Money Spells: Simple Prosperity Rituals, Bowls and Candles

Money spells are simple prosperity rituals, such as a green candle, a fed money bowl or a coin turned under the new moon, that the craft uses to focus intention on one specific need. Each comes in two halves: the working itself, and the practical step you take right after it.

How to Do a Money Spell: The Five-Step Frame

Every working follows the same five steps. Learn these once and you can do any of them, or build your own. Money magic sits among the abundance workings in the wider map of types of spells, and if this is your very first working, the gentler options in beginner spells pair well with it.

1. Name the need in one sentence. "Enough to cover this month's rent." "Steady freelance work through winter." "A job that pays the bills and respects my time." A specific need gives the working a target and suggests the action that goes with it.
2. Write the partner action beside it. This is the second half of the spell, not an optional extra. This page is not financial advice. If your money worry is serious, bring in a financial counselor, a debt adviser or a benefits office alongside the working, and let the spell hold you steady while they help.
3. Choose the format and the time. Use a candle for a focused push, a bowl for steady income, and a pocket or kitchen custom for a light, recurring touch. If you like timing, Thursday is the traditional choice because astrology gives it to Jupiter, the planet of prosperity. Any day you can give your full attention also works.
4. Work it. Cleanse the space in your usual way. Build or dress the tool, speak your words, and sit with it.
5. Close, thank and act. Thank whatever you work with, put out any flame safely, and do the partner action within a day or two.

Green Candle Money Spell

Green is the classic color for this work because it is the color of growing fields and, in the United States, of paper money.

Much of the green-candle and dressing vocabulary comes from Hoodoo, an African American tradition with its own practitioners and lineages. The version below is an eclectic one for beginners and does not draw on Hoodoo formulas.

You need: - a green candle (a chime, taper or tealight; white works as a stand-in) - a sturdy, non-flammable holder on a heat-proof plate - olive or sunflower oil from the kitchen - an optional pinch of dried basil or ground cinnamon - a slip of paper and a pen - a small saucer

Steps:

1. Clear the space. Pick a stable surface, ideally on a Thursday or during the waxing moon. Clear a zone at least 12 inches around the candle of anything that burns. The U.S. Fire Administration counts roughly 20 home candle fires a day on average, and nearly all of them start with something too close or unwatched.
2. Write the paper. Write your one-sentence need, and beneath it the action you will take. Fold the paper toward you. Folding toward yourself is a common drawing gesture.
3. Dress the candle. Rub a thin layer of oil onto the candle, stroking upward toward yourself. In Hoodoo candle practice, as rootworkers describe it, dressing toward you draws and dressing away repels. Many eclectic witches use the same toward-you motion for money.
4. Add herbs sparingly. If you are using herbs, sprinkle a few grains onto the oiled wax. Do not coat it. Loose herbs on a lit candle can flare.
5. Place the paper. Lay the paper flat and set the saucer over it, then put the holder on top. This is the old petition-under-the-candle method, and the saucer keeps the paper from catching.
6. Light and sit. Light the candle, speak your words, and sit with it for at least fifteen minutes. That is the session length Hoodoo practitioners suggest for candle work spread over several days. Stay with the flame the whole time, and keep children and pets well clear.
7. Put it out without blowing. Snuff the flame, or pinch it out with wet fingers, rather than blowing it out. Custom says a pinched candle can be picked up again. Relight it on the following nights until it is finished. Put it out every time you leave the room or go to bed.
8. Close it out. When the candle is done, bury the remains in the yard or a planter, compost them, or simply dispose of them with thanks. In Hoodoo practice, the remains of drawing work are wrapped and buried close to home.

This one is quick to set up, and some of it is easy to skip. The struck match and the smell of olive oil on your fingertips settle you into the work.

Then comes the part people rush: the slow first minutes while the wax begins to pool. Give it the whole fifteen minutes. That stillness is where the need stops being a worry and becomes a plan.

If you rent or live in a dorm where open flame is not allowed, a battery candle is a valid stand-in. For the general method, see candle magic for beginners. For what to buy, see the guide to candles for spellwork.

The Money Bowl

The money bowl is the slow format. Use a bowl for steady income over months and a candle for an urgent need. The bowl's open top is deliberate: in the practice, money is meant to flow in and out rather than stagnate. As the witch Panthera puts it, "money is meant to be spent! Not hoarded!"

Choose a few of these, not all:

Steps:

1. Cleanse. Cleanse the bowl, and cleanse your space in whatever way you usually do.
2. Pour the base. Pour in the rice or salt while holding your need in mind.
3. Add the items. Add each item one at a time, speaking a word for each. For example: "Basil for steadiness." "A coin for the first of many."
4. Tuck in your need. Write your need and your partner action on a bay leaf or a small slip of paper, and tuck it into the bowl.
5. Light a candle separately, if you use one. Put the tealight in its own holder beside or inside the bowl. Never set it straight into dry rice or herbs, because they can catch. Stay with it while it burns.
6. Place the bowl. Put it somewhere you will see it every day: by the front door, on your desk, or near where you work.

Feeding and retiring the bowl: - Feed it regularly. Add loose change as it comes in, and take money out when you need to spend it. - Refresh it. Give it a clockwise stir or a drop of oil now and then. - Relight a candle beside it. Practitioners do this anywhere from every couple of weeks to once a month. - Retire it with care. When you are finished, bury or discard the rice and herbs, cleanse and reuse the stones and coins, and wash the bowl.

Practitioners such as Brandy Hill compare the bowl to a vision board: a visible tool that holds your attention over time.

Each time a coin goes in, do one real money task. Log what came in, pay the next bill, or move a little into savings. Done this way, the bowl becomes a ritual check-in on your actual money habits, which is what the feeding has always been about.

If a bowl feels like too much upkeep, a sealed working from spell jars holds the same intention in less space.

The New Moon Coin Turn

This is a money spell you can do tonight with nothing but what is already in your pocket. Folklorist Icy Sedgwick, summarizing Simpson and Roud's A Dictionary of English Folklore, records the English custom of turning over or counting the coins in your pocket at the new moon, so that the money grows as the moon grows.

1. Carry a silver-colored coin.
2. When you first see the new crescent, put your hand in your pocket and turn the coin over, or count what you carry.
3. Make your one-sentence wish as you turn it.
4. Before the moon is full, take one practical step toward that wish.

It takes a minute and needs no altar, so it suits discreet practice and repeats every month. To catch the crescent, check tonight's moon phase. For more work at this point in the cycle, see new moon rituals and the wider guide to moon magic.

Job and Success Spell

Job magic is money magic with a sharper target. This version is built directly into the application process: the spell and the send happen in the same sitting.

You need: - a green or yellow candle (yellow for confidence and being seen, green for the pay) - the job ad or your CV, printed or handwritten - a true culinary bay leaf (Laurus nobilis) - a pen

The bay leaf earns its place through a long association with victory. Apollo's laurel crowned the winners at the Pythian Games, and it lives on in the words "poet laureate" and "baccalaureate."

Steps:

1. Pick your day and set up. Choose Thursday for expansion and opportunity, or Sunday for visibility and success. Set the candle on its plate, at least 12 inches from anything that burns.
2. Write on the bay leaf. In a word or two, write what the role gives you: "steady," "growth," "fair pay." Use bay from the spice rack only. Several unrelated plants are also called "laurel," and some of them are toxic.
3. Lay out the papers. Put the job ad or CV under the candle's plate, with the bay leaf on top.
4. Light and read. Light the candle and read your application or cover letter aloud once, as if to the room. Then speak your words.
5. Send it before the flame is out. Submit the application, send the follow-up email, or message your contact before the candle is out. Never leave the flame burning while you step away.
6. Keep the leaf close. Keep the bay leaf in your wallet or with your interview notes until you hear back.

For timing a promotion or interview more finely, see planetary days.

What to Say During a Money Spell

Say something short, true and specific, in the present tense and in your own voice. Rhyme is optional. The lines below are original templates written for this page, not traditional texts, so change any word that does not sound like you.

A few guidelines: - Name the real need. Name the bill or the steady income, not a lottery sum. A grounded target matches an action you can actually take. - Include a giving clause. Add something like "and some to share." Old money lore treats wealth as something that moves. - End with a promise to act. That line is what makes the working whole.

To build wording from scratch, see how to write your own spell.

Best Day and Timing for Money Spells

Timing enhances the work. It is not required. If rent is due Monday, light the candle now and make the call now. The deeper systems live in planetary days and hours and in working with lunar phases.

Pair Every Money Spell With an Action

A money spell has two halves. The candle, bowl or coin is one half. Your next practical step is the other. These are everyday steps, not financial advice.

This pairing is not a modern hedge. The craft has always worked with hands as well as candles. If the beliefs underneath the numbers keep tripping you up, money mindset digs into them, and inspired action covers choosing the next step.

Which Format Fits Your Need

For the last row, see the honey jar spell and the general guide to spell jars. The New Year meal sits naturally within kitchen witchcraft. If you also set the year's intentions on paper, a new year vision board keeps them in sight.

When a Money Spell Does Not Seem to Work

Practitioners usually look at three things first:

• A vague intention. "More money" gives the working nothing to aim at.
• A missing partner action. The candle burned, but the call never got made.
• An unrealistic timeline. You asked for a month's change in a week.

Hardship is never proof that you did the magic wrong. Money trouble is real trouble in real lives. Appalachian conjure worker Jake Richards writes about it in exactly that register.

You never need to pay a stranger for a spell. AARP lists a "psychic" who guarantees a financial windfall, or who keeps finding new things wrong with your life for a fee, as a top warning sign. These scammers target people who are already struggling, and AARP points victims to the FTC or the BBB Scam Tracker. Everything on this page uses kitchen items.

For a fuller look, see why a spell didn't work and the guide to scams to avoid.

Money Spell Ingredients at a Glance

About cinnamon oil: in a 2015 self-reported survey by the Tisserand Institute, 27% of people who used cinnamon or cassia oils reported an adverse reaction, and undiluted use raised the risk. Do not ingest anything that has sat in a bowl or on an altar.

For more depth, see the herb correspondences chart, crystals by purpose and the candle color chart.

Where Money Magic Comes From

Like produces like

Most money magic runs on what James George Frazer, in The Golden Bough (1889), called the law of similarity ("like produces like") and the law of contact (things once together go on acting on each other). Practitioners did this long before Frazer named it. Green for growing things, coins for coins, rice that turns one grain into a bowlful: the materials resemble what is being called in. For more on that mechanism, see how spells work.

Turning the coin in England

The new moon coin turn above is English folk practice. People counted the coins in their pocket, sometimes spat on them, or turned them over at the new moon so the money would increase as the moon waxed.

Hoppin' John in the American South

Across the American South, Hoppin' John with greens on New Year's Day is eaten for a prosperous year:

• The black-eyed peas stand for coins, and sometimes a real coin goes into the pot or under the bowls.
• The greens stand for paper money.
• Cornbread stands for gold.
• The leftovers, eaten the next day, are called "Skippin' Jenny," a nod to frugality.

Regional versions use field peas in the South Carolina Lowcountry and Geechee red peas on Sapelo Island. The lesson about spending wisely is already built into the meal's own folklore.

The beckoning cat of Japan

The maneki-neko, the beckoning cat at shop entrances, emerged in the Edo period (1603 to 1868). Its raised left paw is said to invite customers and its right to draw money, and the classic figure holds a koban coin. It is a charm with its own cultural home, and it is worth honoring as such.

Fehu: wealth that moves

The first rune, Fehu, comes from a word for livestock and came to mean movable wealth. It survives in English as "fee." The Old English rune poem calls it a comfort, then adds that it must be bestowed freely. For the full reading, see rune meanings.

Hoodoo

Hoodoo grew among enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States. It blended Central and West African traditions with Indigenous botanical knowledge and European grimoire and Christian elements. Much of the wider craft's money vocabulary comes from it:

• green candles for drawing money
• Money Drawing oil
• magnetic sand
• lodestones that are "fed," a practice Zora Neale Hurston recorded among Florida root doctors in 1935
• Pay Me formulas for money owed

These belong to a living tradition with its own workers. If you want to learn them, learn from practitioners within Hoodoo, and read up on closed practices and the primer on Hoodoo first.

Appalachian conjure

Jake Richards' Doctoring the Devil (Weiser Books, 2021) gives a whole book to conjuring love, money, justice and success. In it, he separates folk magic from conjure that works with spirits, and he treats a working family's money trouble as something deserving of real craft.

Jupiter, the greater benefic

In astrological tradition, Jupiter governs growth, expansion, prosperity and good fortune, along with big business and wealth. It rules Thursday, which many Romance languages still name for it. That is why Thursday became the default money day, and why royal blue and purple sometimes join green on prosperity altars.

Saint Cajetan

In Catholic devotion, Saint Cajetan is venerated as patron of the unemployed, with his feast day on 7 August. In life, he founded a bank to help the poor and to offer an alternative to usurers. He belongs to his devotion, not to a spell, but it is a fitting detail: the patron of job seekers is remembered for building something practical.

Whatever the tradition, the work of prosperity still comes down to patient, practical steps taken with a steady mind.