Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The 5 Money Personalities: Speaking the Same Love and Money Languages, by Scott and Bethany Palmer



The 5 Money Personalities:

Speaking the Same Love and Money Language
Authors: Scott Palmer and Bethany Palmer 
Published by Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: January 1, 2013
I'm not one who reads a lot of self-help books, particularly those aimed at couples. I find the advice is usually so general (because it has to be if it's going to apply to everybody) that I could figure it out on my own, or else it's specific but certainly not specific to me (i.e. it makes assumptions about my religion, philosophy or goals). A lot of them just seem like gimmicks.


But The 5 Money Personalities is a little different. Everyone can relate to money. Everyone sharing a household and sharing expenses has to figure out how to make money decisions together. And a lot of us feel intimidated by the prospect.

The 5 Money Personalities is not a financial planning guide. It's not there to chastise you for the poor financial decisions you've made in the past, nor to tell you what investments to make in the future. It's a book for couples--or anyone who shares finances with someone else--to help take stock of the decisions we make and why, and to understand why our partners may make very different decisions.

Scott and Bethany Palmer explain that there are five basic "money personalities"--the spender, the saver, the risk taker, the security seeker and the flyer--and that each of us displays one or more of these personality traits when making decisions about money. So, see? I'm not cheap. I'm a saver! My partner isn't irresponsible. He's a spender! The book encourages couples to understand and appreciate each other's differences so they can work together (rather than just calling each other "cheap" or "irresponsible," for instance).

Scott and Bethany Palmer refer to themselves as "the Money Couple," a trade-marked term that is also the name of their website. Several times throughout the book the reader is directed to go to their website for more information on a topic. I wouldn't mind that so much except for the fact that the money personality quiz--arguably the most important part of the book--was something you could only do online. Is this really something they couldn't have included in the book itself? It seemed like kind of a jerk move to make readers go to the website in order to fully understand the book. Also, if they're so committed to the book directing readers back and forth from the website, perhaps they should consider adding QR codes so people can access it directly from their smart phones (like the new edition of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life).

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. 

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