Openness drives curiosity about money, but can also drive spending.
If you score high on openness to experience, you're naturally drawn to new ideas, unusual experiences, and exploring possibilities. That same trait shapes how you handle money in specific ways. You're more likely to be curious about unconventional financial strategies, experimental investments, or spending on experiences most people would skip. You're also more likely to spend money impulsively on something that catches your interest, because the experience or novelty feels valuable to you right now.
This isn't a character flaw. It's a genuine strength in financial life. Open people often make better long-term investment decisions because they're willing to learn about options others dismiss. They're more likely to leave a job that bores them, even without another offer lined up, because stagnation feels intolerable. The problem arrives when openness creates friction with stability, either within yourself or with someone else managing money differently.
The spending impulse is real, and it's worth understanding why.
Openness is correlated with lower conscientiousness, the trait that drives planning, delayed gratification, and systematic tracking. When you're high in openness, your brain is more activated by novelty and possibility. A new restaurant, an unfamiliar book, a class in something you've never tried—these feel important in the moment because they genuinely are to you. They're not indulgences. They're how you engage with the world.
The issue isn't that you should want what you don't want. It's that wanting something in the moment and wanting financial security are both real wants, and they can conflict. Someone high in openness might genuinely believe in saving for the future and also genuinely want to book the trip next month. Neither impulse is false. One doesn't cancel out the other just because they point in different directions.
The people who manage this best don't try to become conscientious. They don't suddenly develop the trait of liking to budget spreadsheets. Instead, they create structures that let openness happen within constraints. They set aside money for exploration—a real budget line for experiences, for trying things, for spontaneity. Then they protect the rest. It's not about killing the impulse. It's about giving it a container.
Your spending patterns probably confuse people who don't share your trait.
If you're partnered with someone lower in openness, or working with a financial advisor who is, you may hear criticism that feels unfair. They see overspending. You see investing in your own aliveness. They see recklessness. You see proportional spending on what matters to you. Neither description is complete.
A concrete example: You read about a workshop in a field you're interested in and it costs more than you'd planned to spend. It's happening in three weeks. For someone high in openness, the pull is real—this is the kind of thing you need in your life, and there's no guarantee it will be offered again. For someone high in conscientiousness, this is the problem: unplanned spending, no careful consideration, FOMO driving a decision. Both responses make sense from inside their own framework.
The conversation that works is not about changing your values, but about being explicit about them. If exploration and novelty are genuinely important to you—not just impulses you wish you didn't have—then financial planning should include that. Not as a guilty secret or a thing you sneak. As part of the plan. That changes how the money gets discussed entirely.
What openness actually costs in financial terms.
High openness correlates with lower savings rates, higher consumer debt, and more variable spending patterns. It also correlates with higher lifetime earnings in some fields, because people willing to change jobs, learn new skills, and take novel approaches often end up in better positions. The net financial outcome depends entirely on whether the openness is paired with intentional strategy or left to run on impulse alone.
Someone high in openness who refuses to budget and then is shocked by debt at the end of the year is operating without self-knowledge. Someone high in openness who explicitly allocates money for exploration, protects core savings through automation, and revisits the structure quarterly is using the trait consciously. The difference is enormous.
The My Values assessment surfaces what actually matters to you—not what you think should matter, but what genuinely does. From there, you can build a financial life that works for your actual values, not against them.
Why do I spend more than people around me?
High openness means you're more activated by novel experiences and new possibilities. Your brain finds these genuinely valuable, so spending on them feels proportional to you. You're not necessarily less disciplined—you're valuing different things. The real problem starts when you haven't explicitly decided how much openness costs and protected that amount, which often leads to surprise debt.
Is it possible to be open and still save money?
Yes. The people who do it best don't try to kill the openness. They allocate money specifically for exploration—experiences, learning, trying new things—and then automate savings for the rest. This lets openness happen within real constraints, rather than pretending you don't want what you actually want.
How do I talk to my partner about spending differences?
Start by naming what's actually true: you value novel experiences and exploration, and that's worth money to you. That's different from saying you're bad with money or that they're boring. Then ask whether they can agree on an amount you can spend freely on your priorities. This usually ends the conflict faster than arguing about whether your spending is rational.
Can openness explain all my spending habits?
It explains some, not all. Openness might drive impulse toward new experiences, but other factors—anxiety, boredom, social pressure, poor tracking—also affect spending. Understanding your values helps you separate genuine priorities from patterns that aren't actually serving you.