The Money Type Promise

Master Your Money Type: Using Your Financial Personality to Create a Life of Wealth and Freedom
by Jordan E. Goodman

WHAT'S YOUR MONEY TYPE?

• The "High Rollers"
• The "Squirrels"
• The "Strivers"
• The "Coasters"
• The "Debt Desperadoes"
• The "Ostriches"

Whether you're a "Squirrel" or a "Debt Desperado," Master Your Money Type will help make your unique financial dreams come true.

What is your financial personality? Maybe you're a High Roller, who dreams of hitting the jackpot; a Squirrel, who saves for a rainy day; or an Ostrich, who survives by hiding your head in the sand. You might be an ambitious Striver, a desperate Debt Desperado, or a comfortable Coaster who could be a lot more prosperous. Maybe you're a combination! Whatever your type, you can make it work for you with help from "America's money-answers man," financial commentator, bestselling author, and popular lecturer Jordan E. Goodman.

For more than twenty-five years, through television, radio, and live appearances, Goodman has advised millions of people on how to manage their personal finances. He discovered that everyone's money behavior falls into definable patterns. These patterns can lead you down the road to ruin, but they can also be harnessed and channeled into liberating financial success. In this groundbreaking book, Goodman shows you how to tap into your emotional relationship with money, master your type, and change your fortunes forever.

Outlining six different "money types," Goodman guides you through an in-depth exploration of your own financial personality. With eye-opening quizzes, real-life case studies, worksheets, and an up-to-date resource section filled with helpful Web sites, you'll learn how to:

• Create a successful investment strategy that's consistent with your personality type
• Develop your hidden talents for making money grow
• Keep your emotional past from sabotaging your financial future
• Increase your level of comfort with money and enjoy the journey to good fortune.

Once you understand your true attitudes toward money, from your deepest fears to your most passionate desires, you'll be able to Master Your Money Type and achieve the financial security and prosperity you so richly deserve.

Chapter 1

People always ask me where the money is. The other day, after signing off from my phone-in radio show, I opened an e-mail from a young Tennessee woman with just such a request. Her story struck me as both poignant and typical of what so many people are going through in their efforts to better handle their money. It went like this.

"It's been one of those rough years," Holly wrote. "I've had a shopping problem that my husband and I attacked head-on and have, for the time being, been able to control. I leave my credit and debit cards with him so I only buy what we absolutely need on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, he didn't get hold of my cards before I ran us into serious debt. Now we are trying to dig out of the $10,000 I owe plus pay off some costly repairs on our roof. I feel like I've laid my head on a chopping block and now the ax is swinging. How can we deal with debt? Who can help us catch up? Frankly, I'd just like to run away. I'm terrified."

I was particularly struck by this e-mail for one reason. Holly's "rough year" sounded all too familiar. I felt as if I'd heard about it, or variations on the theme, many, many times before from people all over America who also seem unable to manage their resources. Naturally, the details are different, but the urgency, and the sense of feeling lost about money issues, were the same. Consider:

• Peter from Florida, running a small, successful real estate firm who is consumed with worry about how to save for his children's college education.

• Frank and Ellen from New Jersey, who are living so close to the vest they can hardly make it from payday to payday while sitting on a pile of savings they are too afraid to touch.

• Maria, a devoted government employee from Alabama, living well within her means but feeling frustrated by her unrealized dreams.

• Sam, a California freelance graphic artist who is in demand but can't figure out where all the money he takes in is going.

One thing is true: People everywhere work hard and want to live better. Often, they can overextend themselves in their desire "to live the dream" and then get caught with bills they can't pay. Or they are doing well but live with the fear that they may lose it all-and may not have any idea how to manage what they have to improve their lives.

In more than two decades as a financial commentator on radio and TV, a lecturer, author, and Wall Street correspondent for Money magazine, I've spoken to and advised thousands of people-some successful, some struggling-on how to solve money questions. But no matter where these people fell on the continuum between haves and have-nots, I realized that I was speaking to many of the same individuals over and over again, people who were asking me for the same advice for the exact same financial problems.

Obviously, they were not following my advice, yet they kept contacting me! What was going on? I had to be missing something. At first, I thought it was simply a matter of answering greater attention to detail.

Determined to help, I would enthusiastically explore the details of their situation and offer carefully considered financial advice tailor-made for that person's income, holdings, responsibilities, and needs. Truly, it seemed to me, all these people needed was sound advice from an attentive financial expert for them to make some significant changes with their finances. But I know now that expertise alone isn't the answer. I finally realized that the "What do I do now?" to which I'd been responding with such optimistic fervor was actually only the first half of the question. The second half is, ". . . given how I feel about money."

I realized that for people to put into effect the best financial advice specific to them, they-and I-had to recognize and understand their complicated feelings about money. I began listening even more closely to the questions I was being asked and became aware there was an intense emotional subtext behind every comment or request for advice. Rarely were these words uttered exactly, but I could hear the emotional subtext-loud and clear.

• "I don't want to end up on the street."

• "I know if I take one more chance, I'll hit the jackpot and have everything I've ever wanted."

• "I feel comfortable financially, but I keep thinking . . . is this all I dare wish for?"

• "I don't know a thing about managing money, and whenever I try, I feel like a moron!"

It occurred to me that people ask the same questions about money because they tend to keep dealing with money the same way-the only way that feels familiar. That made sense, in its way. People also operate from experiences and messages given to them in their past and what they learn along the way. These influences clearly hinder how they deal with money now. This also made sense, and I suddenly knew I'd hit on my answer at last: Everyone's money behavior falls into definable patterns.

Everyone, including you, has some kind of "financial personality"- a style of handling money that reflects everything from the deepest fears to the most heartfelt desires to basic practical dealings on a day-to-day basis. The problem with the people asking those same questions was that they weren't looking at what they felt about money-those very powerful emotional connections just below the surface that drive their decisions. And so they continually make the same mistakes, unable to break away from their usual way of money management to find the prosperity or sense of security-or both-they all craved. Furthermore, this was why they couldn't follow or create a financial plan that might actually work.

I considered the complexity of the money-and-emotion equation, and knew I had to find a way for you to better understand your "financial personality." When you did, your fears about money would lessen and your strengths and creativity with money could grow. What could I do to make these goals happen for you? People came from diverse backgrounds and had different feelings, different values, and different personal histories. Clearly there wouldn't be just one solution.

Copyright © 2006 by Amherst Enterprises, Ltd., and Lynn Sonberg Book Associates

About the Author

Jordan Goodman is known as "America's Money Answers Man" because he has been answering Americans' questions about personal finance for over 28 years. He is a personal finance journalist who covers every aspect of helping people make money decisions. He worked at MONEY Magazine for 18 years, ultimately rising to be Wall Street Correspondent. He appeared weekly on Cable News Network on Business Day with Stuart Varney for 3 years, and was the weekly financial commentator on NBC News at Sunrise for 9 years. He did a weekly "Road to Riches" personal finance commentary on the Public Radio's Marketplace Morning Report for 6 years. He continues to appear on many call-in radio stations and TV shows and do speeches around the country, answering average American's personal finance questions and he also answers hundreds of emails sent to his moneyanswers.com website.