Irregular Books

Olivia Mellan doesn’t claim that her book Money Harmony is a guide to “objective truth” about financial psychology, and such an admission of her book’s limitations is welcome. Nonetheless, one wonders why a person would write a book about people’s money personalities unless that person had some sort of information from which to base an attempt at uncovering the truth.

The problem with Money Harmony is that it seems to be written off the top of Ms. Mellan’s head. Her understanding of people in general appears to come from the experiences of herself and her close friends. Even though she claims to have gathered information from a variety of people, Money Harmony seems to focus on the middle-aged and relatively well-to-do. Her ideas don’t recognize the financial and emotional needs of regular folks. For example, although she discusses investment a great deal, she dismisses the issue of debt as if it is a problem only in extreme cases.

When I was engaged, my fiance and I took her money personality quiz, which reminded us of an “Is Your Boyfriend a Fabio or a Fabian?” survey from Cosmopolitan. Again and again, we found that Mellan’s questions and the answers that we had to choose from failed to reflect our financial realities. We were forced to make selections that only roughly approximated our true feelings. Such a mismatch between our personalities and Mellan’s money personality types shows the crude nature of her understanding of human motivation.

As one reads Money Harmony, Mellan’s political opinions become very clear. She romanticizes poverty and pities the unhappy rich, reminding us again and again that money cannot buy happiness. Of course money does not bring happiness, but it can and does prevent a great deal of unhappiness. That the poor have real needs that are not being met doesn’t seem to occur to her. Entire chapters of the book seem to be expressions of her own guilt over earning money.

Even though it is fundamentally flawed, Money Harmony is a good tool to get couples to talk about their financial needs and weaknesses. It’s an easy read with only about one hour’s worth of real reading content.

Of course, one concrete step that everyone can take to help themselves financially is to stop spending money on silly books that give advice on how to manage money. If you really think that you need help, read Money Harmony, but don’t buy it. Get yourself a library card and check it out for a free overnight skim instead. You’ll be glad that you can return it at no cost.