How Your Personality Shapes Your Wealth Creation Journey

Our personalities largely define how we deal with real life situations and the people around us. It may affect our relationships, careers and even daily behaviour and reaction to specific situations. Over the years, Outlook Money has given data- and expert-led advice on how you can make your money work for you, but our experiences and interactions with readers have also revealed that at the core of our investment decisions is our behaviour and personality.

As Outlook Money celebrates its 28th anniversary year, we chose to look at how our personalities and behaviour affect our investment decisions, future financial outcomes, and the overall course of life. To separate our financial lives with our dreams and desires would not be correct because every financial decision we make has a direct or indirect effect on how we lead our lives.

Financial behaviour is rarely as simple as being good or bad with money, just as categorising any human being in black-and-white boxes of good and bad is nearly impossible. Each of us come with our own behavioural complexities and frequently contradict ourselves in our everyday decisions, consciously or sub-consciously.

A person who may be known to be a Spendthrift may not face any financial crunch if his life situation allows so. On the other hand, a financial Worrier, despite being extra cautious about money, may not be as financially prudent as expected and may end up compromising on simple pleasures of life. The Procrastinator may make more financially prudent decisions by mulling over them than a Planner, who may end up being inflexible with changing life conditions despite having the edge of being more organised. The Risk Taker may still be safe in the markets by taking calculated risks, while a Safety Seeker may actually be at the risk of falling short of money because of conservative investment decisions. The Trend Chaser may be able to make the most of trends by catching them early, while the Money Monk may end up in regrets and family friction due to a minimalist attitude during peak earning years.

While each of us is unique, we have chosen eight money personalities mentioned above based on our own research of common traits among individuals. We may be one of these or a combination of a few; the quizzes will help you determine that. We have further categorised the eight personalities into four groups—spending, money habits, investing, and relationship with money. Every group has two personalities each that are diametrically opposite to each other. However, many of us will find we are somewhere between the two. In fact, hidden in the results of the quizzes are 24 personalities, one or several of which may fit your personality type.

Note that these categorisations are based on our own research and experiences and may not be accurate as they are not backed by a particular study or focused research.

As mentioned earlier, having a particular money personality does not necessarily lead to good or bad outcomes, as long as we tread carefully and strike the right balance. What someone sees as a drawback can be easily used as an advantage and vice-versa, which is why we have highlighted the superpower and blind spots for each of the eight personalities.

What makes these personalities fascinating isn’t just how they spend, save and behave, but also what shapes them.

The idea is simply to make each personality type conscious about how they deal with their money, where they may be going wrong, what they are doing right, and what’s the best and most balanced course of action for wealth creation. We hope that these will help you understand how your behaviour could affect your financial future and security.

Greek philosopher Aristotle’s Golden Mean philosophy indicates that virtue exists somewhere between the extremes of deficiency (too little) and excess (too much). Perhaps, we should strive for that in our financial lives, too.

nidhi@outlookindia.com