Do your children know your salary

[JanuaryJaguar]

Following on from the thread about whether your parents know your salary I am curious if people share this information with their children. Also if they are aware of what you earn now old are they.
I think in this country we are very coy about salary and linking a persons worth to what they earn. This can lead to children growing up without enough financial knowledge to live as adults.
For my part I gave my children pocket money from 4 years old and have gradually had conversations about salaries and our mortgage, bills etc. My 16 year old knows what we earn, how much tax we pay etc but my 13 year old is less interested so probably couldn’t tell you.
So my question is, how old are your children and how much do they know about your household income and expenditure?

If your children go to uni they know what you earn because the maintenance loan they can receive is based on household income. If they receive the minimum loan then they know the amount the parents (or parent and step parent) earn jointly as a minimum together but maybe not separately. It might not be something you can hide once they get to that stage. But to answer your question directly, no they do not know the exact salary just a ball park figure.

We have had talks about money with the children from late primary age. Every time we bought something we would point out the price from sofas to holidays, cars, also things like car services and the usual food shop. They knew how much a meal out was compared to our weekly supermarket shopping bill.

We talked to them about salaries of things they could understand so teachers, head teachers, supermarket workers, bus drivers, car mechanics and my old job as a civil servant due to banding published online. But they also know about tax and NI and all the bills to be paid every month and yearly. They did do something in secondary where they were given a job as a group, told the mortgage calculation on 3 times the salary and asked them to look on Rightmove and find a house within X miles of the school. Mine had already played this game at home

We used to know may parents. My dad regularly sat us down and showed us his wage slips and tax codes to explain how the system works. Looking back now he used to also show us mortgage statements, savings account interest rates, council tax bills etc - was really useful.

The fact your child ran up credit card debt kind of proves my argument about it being better to have these discussions with them.

I absolutely talk in general terms now (DS is 5) and he'll know the specifics later.

I work in quite a high paying industry and it's clear how much of a foot up people have when they've got a decent grasp on finances/careers from their parents. It's not something I grew up with (I had to figure out everything myself and build healthy spending habits, which took YEARS) and something I really want to give DS.

I think this is really important and really good that your dad did this.
They don't teach these things in schools and I really think they should teach this, especially above things like religious studies or the likes. I didn't know anything about tax, credit ratings, borrowing etc. as soon as I was 18 I was offered a credit card and you best believe I took it. Spunked the lot on a night out and then thought fuck it I'll pay it back next month. Then the next. And so on. SO many teens do this. I work in finance myself and have done for 10 years and this is really really common.

My DD is only 4. We are not rich by any means but we are comfortable. I speak about money to her now and the fact mummy has to go to work to get money to afford our house, the food shops, soft play, clothes etc. I tell her it goes onto my 'card' and when we buy something the money goes down.

When she gets older, I will tell her about credit rating, borrowing, investments, mortgages, S&S, risk etc.
I've been the brassic teen spending credit cards like they're free money, and we didn't have a lot growing up. Money makes the world go round. From an IFA, it's important to teach your kids these things. Show them a pay slip. Explain PAYE and tax codes. Most importantly, PENSION!! No one taught me this at 16/18. In fact I didn't know I needed one until probably 22.

Agree on ‘how will they know how much they will need to earn to sustain their current lifestyle’.

I have met several teenagers recently of well-off parents where their university / job ideas have 0 likelihood of delivering a lifestyle similar to how they grew up.

My parents took a ‘follow your passions’ approach and it was terrible advice really, particularly given what I’ve ended up doing,

Absolutely not.

We made a good amount of money through some high risk investments when younger, so our situation is not entirely a reflection of salary anyway.

We have however taught him how money works in fine detail, especially how to get your money to work for you. DH and I still invest but at far less risky levels. DS is doing a degree apprenticeship so zero student debt. We did talk about career choices and potential monetary outcomes.

We could buy DS a house outright if we wanted to.

To give a balance here, we were pretty poor growing up (80’s / 90’s) owned our house but one parent had a horrific accident and could no longer work, benefits weren’t what they were now. I remember being very very aware from a young age of how little we had and it made birthdays and Christmas’ very painful as I felt so guilty for the small presents they got me. Although my parents never meant for me to feel that way and I did get treats sometimes etc, I was a very sensitive child and I felt too scared to eat food in the fridge for example. I have grown up with extreme anxiety around money. Ive never been in debt and own my home etc so perhaps subconsciously it’s helped in that way (although my parents never got in to debt we just had absolute basic of everything).
i find it hard even now when I have money to justify buying clothes / eating enough.
I think it’s sensible to discuss money management and debt and mortgages etc as this country is in a woeful state of debt.
but I think knowing the ins and outs of your parents personal financial circumstances really can be catastrophic emotionally if the child is very sensitive especially

Yes, both children know our income and the assets we have. All the info is on spreadsheets and they know the password to access them.

This is also ‘generational wealth’ and it affords huge benefits to families who do it.

I’m from a v middle class background. We never wanted for anything. Lived in a nice place, holidays etc. I knew lots of people at school and uni who were just like me… or so I thought…

When I left university it became very apparent whose families were wealthy / had planned to create ongoing ‘generational wealth’. People given big deposits for flats. They had savings which allowed further education (legal training, MBAs). They had savings accounts set up in their name.

I had… no idea this was a thing really. My parents did give me a deposit for a house many years later, albeit I think primarily because they thought I’d never buy somewhere otherwise / they realised friends were doing it (and I am very grateful to them for it).

I’m thinking about my child’s future finances from the very beginning - it’s part of my planning that they will have savings for university, maybe we will aim to have a flat in London so they don’t have to pay rent and can take as a deposit etc etc.

The people who grew up in this scenario were streets ahead of everyone else in lifestyle - even just being able to make better decisions because they had some financial freedom to do so. I just needed to pay the bills!

I love that you think most people choose to work in low paid employment as if it’s a choice haha

No. They know that we are high earners but I suspect would be miles out if we asked them to guess.

Mine both know now at 20 and 18.

DC1 chose to commute from home to Uni. My salary meant that it was pointless them applying for maintenance loan and so we had a conversation about it then. Our decision was that I would pay them ⅔ of the maintenance loan and keep their car on the road, they would work something between a shift and a shift and and a half a week and continue to live at home (which is free).

DC2 is two years behind them and was part of the conversation, I'll offer them the same deal (shared car for both of them though so not two vehicles!).

They're good kids, part of the level of conversation was about them being worried I could afford it and offering to commit to work more than we settled on. Fine if they want more cash than is on the table, but I want them to have a balance.

@MidnightPatrol if I wrote exactly the life advice I have given my DS, it would be the opposite of yours. I’m pretty hardcore as culturally Chinese parents will tell you directly what you should or should not do if quite traditional, no time for liberal sensibilities. DH who is English has however reigned me in a few times which is probably for the best.

I think it’s fairly typical of children to reject the way their parents did things, and do the exact opposite!

The most successful people I know, bar the odd ‘created a niche business and sold it for millions’ characters - all had parents who were quite ‘hands on’ with their child’s education and even early years of their careers.

IMO you need direction for support in making good decisions.

I don’t necessarily mean the ‘you’re going to be a doctor whether you like it or not’ classic immigrant parent approach (as of course this is forcing them to do something they might not want). Somewhere in between.

Definitely not

I would be very anxious that our high household income would be repeated to peers / parents.

The reality is that DH’s does have an incredible work ethic / innate intelligence - but our high family income is due in large part to right time / right place. We don’t live a super flashy lifestyle - I don’t want to be put in a box because of our perceived wealth - l certainly don’t want my children to start expecting things as they get older.

They can learn to operate within sane budgets without needing to know the bottom line

Teens and slightly older but I don’t share details of my salary and or financial position with anybody. The house is in both our names, of course, but everything else is totally separate. I also have no idea of what my husband earns. He’d probably tell me if I asked but I’ve never felt the need to know.

No, because I am a high earner but don't live a particularly flashy lifestyle. I'd be mortified if DC told their friends and it made it back to their parents/my peers. I feel like they would see me differently.

Yes, we talk about money quite frankly. Holidays don't grow on trees, there's a reason we need childcare etc. Mine are teens now and I am keen for them to understand that following their heart is of course important when considering careers, but it's also important to reflect on lifestyle and finances, if they want a certain lifestyle, they need to consider how they will afford that. I was raised to follow my heart and was well into my 20s before realising my expectations out of life and reality were not the same, so I changed careers. So to talk about money frankly, we need to talk about what we have coming in and out.

My adults DC's do. But only because they expected the same level of financial support from me at my house (when they were teens) as they did at their dads and he earns at least twice what I do and his other half earns more again. I couldn't match their standard of living which annoyed the kids.

Had to sit them down and explain my income and out goings to show I wasn't being tight/mean, my household income is nowhere near that of their fathers.

Why would they judge people for how much they earn? That's quite a sad statement.

It's really interesting to read your POV. I was similar, I knew everything from a young age. But my parents were (still are) shit with money, so I grew up constantly worried about their position. I had to unlearn everything I learnt about money, and relearn it in healthy terms.

I now want to share the 'healthy' approach with DS, but I understand this is through privilege - if we were struggling it would cause him stress. But we're very, very unlikely to struggle now - which is why I feel comfortable sharing/talking about it.

My adult dc s know ours and we know theirs - I dont understand all the secretiveness around this?

Yes my 16yo knows mine. I'm a single parent and don't earn a whole lot so it's important for him to know that money isn't endless and what I have to pay for.

Nobody needs to know anyone else's salary - partner, children, parents, friends. I suppose HMRC are the only exception!