Money affects us all differently. We all have a certain attitude towards our money that affects how we interact with our personal finances. This is called our money personality type.

Not so long ago, I had absolutely no idea that our relationship with money could be categorized into different types until I stumble across Ken Honda’s book Happy Money. Ken is a Japanese millionaire writer, and I quite enjoy his non-Western mindset towards money. 

The book covers several aspects of money, but the one related to money personality types sparkled some interest in knowing more. So, I decided to do some research and summarize my learnings as a new millionaire mindset post. 

This blog post doesn’t focus exclusively on the millionaire money personality type. This has already been covered quite extensively in my previous post, so go and check them out if interested:

  1. The Money Blueprint
  2. Wealth Principles
  3. Millionaire Common Traits

In this one, you will be learning about the common money personality types as Ken Honda likes to classify them. If you googled “money personality types” you will come across different classifications, but Ken’s structure type is the one I liked the most.

Hopefully, reading the next lines will be helpful to reflect yourself in one or more types, so you can get a better idea about your money habits.

What’s Your Money Personality Type?

We could define money personality as the pattern reflected in an individual’s relationship with money.

Knowing your pattern and understanding your attitude towards money will definitely have a positive impact on your finances.

As Ken puts it:

“The first step to creating a healthier relationship with money is to take an honest look at the map and acknowledge where you are standing right now”

Taken from a broad perspective, everyone who engages with money can be classified into three main categories.

  1. The type who actively engages with money and tries to control it.
  2. The one who acts as if money would exist (the indifferent).
  3. Those who try to stay away from money as they think it can be dangerous (fear).

If you are reading this right now it means that you – just like me – likely belong to the first category, we actively engage with money, or at least we plan to do so for the foreseeable future.

So, let’s focus on discussing this category first, and find out what money personality type you resemble the most.

The Compulsive Saver

As you might expect, a compulsive saver loves saving money. They follow a frugal lifestyle and are experts on bargain shopping. The luxuries of life are killer enemies to them, and their hobbies cost little to no money.

While this sounds a bit extremist, for what I could learn, compulsive savers do this because they believe saving money is a way to feel more secure in life.

Interesting, huh?

Apparently, the backstory comes from bad experiences with money during their childhood, or put differently, because of their parents’ poor relationship with money.

Related content: Learn How To Create A Budget With This 7-Step Guide written by Millennial Money Women.

The Compulsive Spender

On the other side of the coin there’s the compulsive spender. This type don’t include the word ‘savings’ in their active vocabulary list as they barely ever use it. They embrace “YOLO”, the motto “You only live once” or the Carpe Diem (seize the day) mentality. 

The compulsive spender tends to be friendly, gift giver and fun to be around. Any excuse to spend money is welcome to them.

Fiesta!

The main reason why they behave the way they do is to make them feel more in control. They crave for a sense of self-respect and recognition as they often have low self-esteem. Unfortunately, spending money does not cure the issue but just hides it temporally. Soon after the negative thinking will gain momentum again. Sadly, that makes them unable to truly enjoy their purchases.

Studies show that most compulsive spenders were brought up by parents who were compulsive savers. The boredom they felt when growing up is what makes them spend money during their adulthood.

The compulsive Spender type

The Compulsive Moneymaker

That’s basically me, end of story (I wish!).

People who belong into this category put all their attention on ways to make more money. They spend lots of time and energy on improving their skills or abilities. Work efficiency, productivity and time management are all topics they deliberately try to improve. 

Compulsive moneymakers pursue approval and recognition from others for their success with money. The bad side of this is that it can become a vicious circle, as cravings from more attention don’t stop, no matter how much you make.

The Indifferent-to-Money

For this type, money is not an important subject. They are commonly found among professors, teachers, artists, researchers, doctors and others. Besides that personal finance is not their thing, they are normally quite well-off. However, they rely on their partners or spouses to take care of the numbers and may struggle to keep themselves financially healthy if they eventually lose them.

The Hippie

Hippies seek to free themselves from societal restrictions, choosing their own way of living. The hippie is the only type that view money as a source of problems. A world with less consumerism would make them much happier.

Albeit hippies are after a life of joy, they avoid finding happiness on spending money. They follow a frugal lifestyle, travel light, wear inexpensive clothes, (smoke weed) and practise love and sex quite often!

Bob Marley! Let’s go!

The Saver-Splurger

This type is a compulsive saver until it becomes a compulsive spender. They save hard believing is the best thing to do until they reach an overwhelming point and spend it all poorly on things they don’t actually need, as expensive cars. They tend to regret this action afterwards and feel guilty.

No bueno!

The Gambler

The gambler seeks adrenaline running through their veins in form of excitement and fun.

However, they tend to get lost in the pleasure of the thrill of risk and promise of reward. This makes them take high risks with their money, sometimes making big wins, but many other times (regrettable) loses.

An interesting fact is that the gamblers are sometimes brought by the compulsive saver type. A previous boring life can trigger a person to become a compulsive spender or a gambler or both for the purpose of escaping boredom.

The Worrier

Any guesses on what worriers do?

You got it!

The worrier is always worried about money. It doesn’t matter how much money they have as they will still worry about losing it.

This money type has a negative thinking about the future, they project problems and that caused them to worry. Even when they are quite well-off, worriers are concerned that something bad will happen and wipe them out.

This money type sadly lacks confidence and self-esteem, and that also reflects on their relationship with money.

What’s your money personality type?

In my case I don’t think that I am a 100% one type only, but a bit of a mix. 

My parents struggled financially for the most of my childhood. This is what has strongly defined my relationship with money as I went through adolescence.

My parents would always say:

“Make sure you always save money or keep a good amount of money saved in your bank account!”.

So, that’s somehow what I have been doing ever since I earned my first Euro. I guess that puts me into the compulsive saver category.

However, the fact that saving money can bring boredom is also true. I spent my childhood playing my father’s Meccano old games or playing football with other children in the neighbourhood. No travelling, no family holidays, no summer camps or any other fun activities that involve spending money due to poverty.

I am conscious that my childhood experiences is what has put me in a strong financial position today, but I sometimes wonder if that million I’m striving for will be enough to fulfil my safety needs or it will be just an endless game.

One million euros seems a lot to many but not that much to me, and that’s because I have a little worrier inside me, which I absolutely dislike. I think that the compulsive saver and worrier are somehow attached to each other as you must be a little worried before you consciously save money? Is that or you start saving money after being broke.

In addition, as I have mentioned several times in the blog, I “enjoy gambling” part of my money with investing some of my capital into P2P lending platforms or picking individual stocks (although most of them are defensive blue chips stocks). So, there we go, I am also a little gambler.

Some professionals advocate spending 10% of your monthly income on fun. That should be treated as money one can spend with no regrets. 

Even though I didn’t track my expenses before, I would say that I was spending about that percentage on fun during most of my life. But, since we moved to a cheaper area, where there are not many interesting things to do or people to meet, my appetite for “gambling” increased. Is this just a coincidence?

Then there’s the moneymaker me that I am trying to stimulate. I wish I could be a little less of a worrier and more of a moneymaker. It’s hard work to change the money blueprint from our childhood but it is definitely not impossible. That’s why I named this blog as I named it too.

So, to put it all down shorty:

My most relevant type is compulsive saver, I am sometimes a bit of a worrier, but I am changing towards becoming a moneymaker (millionaire mindset). On the meantime, I like to be a little gambler to make the journey more enjoyable.

Over to you, what money personality type do you identify the most with?