If good personal finance was all about math, there wouldn’t be anything to talk about.  The basics — living within your means, the tenets of good and bad debt, saving for retirement — are pretty instinctive and easy to understand.  Of course, finance is hardly about math at all.  Money is deeply personal, rooted in psychology and personal values.  Your spending and saving habits don’t just reveal where your money goes — they come from your choices in relationships, the ways you choose to use your time and energy, and your deepest goals.

Usually, the point of identifying your money personality would be to change yourself to fit the “best” one, turning us all into an army of debt-phobic, budget-building, 15%-saving, soylent-green-eating pod people.  Obviously I disapprove.  While building sensible personal finance habits is of course important, the more important thing is to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.  Like any art form, that of managing your money is all about knowing when you’re breaking the rules and why.

Spenders and Savers

This is the most basic way to split people, and if I may throw down a broad, completely unscientific generalization (I am a blogger, after all), just about nobody in the world strikes the balance between these two.  Either people can’t or won’t save enough money, finding themselves constantly coming up short or falling behind, or they analyze every purchase in a terrified panic, calculating exactly how much that $3.58 will be worth “in 25 years, assuming an 8% rate of return.”

For a spender, money means the things or experiences it can buy.  For a saver, money means safety and security.

A lot of personal finance education, especially that focused on people who have struggled with excessive debt, is about creating savers from spenders.  Really, money buys things and experiences and provides security.  Overvaluing either is a big mental, emotional and financial mess.

The Four Money Personalities

Money Harmony outlines four money personalities: spenders, who get a thrill from spending; hoarders, who get a thrill from saving; avoiders, who simply don’t think about their money until a crisis; and amassers, who stockpile to feel safe.

This model taps into the truth that financial decisions are not motivated by math, but by adrenaline.  We avoid fear, seek safety, and chase thrills-and, although many people fit into one category, most embody elements of each.  Controlling these impulses is all about asking questions-why am I afraid? Why does this purchase feel good? What are the real risks I face?

The Nine Money Personalities

Kathleen Gurney breaks these personalities down even further, into nine money personalities. While this system is a little more complicated, it still identifies the same motivators of fear, safety and thrill.  It looks in more detail at the different ways we deal with these emotions-after all, the thrill of buying new underwear (just me?) and the thrill of playing the stock market are very different.

Gurney has advice for every single one of these personalities-even the “money master” has room to improve.

In finance, as in everything, perfection is confusing, multi-faceted, and altogether unlikely.  Learning the ideal imperfection for you is a great first step.

—

Melissa Eastlake is a contributing writer at Queercents, a syndicate of personal finance writers serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Since its launch, Queercents has offered up daily tips and financial commentary to over 250,000 visitors.

My all-time favorite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  Even though it’s insanely glamorous, infused with oddball humor, and driven by some pretty wacky plotlines, it has this really warm, sincere core that most movies don’t have.  One of the reasons for this, I suspect, is that it’s one of very few romantic comedies where people are actually worried about money.

I’m sure that as a personal finance blogger I’m thinking and talking about money a little more than most people.  Still, though, I also notice that people on television and in the movies hardly ever talk about money at all, even though our finances inform our lifestyles, dreams and fears right at their foundations.  I can’t be the only one who sits in front of the TV and constantly asks, “But how is she even paying her rent?” (Yeah, Carrie Bradshaw, I’m looking at you.)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s answers that question.  Holly pays her rent by trading her time as a party girl; Paul is “kept” by a wealthy society dame.  The film is driven by the conflict between maintaining these lifestyles and maintaining their integrity, especially in the face of their increasing romantic entanglement.  And it’s so interesting! Why don’t more people make movies about paying rent?

Each week, Holly visits mob boss Sally Tomato in prison, and passes along messages for him.  After she tells him she’s having trouble saving money, he tells her to switch to a cash-only lifestyle and to track all of her income and expenses.  (Sound advice is sound advice, after all!)

Sally Tomato reads Holly’s expenses to Paul, a writer, and tells him that one day he’ll be able to take this little book and turn it into a novel.  Holly demurs, saying no one would want to read it, and Sally Tomato says, “No, this here will break your heart.”

This makes for such an interesting story because it’s based on something a lot simpler and truer than the convoluted setups of most romantic comedies.  It recognizes that the characters’ lives depend on their money-which shouldn’t be so strange, but it’s a realization that even real people tend to avoid as long as they can.  We all have to get real about our finances eventually-if an awesome old movie full of Givenchy gowns can help us get there, that’s even better.

—

Melissa Eastlake is a contributing writer at Queercents, a syndicate of personal finance writers serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Since its launch, Queercents has offered up daily tips and financial commentary to over 250,000 visitors.

Good personal finance requires education, perseverance and at least a little luck-but really, it all comes down to planning.

Even the tiniest decisions stem, at root, from personal values. Your values teach you to dream-and, for some people, it stops right there. Good decisions-financial, personal, spiritual-come from defining goals that reach those dreams, and then making smaller goals that can be reached through set plans. Then comes the hard part, in which you stick to the plan. We make education and then career plans, marriage plans and family plans and life plans. And, of course, we have to make all kinds of financial plans.

Spending plans

Even for those who don’t budget, some kind of planning is necessary. I think a lot of people use stricter budgets when they’re getting on their feet, and then when they’re confident that they can live within their means they loosen up.

I’ve found that making a flexible plan and then tracking my spending in serious detail works best for me. Who I am deep in my soul is someone who will forgo groceries for happy hours-which I figure is fine as long as I don’t spend over a certain amount. So I just let myself know how much I have to spend, and then spend it how I see fit. Even a simple spending and saving plan is better than wantonly spewing your money around town.

Debt plans

A lot of personal finance writers and bloggers don’t classify debt as “good” and “bad”-they think of it as “marginally less bad” and “slavery.” I say debt is only a problem if you don’t plan it adequately. (You know, like drinking too much. Or getting pregnant.)

Certainly you don’t want to casually rack up $50 or $100 more than you earn on a credit card each month until you’re thousands of dollars in debt-but loans for houses, cars, education, or businesses are often necessary, and you can make credit cards work for you if you know how much you’re putting on them and why.

That’s the trick: how much and why? The requests for Prosper loans that come with detailed stories, plans and budgets are just fascinating-and they show that it’s more than possible to use debt responsibly if you make a solid plan.

Big plans

Dreams for your life are about a lot more than money-but nothing can make them come true like a solid plan. One of my favorite feelings is paying for a vacation I’ve carefully saved for-it’s a reminder of what’s within reach with just a little time and effort. All you have to do is figure out how you’re going to get there.

—

Melissa Eastlake is a contributing writer at Queercents, a syndicate of personal finance writers serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Since its launch, Queercents has offered up daily tips and financial commentary to over 250,000 visitors.

This time of year, everybody’s talking about goals, plans and resolutions-I even set out a few of mine over at Queercents. Have you already given up on your New Year’s resolutions? Every blogger, pundit, and expert on the internet has different ideas about what your goals should be and how you should achieve them. From the best of the internet and my own experience, here are the top four goal hacks of 2008 - and any other time you want to make a new plan.

First and, I think, mostly importantly, make your goals yours. At last count, there were 4.7 billion urgent things I needed to do to improve my finances, health and life - know that feeling? Ignore the noise and pick the goals you’re most passionate about.

I have a significant load of student debt, and while all reason suggests I should be plowing as much energy (and money) as I can into paying it down, I just can’t get excited about that idea. I’d much rather just stay on top of my payments and make a broader, more moderate plan of savings goals-including saving for a single, reasonable prepayment on the debt.

Second, make your goals actual goals. Fun fact: there are 90 people on 43things who want to get Jesse McCartney’s phone number. There are also over 10,000 who want to save money, and, judging by the discussion, only a fraction of those have a plan to do so. Of course, “save money” isn’t really a goal. “Save $2,000 in an emergency fund this year” is almost a goal. “Put $85 from each paycheck into an emergency fund and don’t touch it unless I get fired” is a goal.

Third, make your goals public. This can range from starting a blog to telling your one closest confidant - but tell someone, so that they can encourage you and hold you accountable. Even better, work with a partner who has a similar goal.

Finally, make your goals fun-but not too fun. Set up a reward system for yourself that isn’t going to blow your progress. If you wanted to lose weight, you wouldn’t celebrate your successes with a banana split (or, maybe you would, and that would be the problem I’m talking about). You might budget a small reward fund to blow on something joyous and foolish after you meet all of your other financial goals in a given period of time, or just set aside an evening to do your favorite free activity. Hey, maybe you can get that buddy of yours to offer to take you out to dinner.

That - combined with a little discipline and the excitement you’ll feel about seeing your progress grow - can hold you to the course all year long.

—

Melissa Eastlake is a contributing writer at Queercents, a syndicate of personal finance writers serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Since its launch, Queercents has offered up daily tips and financial commentary to over 250,000 visitors.