Although this is an attribute that seems to deal with shopping and spending money, it is actually a surface layer for something much deeper in a psychological sense.

People who respond positively to this attribute, especially those that respond most positively, live in a far less bright and shiny psychological world than others around them, albeit exactly the same world. This stems from a sense of scepticism and pessimism, somewhat deeper than in the population at large, about the world and their place in it.

Like everyone else, Functional spender espousers are focussed on what is really important to them. In their case that means surviving – getting through the day – in a world that seems bent on putting obstacles in their way, trying to trip them up.

Their attitude towards spending money comes from a glass-half-empty sense of never having quite enough to be comfortable, no matter how much money they actually have. This, coupled with a feeling that shop-keepers are always looking to make you buy too much or something you don’t really need, means that their spending is concentrated on essentials, not frivolities. If they do, as they occasionally must, buy something that, to them, is expensive – let’s say a television, for instance – they will need a considerable time to ponder their purchase beforehand and then time to recover before they can even begin to think about doing something similar again.

Amongst the things they consider non-essential, or at least deserving of as little expenditure and effort as possible, are items that “improve” their appearance, such as clothes. Clothes are simply regarded as functionally essential. Beyond that, there are far more important things to worry about.

Functional spender espousers believe that rules are important. Rules are, by and large, there to help protect them from rogues, ruffians and scally-wags of all kinds. Part of their pessimism and scepticism stems from a belief that there are far too many such people in the world.

These people have very little sense of life being exciting or fun. In company, they can laugh and joke as much as the next person but beneath the surface they really don’t feel there is much in life to laugh about – not now and certainly not in the future. This feeling almost of hopelessness means that they often can’t see the point of trying to “improve” themselves.

For the most part, life is tough but they are who they are. They’re pretty sure they are good at some things, but resigned to being bad at others and largely indifferent to their aptitude at anything they regard as non-essential. They neither want, nor think it important to change that, nor the way they react and behave.

Functional spender espousers are a tough breed. They will survive – it’s what they are really good at.