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?

We've told DS our salaries, and we discuss all of our household finances with him and also when he's just around. We want him to have a good understanding of personal finances, and to get a bit of a head start compared to what we had.

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

Yes my husband and I need to know each other's salaries, how can you build a life together without knowing each other's income?

My DD17 knows a rough figure, but only because we were talking about college next year and she assumed she'd qualify for all financial assistance.
We've always encouraged her to save some of her allowance, and tried to explain that the lifestyle she currently has will require hard work and commitment from her if she wants to maintain it 🤣
We talk openly about budgeting, planning and saving etc but then I'm ex- financial services so it was normal to her from a young age. I still think she doesn't totally grasp it, and probably won't until she's earning herself.

DD 18 knows. She also knows how much the rent and bills are, how much the MOT/car insurance, pet insurance, food shopping... etc are. She can pursue any career she wants, but her first responsibility is to cover her expenses so she will need to factor that into her decision making. As I rent, affordability checks mean my annual salary has to be 34x my monthly rent, so she knows that if she wants to ever move out, she needs to get her financial shit together.

I don’t want to worry them so no I don’t go into detail
daughter has £110 in Her bank account from Xmas and I did tell hershe is 10X better off than me right now !
lots of young people are focusing on high wages due to cost of living crisis and university reflects this English degrees slumping and tech subjects booming

bit sad really , I never considered money when thinking if my career and I don’t think any of my peers did

As per @PurpleThistle7 - they know enough to understand decision making and affordability of things.
We're not badly off but they understand the decision making behind purchases. Now that they have part time jobs, they are starting to understand how much they will have to work and earn before buying what they want and having some emergency spare too.

My dc are 10 & 12 and have a general idea. I think it’s important for them to understand general costs of living etc eg they know how much our mortgage costs, they know we have money saved for them for university etc. They understand we are very comfortable but also that we make decisions about where & how to use our money to support that; that sometimes even when we can afford something it’s better to save up for it. DC1 at 12 now has a monthly allowance which they have to buy certain things from (clothes, birthday presents etc) to help them build up their ability to plan & budget.

I agree that oversharing isn’t fair - dc shouldn’t have to worry about the basics - but it’s also unfair not to give your dc basic financial literacy.

I had children quite late in life so for me it was more my 20’s and most of 30’s very very anxious about money (even though I was fine, had a decent enough job, house small mortgage and enough to do things I wanted) it’s funny I think no matter how much money I have I still feel like that child underneath! (Yes I’ve had therapy before anyone chimes in haha)
i think it’s super sensible to make sure children know financial implications and things like mortgages / budgeting etc.
do kids learn this stuff at school now?

How do you make financial decisions if you don’t know your total family income?

They're still in primary school, so no. I regularly talk to them about money and what things cost.

Yes. Teens here.

I work, like all parents, bloody hard and they need to know the value of something they want or do in comparison to that effort.

Example. Sorry DS I cannot afford for you to go on the ski trip. Why? Well because that is half my take home salary, and if I do it for you I have to do the same for the rest which means none of us get to go on a family holiday.

My youngest is 19, they all know, I think it's good for kids to be aware of income and expenditure.
It teaches them there isn't an endless supply of money and the value of money.
Personally, I do not understand these people who don't even know their husband/partners earnings, very odd.

I think if you are living with a partner you need to know their salary. How will you know what sort of lifestyle you can afford otherwise?

I don’t know tbh, I expect so.

My son, age 11 doesn’t know.

I tell him that he doesn’t need to concern himself about us being able to afford things but that doesn’t mean we waste money - or he gets everything he wants.

My son’s school talk about salaries for future jobs so the kids know what different jobs pay so in the playground they were discussing their parents’ incomes!

No, I do need to know my spouse’s salary and I find it completely bizarre there are people who don’t know what their husband earns. How in the world do we (as a married couple) make sensible financial choices around mortgage, pension, whether or not to be a SAHP, savings etc etc without a fairly fundamental piece of the information? Even things like eligibility for child benefit or free childcare hours require me to know DH’s income.

Friends or parents is completely different.

“I love that you think most people choose to work in low paid employment as if it’s a choice haha”
@Tumbletowner where did I say most people? My ds is doing GCSEs this year and I see so many of his friends mucking about, not bothering with homework or revising for mocks. Do they know lack of results can impact future earning potential? Do they really understand what this will mean for their lifestyle? These are dc who live comfortably by the way, not ones living in poverty.

But some adults in low paid employment is not because they ‘mucked around’ when they were younger, goodness me 😧

@JanuaryJaguar I'm with you OP, life is a series of choices and they start from a young age. Obviously lots happens in life out of our control, we don't always end up where we want to be, but that's not a reason to not take control and make good decisions when we can. And when it comes to money and jobs, those decisions start at 14 when considering GCSEs, as mental as it sounds,

My two are 12 and 14, they have a good idea of our finances in that they know how I make decisions about how affordable something is and why we might choose not to do something and save the money. They both know they’ll need a good job to afford to maintain the lifestyle they have just now and they know how much I charge in my private work. They don’t know my salary in my day job simply because it’s changed in the past year.

They both get a good monthly allowance for non-essential clothes etc. My younger child is a real planner and saver, my older is a complete spendthrift but they know once they’ve spent their allowance, that’s it for the month. I think financial literacy is so important - I’d be in a much better financial position if I had better information when I was younger but my parents lived hand to mouth for most of my childhood - they couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know.

I don't think they need to know pounds and pence but general ball park from when the question becomes relevant to their understanding of the world - is probably only a good thing.

As it’s a good way to teach them about tax and ni and what different jobs pay. My daughter was horrified when I told her I’m taxed at 40% , you don’t want them thinking that a role advertised at £25k means that’s what they get in their pocket.

@Tumbletowner again I never said anything about the percentage of those in lower paid work who could be earning more.

My DC are 13 & 12. I am a contractor so have told them my daily rate about a year ago. I’ve also explained that I pay tax on it so it ends up being much less.

They haven’t worked out what that means on an annual basis. I’ve very clearly told them they are not to discuss it with their friends or anyone else.

Now they are asking about how much money we have. That I am not telling them.

17 yo - yes, she’s determined to live a good life and wants to know what careers she can do to facilitate that. She knows I’ve moved her CTF in to a stocks and shares ISA etc.

I started telling her more a few years back because she kept saying XYZ was ‘only £150’ etc so felt she needed context as to how you come to get £150. She now has a PT job and a car to run so she definitely appreciates that if she wants to waste a tenner on crap then she’s got to work for an hour in her job to pay for it. She still thinks I’m tight with money (I’m really not!) because I earn 10x what she does….conveniently forgetting mortgages, bills, food etc 😂🙈

13 yo - no interest in knowing anything about our finances whatsoever 😂