Finding your financial personality

A very wise man wrote that money is more about the mind, more than the math. I tend to agree, considering the results of recent Money Makeover sessions with volunteers Diego and Bianca, and Sheldon.

As I recounted in this post, financial planner Augustus J.V. Ferreria began his Money Makeover sessions by asking our three volunteers about their childhood, parents, siblings and major milestones in their lives. During that meeting, several initial analyses came out.

Diego was deprived as a child, having grown up in poverty as the eldest among his siblings. His father’s sudden business success during his teen years flipped the situation over and allowed him to enjoy the comforts of financial security – a generous allowance, a good car, and an expensive course (Fine Arts in UP Diliman).

The initial analysis: Diego may have difficulty curbing his spending appetite because of his past. A history of deprivation raises the risk of splurging and uncontrolled spending to feed unresolved longings.

Bianca grew up in a rather well-to-do family. Her father had a major position in a company and loves to shower his family with material things. Bianca’s mother, on the other hand, grew up in poverty and would tell stories about how she and her siblings would suffer whenever floods typical in their area would affect their little home. This story, however, is blighted by her father’s gambling problem, a sore topic that Bianca as a child often heard her parents argue about.

Asked how she was with money, Bianca said she loved to spend but always felt guilty afterwards.

The initial analysis: Bianca has absorbed both personalities of her parents, being a heavy spender like her father but weighed down with the guilt that her mother would feel for spending too much. Guilt that her mother also tried to make her father feel.

 Sheldon’s story is Diego’s life in reverse. He grew up in comfort but midway through his young life just when he was going through teenage angst, he had to adjust to poverty when all of his father’s businesses crashed. Sheldon recounted how his mom made ends meet quietly and efficiently and shared how he still feels responsible for expenses at home because “my father failed to invest in the future.”

The initial analysis: Sheldon’s tough childhood has developed in him a sense of responsibility and an inner need to provide for his future.

You can imagine how the depth of this session could not be sufficiently written in a short blog post and it was understood that these might be oversimplified explanations for our client’s histories.

However, the activity became even more interesting after our volunteers were asked to monitor their spending for a few weeks. Ferreria asked them to bring a small notebook wherever they went, jot down everything they spend on (from candies and gums to hotel accommodations) to the exact time they paid for these items. Interestingly, Ferreria told them to spend as they normally would.

(Results of this experiment coming up in the next post.)

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