Hoodoo, older European folk magic and Chinese custom each name their own herbs for money, and the four that show up most consistently across all of them are cinnamon, cloves, basil and, in more recent lists, star anise. None of what follows is a claim that an herb changes what is in your bank account — folk-magic practitioners themselves generally describe this as a way of marking and repeating an intention, not a financial method, and this page follows that same reading. Below: how each herb compares, the forms the work actually takes, and one specific, well-documented case (basil) of two traditions disagreeing about the same plant.
Money and prosperity herbs compared
| Herb | Tradition | Typical form | Substitute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cinnamon | Hoodoo and European folk magic — Sun, Fire (Cunningham) | Sprinkled at a threshold, burned as incense, or used to dress a candle | Cloves |
| Cloves | Hoodoo and European folk magic — Jupiter, Fire (Cunningham) | Carried whole in a sachet or wallet, or studded into fruit | Cinnamon |
| Basil | Renaissance herbalism and Wicca — Mars, Fire (Cunningham) | Grown in a pot near the door, or a leaf carried in a wallet | Cinnamon |
| Star anise | Mostly modern retail and shop lists; classical listing gives it luck, not money | Carried whole in a purse or wallet | Cloves |
Other herbs turn up on money lists too — mint and allspice among them — but without individual pages here, and without as long a documented history as the four above.
Money, wealth, abundance, success — same herbs, different emphasis
Search phrases lump these together as if they were interchangeable, and the herb lists overlap heavily, but folk-magic sources draw the lines a little differently.
- Money is the narrowest and most literal framing — a specific sum, a specific bill, a specific transaction. Hoodoo material speaks in these direct, concrete terms most often.
- Wealth and prosperity point at an ongoing condition rather than a single event, and the herbs used for it (cinnamon, basil grown as a house plant rather than carried once) tend to be the ones used repeatedly over time instead of for a single working.
- Abundance is the newest and vaguest of the four, a general-purpose modern word that is not tied to money specifically and sometimes covers relationships or opportunity as much as finances.
- Success leans toward career and specific ventures. It is worth knowing that Cunningham's own cinnamon entry lists "success" as one of its powers by name, alongside spirituality and power — which is one reason career-focused and money-focused searches both land on the same herb.
None of the four words changes what the herb physically does. They mostly tell you which of several near-identical sachets, baths or candle-dressings a given source is describing.
Why people build money charms this way
The honest version of this, the one folk-magic writers and the anthropologists who study these traditions tend to agree on, is about attention rather than outcome. A coin, a leaf or a sachet kept somewhere you see or touch it daily is a repeated physical cue — open a wallet and there's the basil leaf, and with it a small, repeated reminder of what you're working toward. That's a real, well-documented mechanism: physical reminders shape behavior and attention. It is a different claim from saying the herb itself draws money, and this page is not making that second claim. Traditions vary on how directly they say this out loud — hoodoo material tends to talk about "drawing" and "opening the way" as if the herb acts on its own, while some modern writers are explicit that the herb's job is to hold the practitioner's own intention steady. Read either framing as symbolic.
Where you put it: wallet, threshold, bath, candle
In a wallet or purse
The most common carried form for all four herbs above — a single clove, a small cinnamon stick, a whole star anise pod, or a small dried basil leaf, tucked into a card slot or coin pocket and replaced every few months as it loses scent.
On the porch or threshold
Cinnamon and cloves, sprinkled or scattered just outside a door (hoodoo practice) or added to the water used to wash a step or porch, on the idea that money and opportunity "enter" the way people do — through the door.
In a bath
A pinch of cinnamon or a few cloves tied into a cloth and added to bathwater, generally as an evening or Thursday (Jupiter's day) practice rather than a daily one.
Dressing a candle
Cinnamon, clove or basil oil, or the ground herb itself, worked onto a green or gold candle before burning it — this is the same general method as dressing a candle for any other intention, just with these herbs and colors chosen for money work specifically.
Basil: "the herb which all authors are together by the ears about"
That line is Nicholas Culpeper's own, from his 1652 herbal, and it is worth quoting because it is a genuinely old, documented disagreement rather than a modern invented one. Culpeper describes earlier authorities — Galen and Dioscorides on one side, Pliny and Arabian physicians on the other — arguing over basil's nature, and settles the question of its planetary rulership by writing that it belongs to Mars, "under the Scorpion." That seventeenth-century argument is a different dispute from the modern one: Cunningham's twentieth-century correspondence system keeps Mars but adds wealth to the plant's powers, alongside love, protection and exorcism, which is not a power Culpeper's era would have listed at all — Renaissance herbals concerned themselves with the body and character, not with modern money-charm work. So basil carries two separate, genuinely different reputations from two different centuries, and both are real.
Where the traditions disagree
Basil, old dispute versus new one. As above — a seventeenth-century argument about the plant's temperament and rulership, and an entirely separate modern addition of "wealth" to its powers, layered on top of each other by time rather than by any single author.
Star anise, luck versus money. Cunningham's original listing gives star anise luck, psychic powers and protection — not money. Its constant appearance on "money herb" lists today looks like a newer, retail-driven addition riding on the everyday overlap between "lucky" and "prosperous." The full star anise page covers this in more detail.
Hoodoo versus planetary framing. Hoodoo practice generally names an herb's use directly ("cinnamon draws money") without reference to a planet or day. Cunningham and other Wiccan-influenced writers lay the same herbs over the older seven-planet system, so the "why" given for the same herb differs by which book you're reading, even when the herb and the goal match.
Safety, without the medical framing
Fire. Dressing a candle means oil and dried herb near an open flame — use a light hand, keep loose herb off the wick itself so it doesn't flare, and never leave a dressed candle burning unattended.
Animals. Concentrated cinnamon and clove oils are commonly flagged as irritating to cats especially; keep dressed candles, sachets and any oil bottles somewhere a curious pet can't knock over or lick.
Allergy. Cinnamon and clove oil in any concentration can irritate skin on contact — dilute in a carrier oil rather than applying either directly, and stop if you notice redness or itching where you handled it.
For the same side-by-side approach applied to protection herbs, see herbs for protection.