4 Money Lessons We Can Learn From the Animal Kingdom

Animals don't have to worry about bank accounts or
credit scores, but some of their behaviors and
survival tactics can provide valuable lessons that
humans can apply in their ongoing struggle to
manage money wisely. Here are some animals with
skills that humans also have — and sometimes forget
to employ in their day-to-day activities.
1. Dolphins Know How to Work Together
When it comes to smart animals, dolphins get a lot of
recognition. One highly studied area of dolphin
behavior is their communication techniques,
including their ability to communicate with humans.
These animals have also shown remarkable
coordination and an ability to work together to solve
problems. There's even a group of dolphins that,
without formal training from humans, help
fisherman fish.
People aren't always great at working together, which
can be disastrous when you're talking about family
finances. When it comes to studying people's
financial behaviors, the role of money in relationship
problems is a well-covered topic, and it's no secret
that couples who don't communicate about money
are also those who have relationship issues.
Teamwork is generally a much more productive way
of managing a financial situation that includes
multiple people.
2. Pigs Learn From Their Mistakes
Pigs are another group that get a lot of credit for
their intelligence, and their cleverness extends to an
ability to learn from their mistakes and others'.
One experiment, according to modernfarmer.com,
involved showing a pig where it could find food
among multiple buckets. Once the pig knew where
the food was, the researchers brought in a larger pig,
whose size outweighed its disadvantage of not
knowing where the food is. The knowledgable pigs,
tired of getting pushed aside after leading the big pig
to the food, learned from their mistakes and waited
until the large pigs were going away from the bucket
with the food before they moved toward it.
We humans like to think we learn from our mistakes
and make better choices when a similar situation
comes up, but it doesn't always work that way.
Otherwise, people probably wouldn't repeatedly
spend more money than they have, and get caught in
cycles of debt that can potentially hurt their credit.
(You can see how your debt is affecting your credit by
getting your credit scores for free on Credit.com.)
3. Crows Can Play the Long Game
There's this experiment called the marshmallow test,
and it's often done on young children to gauge their
self-control. You give the child a choice: You can have
one marshmallow now, or you can have two
marshmallows if you wait 15 minutes (the reward
isn't always a marshmallow, but it sometimes is,
hence the name). There was a large study on
children's choices and how that correlated to their
success later in life, with those who delayed
gratification generally experiencing better life
outcomes. The marshmallow test is also an
indication of one's predisposition to saving.
When given a similar test, crows showed the ability to
hold out for the better reward, according to Scientific
American. If a crow can exercise impulse control, it
may be worth a shot to try the same thing with your
money.
4. Octopuses Figure Out How to Get Around an
Obstacle
You've probably heard the cliche that goes something
like "You can't keep doing the same thing and expect
different results." For example, you can't keep
breaking your budget and expect to meet your
savings goals.
According to one octopus researcher cited
by Scientific American, a lot of simple animals would
continue to try the same tactics to solve a problem
when confronted with an obstacle, but octopuses will
change their approach when they experience failure.
As far as invertebrates are considered, that's pretty
impressive.