To think friends/family should NOT know about your financial situation? (POLL)

[Lionsgirl111]

After reading many threads on here and also through real life experiences. I've been pondering this thought.

If you find you have either come into money or have a higher income, does anyone find others then expect from you or consider you to be tight if your overly generous?

Examples: It's Christmas and 'Becky' gives a £10 voucher to a neice/nephew. 'Beckys' family believe that she is 'tight' or 'stingy' because they know she earns at least £50k a year with no dependants or big financial commitment such as childcare. The rest of the family earn half of that so believe she must be raking it in. However what they don't know is that Becky is in debt from store cards/car breakdown etc. Family then think of her as tight fisted or uncaring/selfish. Becky now feels awkward at gift giving knowing others expect more generous/extravagant gifts from her as they see her as well off. Becky therefore feels she has to justify her finances to not be seen this way, further divulging private financial information.

Example: it's someones Hen do and everyones been invited to a hen party in Spain for 5 nights costing £700 each. 'Janet' has been invited. However she doesn't want to spend what will be at least £1k overall for the hen party and spends so declines. It's well known by friends/famiky that 'Janet' recently inherited 6 figures from her late parents. Janet explains she cant justify the costs and declines. She is seen as 'tight' and selfish by others who know she has the money in the bank. If Janet was to then book an all inclusive holiday in Jamaica for 2 weeks with her other friends (something she would actually like to do and saw a good deal), then she would be seen as even worse in everyones eyes as she 'clearly has the money'.

Example: 'John and Grace' go for a meal and drinks with a group of other couples. John and Grace don't drink alcohol. At the end of the meal when the bill comes, they are happy to split the bill so long as everyone elses alcohol is deducted from their share as they only bought a coke each. John and Grace are both a doctor and accountant. Everyone else in the group therefore assumes their flush and feel 'put out' they didn't just split the bill and insisted on having the alcohol deducted. They are then seen as penny pinchers.

These are just some examples of problems that i see tends to happen in everyday life.

I never used to understand why people were so private about their finanxes. But ive come to realize, people knowing your financial status appears then cause issues down the line as others feel they know what you can/can't afford and that you should be happy to subsides others if they don't have as much as you.

You read it in threads all the time 'my parents/brother/friend isn't short on cash and comfortable therefore they should xyz'.

So therefore AIBU to think your finances should be kept as lowkey as possible from family/friends to prevent social awkwardness/expectations?

I don't include husbands/partners in this of course!!

Unfortunately most people dont think outside the box and realise some of the scenarios you have described, it's all supposition.

I'm always days g exactly this when my dm passes comment on people she thinks are or are not wealthy on the basis of the job they do or the houses they own, or the places they shop. She just can't seem to grasp that these people could be up to their eyes in debt and vice versa certainly can't get her head around someone having money but not displaying it through their material posessions

I'm not sure how to vote. I totally get you and your examples happen all the time. I think the problem is a lack of respect for other's needs and views though and hiding finances doesn't make John and Grace's friends any less rude and cheeky.

One of the problems I see is 'I can't afford it' means many different things. It can mean literally 'I have no cash, room on my credit cards or any means to get some' or it can mean 'I am saving up for a new car and if I did this I would have to dip into those funds and I don't really want to for this event which is not that important to me'.

People are nosey though and look up houses on right move. You instantly get an impression then based on house price value. My friends didn’t have a clue we were As high earning as we are until we bought our house and then I think people did see us with slightly different eyes.

The thing I'm not sure about with your plan is that most people have a rough idea what different jobs pay, if you're a consultant in the NHS or an accountant then you can keep quiet about your finances but people are going to have an idea what you earn anyway

I get it.

People make incorrect assumptions as well. Mine and DH's combined income is above the national average, and people can work out roughly want we earn (we're in the NHS so people can guess our rough salary based on knowing our banding) but actually we're financially crippled by childcare costs and repaying some (unavoidable) debt. And people then get annoyed if we don't the want to spend several hundreds on a weekend break or similar with them because they think they know our finances.

I think it's more on the people doing the judging. I know a massively high earner, as in they are a business person that you would recognise their name on certain circles...and they still shop at aldi and do DIY etc. Yes they spend what I would consider to be crazy money on other things but a lot of the time they are very sensible as value for money is important to them. I'd never expect them to pick up the bill because they earn 25x more than me. And I think the people that would expect that are greedy and money grabbing.

It's pretty obvious to everyone in our close family and friends that we're skint and don't have much to spare each month. Why would we pretend otherwise? We save very carefully for the things we really want that some might see as luxuries but go without lots of other things people take for granted.

If I was wealthy I don't think I'd be advertising it though. Spending priorities are a very private thing.

Totally agree. Finances should not be discussed except between partners. A case in point, I think people believe if you own a rental property you must be rich. What they don’t realise is that there are mortgages to be paid (on own house, mortgage was increased to enable the rental to be bought) so rent is swallowed up by that, plus insurance, maintenance that HAS to be done etc. There is not wads of money sitting in the bank, it’s all tied up in the property, which, even if sold, would yield fuck all. It’s (for me) a long term investment for retirement/pension purposes.

I wasn't sure how to vote, but probably YABU. Friends and family know something about my finances, not details obviously, but they can easily tell from my lifestyle whether I am well off or not. Sharing some information is not unreasonable. Obviously the judging of others decision can be unreasonable.

YANBU. I am in my 30's and almost mortgage free. Most people have no idea. Some don't even know we own at all. I am frugal and like to invest rather than spend. And will quite happily forego a night out or an event if it is not good value.

Hmmm its an interesting one.

I mainly remember first noticing this before i bought my house. Myself and colleagues were talking about credit cards/savings. I openly stated i didn't have a credit card and just used my savings for emergencies.
One particular colleaguebwas intrigued by this and asked how much id saved to not need 'back up credit'. I just said i saved X percentage of earnings every month and always had.

After that she seemed to think i was sat on some sort of goldmine and would often make comments if i said i didn't have the money to each out for lunch at work or was waiting for payday etc. When in actual fact my monthly savings at the time were to go towards a house deposit plus i was paying private rent/bills/running my car car and living on my own. So in order to save i didn't have 'loads' left over. But in her mind i was hoarding stashes upon stashes of money .

My mum also often comments about my 'salary' and how i might as well buy xyz on 'your salary'. Don't think she realizes that a lot of that actually goes on tax/NI/pension/student loan etc. I think she belives i take home fat cheques every month when i really don't!

I'm nowhere near as open these days and keep very quiet even though I'm not rich or anything. Just to avoid any social awkwardness.

I know what you mean! I earn a good FTE wage, but I'm not full time and my PH is a very modest earner. Some of my colleagues who earn much less per hour treat me like I must be loaded (e.g. when one was looking for a new place to live he asked me if I had a rental property he could move into and another dropped massive hints about needing 5K for a visa issue). But in reality our take home pays are not dissimilar. I feel very lucky to not have to do the hours they do though I do a lot of unpaid overtime and they do none (as is fitting given our PH wages). It's not the worst issue in the world by any means but it is interesting how wrong people can be in the assumptions they make about you. And how little people look beyond wage/ income. As others have said child care and other issues can make a massive dent. Family x might have 3 kids and grandparents who live around the corner and do all the childcare. Family y might have 3 kids and no family support so childcare bill for 3. If family x also had some inheritance and family y had none then even if family y are accountants and family x are nurses, family x could still be much wealthier in real terms.

I was always brought up to believe that politics, religion and money were private matters and not for discussion in company. Talking about money was definitely not the done thing in my family. I would definitely not discuss details of our finances with anyone besides my DH - not even my immediate family members. I would say we are comfortably off, both earn good salaries etc but that is it.
However, since I work in the public sector, anyone who knows my job title and roughly how long I have been employed could find out what I earn fairly easily if they wanted to, and most of my friends work in the same field so we all earn similar amounts.
I think the issue in the examples the OP has given is not really people knowing about the income of others, it is the refusal to respect boundaries. Apart from the splitting the bill one, which is just plain bad manners. Nobody should expect someone else to subsidise their meal no matter how well off they are. That scenario could be me and DH actually. We are in a similar income bracket to the fictitious couple I would think, and we don't drink alcohol. When it comes to bill splitting, if the rest of the table have shared a bottle or two of wine between them I probably wouldn't kick up a fuss, but if they've been downing champagne cocktails all night there is no way I am funding that! That said, none of my friends is that rude. Generally even if I say that I am happy to split the bill equally those who have had alcohol won't let me.
But the other examples are about entitled behaviour. Nobody has a right to expect a gift of any given value, or for people to go on trips they don't wish to attend, whether they can afford it or not.

YANBU. People assume I am well off because my husband is dead 🙄🙄🙄

Btw he died age 37. He wasn’t a 96 year old billionaire 🤣

People make assumptions, but it's just as bad if you keep quiet about income (which pretty much everyone does). People just assuming that you're as wealthy as they are and will think nothing of paying silly money for an evening out or activity can kill friendships because if you avoid saying that you can't justify spending the same amounts on socialising it appears that you are rejecting the friend or are being a misery...

I accidentally fell in with an "ex pat" circle who were silly wealthy and just assumed we were too - we had a reasonable income but not in the same ball park. They'd suggest paid for expensive versions of things that could be done for free or a tiny fraction of the price, and it would have hit our budget hard. The whole not talking about money game meant I ended up ditching friendships because I wasn't going to feed my kids cheap pasta and tinned tomatoes to allow me to pay my way on unnecessarily expensive outings.

I never really understood the compulsion to pay twenty times more than necessary to sit in a slightly swankier area etc anyway, so I guess attitudes were incompatible...