What people say
Never keep an empty wallet; a spider in the house brings money; do not hand over an empty purse as a gift.Luck · 670 searches a month
Money superstitions
Never keep an empty wallet; a spider in the house brings money; do not hand over an empty purse as a gift.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Varies; the itching-palm version from Roman sources
That makes it
about 1,976 years old
Rank by age
13 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Luck
Searched
670 a month
Money attracts superstition because the outcome is visible, the cause is not, and the stakes are high — the same conditions that produce gambling rituals.
Why it stuck. Income is genuinely unpredictable for most people, and unpredictable outcomes with high stakes are where superstition reliably forms.
What is going on
The empty-wallet rule is the only one with a plausible basis — it is a habit of keeping a reserve, dressed as luck.Where it applies. Chinese money customs are the most elaborate, tying amounts to homophones: 8 sounds like prosperity, 4 like death.
Other luck superstitions
Recorded around the same time
Money superstitions is the 13th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →