money management

Your Personality and How You Spend Money

Things that are unique to you, such as the way you think, the way you act and how you feel, make up your personality. What’s interesting is your personality determines your habits and can even explain the relationship you have with money. Whereas you can make changes to your habits, your personality fairly static.

Of course, how different personality types will spend their money is not an exact science, but it is an interesting subject. Extroverts, for example, often use their money to support a party lifestyle. They are most likely to contact an outdoor kitchen builder so their next soirée will be spectacular while allowing them to prepare meals outside a traditional, indoor kitchen setting.

Personality Types

Knowing what type of money personality you have can be a useful tool in managing your financial health. Having an understanding of what motivates you to spend your money the way you do, will help you to make changes if there are areas you’d like to improve. The five main personalities identified are big spender, saver, shopper, debtor and investor.

Big Spenders

Big spenders can be viewed as being frivolous with their money because they aren’t bargain shoppers. They usually wear brand-name clothing, enjoy having the newest and latest gadgets and are on par with current trends. Big spenders typically have the newest and biggest television in their big and beautiful home and are fairly impulsive with their shopping habits.

To combat excessive spending, it is recommended to give yourself a cooling-off period of one day in between shopping sprees. When you reflect on your last big spend, what was your mood when you were shopping? Did your splurge bring you happiness? Were the purchases for you or were they for someone else? Understanding where you were emotionally at the time of your indulgence can help you to think twice about your next one. Set up an emergency savings account and avoid using credit cards. As a long term approach, try to pay off outstanding credit card debt.

Savers

If you are a saver, you have the opposite habits of big spenders. You typically shop around for bargains and avoid spending money if you don’t have to. You don’t need to have a plan of action for overspending because that isn’t something you struggle with. Instead, you like to be prepared for every eventuality so you have little credit card debt as well as established savings and retirement accounts.

Shoppers

Shoppers are similar to big spenders as they both enjoy spending money. The biggest difference between the two is shoppers look for bargains. They genuinely feel good when they find a bargain, regardless if they need the items they buy or not.

Debtors

Debtors are the most unique of the 3 types that enjoy spending money. They aren’t interested in having the latest or the greatest and they don’t shop for any type of emotional fulfillment. If anything, they are the ones who put the least amount of thought into their money. They make purchases without keeping track of how much they earn or how much they spend; consequently, debtors typically have a significant amount of debt.

Investors

Investors are the most methodical of the financial personalities. They are very careful with how they spend their money and are diligent with making their money work for them.

Even though there are five defined money personalities, it doesn’t mean you will fall completely into one category; it’s common to have overlapping characteristics. What’s most important is identifying how you spend your money so you can make the changes you want to in order to achieve your financial goals.

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