Five of Pentacles

A card most associated with material hardship or exclusion - two figures out in the cold, passing a lit window - though some older traditions read it instead as a card of love and affinity.

Upright

destitution
material trouble
exclusion
passing by
love and affinity (alternate reading)

The old text ties this card first to material hardship - it pictures two beggars trudging through snow past a lit window. That reading of lack, exclusion, or being left out in the cold is the primary one Waite gives. He also records that some card readers of his time read it instead as a card of love, partners, and affinity - and he is explicit that the two meanings do not fit together. Rather than picking one, this record keeps both readings on the table, as the source does.

Traditional meaning.

Waite states the card foretells material trouble above all, whether destitution as pictured or otherwise. He notes that for some cartomancists it instead signifies love and lovers - wife, husband, friend, mistress - along with concordance and affinities, and states plainly that these two alternatives cannot be harmonized. The source does not attempt to soften the destitution reading or reconcile it with the love reading.

Symbolism

Two mendicants (beggars) pass through a snow-storm beneath a lighted casement window. The imagery sets need and cold in direct contrast with a nearby light and warmth that the two figures are passing by rather than entering.

In this context

A relationship: In the alternate reading Waite records, this card was taken by some to mean love and lovers - wife, husband, friend, or mistress - and concordance between people. This sits alongside, not blended with, the hardship reading, and the source gives no way to know which applies without further context.
money: This is symbolic reflection only, not a financial forecast. The primary source meaning is material trouble, framed at its starkest as destitution - the image of two beggars in snow. A reflection might sit with what feelings of lack, exclusion, or being left out arise, without assuming the card describes actual finances.
Something about myself: The image of passing a lit window rather than approaching it can offer a starting point for reflecting on distance from warmth, comfort, or belonging - and what, if anything, stands between a person and what is close by but not yet reached.

Sit with this

Where in your life does this image of passing by a lit window rather than stopping at it feel familiar?
Waite records two unrelated meanings for this card, material hardship and love/affinity - does either, both, or neither feel relevant to you right now?
What would it mean to you to stop at the window instead of walking past it?

Reversed

disorder
chaos
ruin
discord
profligacy

The upright Five of Pentacles traditionally pictures two poor travelers passing a warmly lit window in the cold. Reversed, the old meaning shifts away from that image of exclusion toward something more chaotic: disorder, ruin, discord, and profligacy, a scattering or squandering rather than a steady hardship. This card in this position may point toward a sense that things feel unsettled, resources feel mismanaged, or a situation feels like it's falling into disarray, rather than simply being difficult.

Traditional meaning.

Where the upright card shows two mendicants passing a lighted casement in a snow-storm, reversed the source gives a harsher, more unstable cluster of meanings: disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy. Waite offers no softening gloss here, no promise of relief following hardship, no note of material recovery. The reversed meaning sits as a plain list of breakdown: things falling into disarray, wealth or resources being squandered, and relationships or circumstances marked by discord rather than the earlier reading's cold exclusion.

Symbolism

The upright image is two figures, poor and out in a snow-storm, moving past a window lit from within, traditionally read as passing by shelter, warmth or help without partaking of it. The reversed meanings given by the source do not describe a new image but a different turn of the same figures' situation: instead of hardship endured while passing warmth by, the reversed sense is hardship compounded by disorder, ruin, discord and profligacy, where resources or stability are actively lost or squandered rather than merely lacking.

In this context

A relationship: The word 'discord' in the source's reversed meaning may point toward friction or disagreement in a relationship, a felt sense of things being out of step, rather than a description of what any other person thinks or intends.
money: This is offered as symbolic reflection only, not financial advice. The source's reversed term 'profligacy' traditionally points to a theme of waste or excess relative to means, worth sitting with only as a prompt for one's own sense of how resources are being used.
A decision I am weighing: Where the upright card can suggest overlooking help nearby, the reversed meanings of disorder and ruin may invite a pause to consider whether a decision is being made amid chaos rather than clarity.
Something about myself: Sitting with words like ruin and discord without rushing to resolve them can itself be a reflective practice, naming that something feels disordered, before deciding what, if anything, to do about it.

Sit with this

Which of these words, disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy, feels closest to what you're sitting with right now?
Is there a sense of something being scattered or squandered rather than simply lacking?
Where might discord be showing up, and is it something you can name plainly?

Sit with this

Each meaning is written by us and grounded in A. E. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), which is in the public domain. Nothing appears here until a person has read it.

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Source: Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), public domain. Five of Pentacles (p. 105). Knowledge version 0.1.0.