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Chapter 1
What Kind of (Financial) Personality Do You and Your Children Have?
All through history and saturating our literature are references to the greed and generosity of human beings. The name Scrooge has become synonymous with "tightwad"; Carnegie has come to represent cultural generosity. Who knows or remembers what Mr. Rockefeller did except give lots and lots of money to charity. Archie Bunker, on the other hand, was known to shut the blinds and turn out all the lights on Halloween to avoid giving out free candy to children.
The truth is that money affects us. No matter how much we have or don't have, it affects our mood, our marriage, our goals, our dreams, and our personalities.
In America, our great land of opportunity, the 1980s proved to be the decade of the spender. The indication thus far is that the 1990s will be governed by the savers. (We'll see who's left standing at the turn of the century, won't we?)
You are one of these, and the saving or spending part of your personality influences your child. Do you know if you are a spender or a saver? The following is a fourteen-question quiz to determine which financial personality type you are:
THE ADULT FINANCIAL PERSONALITY TYPE QUIZ
1. Do you find yourself thinking about money often?
Yes __ No __
2. Do you love watching your bank account grow?
Yes __ No __
3. If you inherited a great deal of money today, would you save the bulk of it?
Yes __ No __
4. Do you use your credit cards to the limit?
Yes __ No __
5. Are you perpetually in debt at the end of each month?
Yes __ No __
6. Do you feel it's important to buy the "right" things?
Yes __ No __
7. Do you feel inferior to your friends financially?
Yes __ No __
8. Does money give you a feeling of power?
Yes __ No __
9. Are you afraid you'll run out of money and be left poor in your old age?
Yes __ No __
10. Do you have a hard time making decisions about spending money, even if it's a small purchase?
Yes __ No __
11. When your spouse says it's time to buy something, are the first words out of your mouth "We can't afford it"?
Yes __ No __
12. If someone asked you, "How much money do you have in your purse or wallet?" would you know exactly?
Yes __ No __
13. Do you use shopping as a reward for yourself?
Yes __ No __
14. If it was a bad day, do you often buy yourself something to feel better?
Yes __ No __
How to Score: Yes answers to questions 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 indicate you are a saver. A yes answer to questions 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and 14 show you have strong spending characteristics. In which area did you have the most yes answers?
Saver
1. __
2. __
3. __
8. __
9. __
10. __
11. __
12. __
Total
yes __
Spender
4. __
5. __
6. __
7. __
13. __
14. __
Total
yes __
Now, what does the quiz show? Are you a saver or a spender? I'll bet that you already know which financial personality type your child or children are. Just to make sure, though, take one more short quiz and see:
THE CHILD'S FINANCIAL PERSONALITY TYPE QUIZ
1. If you give your child money, does he or she save it?
Yes __ No __
2. Does your child lose or misplace money often?
Yes __ No __
3. Do you often hear the words "I want, I want" when you go shopping with your youngster?
Yes __ No __
4. If you ask your young one, "Why do you want this?" does he or she often say, "Because Johnny has one" or "I saw it on TV"?
Yes __ No __
5. Is your child reluctant to spend any of his or her own money?
Yes __ No __
6. Does your child get exceptional pleasure in seeing a bank account grow?
Yes __ No __
7. If your child sees a penny on the ground, will he go out of his way to pick it up?
Yes __ No __
8. Does your child decide to save for a special toy, and then later choose not to buy the toy?
Yes __ No __
9. If you say no to the suggestion of stopping for ice cream or pizza, does your child ask, "Can we if I pay for it?"
Yes __ No __
10. When you travel, does your youngster want to bring presents back to all her friends?
Yes __ No __
How to Score: Yes answers to questions 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 indicate you have a saver on your hands. A yes answer to questions 2, 3, 4, 9, and 10 show you have a full-fledged spender in the family. Which of the two personality types is your child?
Saver
1. __
5. __
6. __
7. __
8. __
Total
yes __
Spender
2. __
3. __
4. __
9. __
10. __
Total
yes __
Okay. Now you know which way your child leans when it comes to money, and what kind of an influence you will be on him. Stay calm. Even if one of you scored very high in one category or the other, indicating either a Silas Mamer pinchpenny or a free-for-all spender, there are adjustments that can greatly temper these predispositions toward the extreme.
The ideal financial personality, of course, is fight in the middle: a careful spender and a disciplined saver. This is what we will be working on in this book.
The way we will do this is not by using whips and chains to change the youngster's behavior (at least not right away). Instead, I will show you how to help your offspring set specific short-range and long-range goals for their money. The excitement of pursuing these goals and then the satisfaction of attaining them will begin to instill in your child the true joy of money.
Copyright © 1994 by Children's Financial Network Inc.
