Created in collaboration with The Myers-Briggs Company, an authority on personality research and publisher of the MBTI® assessment, Marcus by Goldman Sachs has created a Financial Personality Quiz, to help you uncover your financial personality.
Whether we’re talking everyday spending or retirement planning, everyone manages their finances differently. And knowing your personality type could help you better utilize strengths and understand blind spots about how you approach financial management.
The quiz, co-created by Marcus by Goldman Sachs and The Myers-Briggs Company, highlights four different financial personality types: Confident Money Manager, Short-term Strategist, Value-Based Planner and Laid-Back Balancer.
Ahead, we’ll dive into the Value-Based Planner financial personality type. As the name suggests, these folks are careful planners with an eye towards the long-term who tend to make decisions based on personal values and what is important to them (sound like you?).
Let’s see what other strengths Value-Based Planners tend to have, as well as what challenges you likely face. And of course, we’ll offer some possible solutions that can help you tackle your blind spots!
Interested in taking the official, validated MBTI assessment? Through MBTIonline, you can:
Note, payment is required to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and access courses and resources.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that as a Value-Based Planner, one of your strong suits is being a careful planner when it comes to your finances (yup, seems pretty obvious). This trait could help you build a nice nest egg for the future and hit your money goals on schedule. Let’s go over some of the other assets (see, what we did there?) of your financial personality.
As a Value-Based Planner, you generally like to manage your personal finances with longer-term goals in mind. While monthly budgeting and saving are definitely important to you, you’re able to look even further in the future and recognize the importance of saving for far-off goals—like retirement—as early as possible. You may be familiar with the concept of compound growth and how saving early can result in a larger sum of money when it is time to retire.
You Value-Based Planners are interested in managing your finances, but not as much as those with some other personality types. You’re also pretty confident in your financial abilities. To some degree, your interest in money management and your personal finances stems from the desire to accumulate wealth to help those close to your heart and use money to make a difference where you can.
As a Value-Based Planner, one of your top money goals is to think about how you can use it to help the people or organizations you love and care about. You might dedicate a nice chunk of your monthly income to charities or philanthropic causes.
Every financial personality has a few blind spots. Yes, even you, the future-oriented and charitable Value-Based Planners! Here are some of the potential challenges you may come across:
Though you probably do like to have a hand in managing your own finances, as a Value-Based Planner you tend to care more about how you can use your money for good rather than the nitty-gritty details of your everyday finances. You may use a monthly budget to plan for a long-term goal that’s important to you, but you tend to find daily management of your finances uninteresting.
And that’s OK. Not everyone wants to be their own full-time money managers. Instead, you can ensure your finances are on track by checking in with a financial advisor. You might also want to check out Marcus Insights, a free set of financial tools and trackers available on the Marcus app and marcus.com.
You can link your saving, spending, and investing accounts, so you can track your cash flow, visualize your spending by category (including tracking how much you’ve given in charitable donations to your favorite causes) and better understand your money habits. For Value-Based Planners, the easy-to-use tools can be particularly appealing, since you’re not as interested in daily tracking and management of your finances but still might want to know where your finances stand.
As a Value-Based Planner, you may make money-related decisions quickly, as a way to avoid missed opportunities. This could be the case if the decision relates to an outcome that could help the people and organizations you care about.
But your speediness could lead you to make decisions without doing your due diligence, or choose a financial route that ends up being less beneficial. You may want to think about running some of your big financial choices by a financial advisor who can help you understand how they will play out a bit more broadly. And if you use Marcus Insights, you could have an understanding of your bigger financial picture, so your decisions (even if they are occasionally swift) feel more informed.
Broadly speaking, as a Value-Based Planner you may not be current on all matters pertaining to personal finance, especially if it relates more to short-term planning or daily money management. And if you’re rushing certain decisions along on top of that, you might end up making choices that aren’t actually the best for you.
If that resonates with you, don’t worry! There are a few things you can do to tackle this. You might start by doing some research about the topic in consideration (we have some good resources on Marcus.com). You may also consider working with a financial advisor who could help fill in those knowledge gaps and also help you keep tabs on some of the daily or short-term money topics you’re not as interested in.
Remember, when it comes to figuring out our financial lives, knowledge is power! With that in mind, Value-Based Planners may find the following resources beneficial when organizing your financial lives (and creating the solid long-term plan you desire):
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And if you’re interested in learning more about personality type? Click here to receive the free Ultimate Guide to Extraversion and Introversion eBook from The Myers-Briggs Company.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualized professional advice. Individuals should consult their own tax advisor for matters specific to their own taxes and nothing communicated to you herein should be considered tax advice. This article was prepared by and approved by Marcus by Goldman Sachs, but does not reflect the institutional opinions of Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. or any of their affiliates, subsidiaries or division. Goldman Sachs Bank USA does not provide any financial, economic, legal, accounting, tax or other recommendation in this article. Information and opinions expressed in this article are as of the date of this material only and subject to change without notice. Information contained in this article does not constitute the provision of investment advice by Goldman Sachs Bank USA or any its affiliates. Neither Goldman Sachs Bank USA nor any of its affiliates makes any representations or warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or any information contained in this document and any liability therefore is expressly disclaimed.
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