, emphasis has been placed on education and logical spending. They tend to be successful people.
The Tyrant: The Tyrant is secretive, rigid, controlling, fearful, manipulative, critical, aggressive, prone to rage or violence, oppressive, unforgiving, highly materialistic.
A tyrant sees money as a tool to control people, their biggest fear is loss of control. They need to be in power and in dominance.
The Victim: The Victim is highly emotional (melancholy or angry), financially irresponsible, resentful, unforgiving, addictive; blames others, lives in the past, seeks rescuing, lives out self-fulfilling prophecies, feels powerless.
The victim can often also suffer from depression and often have been abused, victims have never learned how to be financially responsible they often have excuses for their failures and blame things on external events.
The Fool: The Fool is impetuous, restless, undisciplined, financially irresponsible, optimistic, overly generous, carefree, adventurous; lives for today.
The fool is basically a careless person, often come from wealthy families where money has not been an issue and financial responsibility not taught. They hope to make a quick buck and spend it immediately, long term planning is not present.
The Martyr: The Martyr is self-sacrificing, controlling, manipulative, secretive, long-suffering, critical, disappointed, resentful, passive-aggressive, compassionate, wise; a perfectionist, a caretaker.
To the martyr are often too busy with helping others and neglect themselves. For them money is not important mainly because they have not been successful, they tend to have high expectations from others and are disappointed when they don’t live up to those expectations.
The Innocent: The Innocent is trusting, indecisive, financially dependent, nonconfron tational, happy-go-lucky on the outside but fearful or anxious on the inside; feels powerless, represses feelings and beliefs, seeks security.
The innocents have very little understanding of finances and often depend on others to help them, savings are virtually non-existent.
The Creative: The Creative is highly artistic and/or spiritual, passive, nonmaterialistic, internally motivated, detached; a loner, a truth-seeker.
The creative is often gone unnoticed because they don’t tend to be social people, they believe money is bad and they find themselves in a financial struggle.
The Magician: The Magician spiritual, wise, conscious, vibrant, trusting, generous, loving, fluid, powerful, optimistic, confident, compassionate, detached, open to flow, financially balanced; lives in the present, transforms reality, tells the truth.
The Magician is the ideal money type, similar to Maslow’s “Self-Actualized” individual, everyone should aim to become the magician. The magicians are fully aware of the world around them and are filled with knowledge from the past.
These are the eight basic money types, take some time and think about yourself and which type you fall in, you may fall into more than just one.
What are your thoughts on money types? Which type are you?
Ray is an ex-financial adviser and the founder of Financial Highway. Currently working in the financial industry and working towards completing his Chartered Financial Analyst, CFA, designation.