I find families and birth order very interesting. I love hearing about other people’s families and how they worked. A friend of mine has six brothers, and she’s the only girl. Another good friend is an only child. My cousins are sisters. I have one friend whose siblings are 25 and 30 years older than her.

I have one brother. I also have a step brother, but my dad met his mom when we were too old for it to make a difference in our family structure, so, essentially, the brother is all I have.

The article on Bankrate.com outlines how birth order typically dictates finances and responsibility. Apparently, first borns are supposed to be financially responsible and drawn to high paying careers, whereas their younger siblings tend to me a bit more artistic and will settle for lower paying careers.

The baby of the family is supposed to be social and a frivolous spender. Only children will usually, according to the article, mimic the traits of the first born, and middle children are “prone to secrecy” with their finances, as natural problem solvers.

I am the baby of the family. My brother is older by 21 months. I may be the outlier, and perhaps this is because my family circumstances are different than the average family, but I would say that our personalities are the opposite of what the studies say we should be.

My Brother (The Oldest)

My brother has always been artistic. He never excelled academically, but was part of school plays and loved to draw. He’s always loved music. He’s always been amazing with computers and the internet, so I frequently call him to troubleshoot whatever I’m struggling with.

He’s charming and quick to make friends. He was always popular in school and very social. He would even invite his friends over for family functions because he couldn’t tear himself away from them for long enough to just hang out with us (granted, I was probably intolerable as a child. I was the little sister, so loved to torture him).

When we were little, he was sensitive. My mom teases me sometimes, because while she and my brother would be crying over a movie plot, at six, I’d be rolling my eyes and telling them that “it was just a movie” and to “get over it”.

As he got older, he began to rebel a bit; despite being the older sibling, the traditional birth order roles seem to have reversed themselves, making him the rebellious artistic.

Perhaps resulting from his personality, he is more apt to take risks with his money than I am. I’m currently cautious to a fault, whereas he could probably stand to be a bit more cautious.

Me (The Baby)

I’ve always been academically inclined. I took honors courses in high school and graduated a semester earlier than my classmates. I struggled in math, but I passed the highest level math because I knew I needed it for college.

I’d always known I wanted to attend post secondary, knowing even that my parents couldn’t help me financially with it. When I was younger I’d wanted to be a psychologist, a doctor, an entrepreneur and an author. Never did I want to become an actress, singer, or artist.

My artistic capabilities started, and ended, at creative writing. I’ve never liked music, I can’t draw or paint worth a damn (and have no interest in it), and don’t care for acting.

I read like it was going out of style (and still do) and researched things for fun. I played educational games and enjoyed statistics, studies, and literature.

When I was 16, my mom had a friend who was a financial adviser, and I picked his brain when he was over one night helping my mom with her retirement account. How much of my $6/hour fast food paycheque should I be saving? What should I save it for?

At 17, I had three jobs while in high school to save up for college. I didn’t get very far, because my mom quickly put an end to the juggling act, but I have been working since I was fifteen without a break.

At 21, I started this blog on Blogger to track my spending and saving so that I could get out of school relatively unscathed.

Here I am today with a responsible financial head on my shoulders and investing in education instead of on the stock market (though I hope that will change soon).

They’ve Got it Backwards

At least for my family, the studies have it backwards. As the baby, who is supposed to be irresponsible and artsy, I am responsible and academic.

As the supposedly responsible, academic one, my brother, the oldest, was irresponsible and artsy.

I find this so interesting, because it proves that nobody fits the mold perfectly. Sure, I’m supposed to be the irresponsible dare devil but it’s quite the opposite.

What about you? Do you have siblings? Who is more financially responsible?

How Does Birth Order Impact Finances? is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.