Last week I took a quiz from O Magazine and Suze Orman about my financial personality. I’ve been working on a book idea that combines yoga and personal finance so my brain is currently equally divided between the two disciplines, seeing so many connections and symmetries. The research for the book led me to this financial personality quiz. The result? 3 b’s and 3 e’s which makes me a I’m a penny-pincher on the right track – a person with miser tendencies who has hopes of financial liberation. The quiz is a few years old but the system holds true. I couldn’t have described by financial personality more succinctly.
On being a penny-pincher:
“You’re a penny-pincher. Being a penny-pincher doesn’t mean you’re poor; on the contrary, you probably have more than enough to live on. But you won’t spend your money; you hoard it because you are afraid to let it go—which means, in my opinion, that you are afraid of never having enough. This fear often comes from a very realistic place. Usually, people who are penny-pinchers grew up in families where either money or love was scarce; as a result, the kids grew up with fear and shame—two big obstacles to wealth. When you block the flow of money out, you also block the flow of money in. You need to open your clenched fist to receive—even if it’s one finger at a time.”
On being on the right track:
“You’re on the right track. Congratulations! You are creating a life where people come first, then money, then things. [For those who don’t know, this is Suze’s simple mantra on how to live life as well as how to make and spend money.] Either you grew up in a family that had a very healthy relationship with money or one that was so disrespectful of money that you refused to repeat its serious mistakes. Either way, you’ve learned to value who you are over what you have. You’re on the right road.”
On writing my book about yoga and personal finance:
In writing this book, I deal with my own hang-ups, memories, and fears about money. And there are many. Though I’m learning that they are all manageable and I’ve come so far in making peace with finance, and seeing as energy and a tool rather than a burden and chore to manage. Writing the book is helping in that process. And when it’s fully written, edited, and published, I hope it will help many others, too.
That’s the most wonderful thing about being a writer – we write to liberate ourselves, to throw off the chain of our own making and by the very act of putting our writing out into the world, we help others do the same. Writing is and always will be the most selfish and selfless act; a gift we give to ourselves as much as we give to others.
Take the quiz and let me know where you landed on the scale!
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Christa Avampato 