Comments on My Open Wallet: Someone Asked Me!

At my age (21), all of my coworkers compare how mu...

2007-10-15T03:26:00.000-04:00

At my age (21), all of my coworkers compare how much money they make. I work in a restaurant and it is quite standard to ask other servers what they made in a night. A difficult component of servings is that I honestly don't know what I actually make in a year. Tips vary during different seasons. There are dry spells and wonderfully fertile seasons.

Anyhow, my point was that I've noticed the privacy in regards to money doesn't seem to emerge until later on in life. While people my age freely talk about it, my other friends who are older are much more reserved. To be honest, I have no clue how much money even my boyfriend makes (he's older), nor would I ever ask. It seems tacky and invasive.

I'm pretty open about it, at least online. But the...

2007-10-09T21:29:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty open about it, at least online. But then I'm so deeply in debt that...I don't know, it doesn't seem important anymore. Kinda like how when you're a tween you don't talk about your period, but you get to college and you're discussing it with your roommates or something.

But I don't like being asked about it by others unless there is a good reason.

A lot of the responses to your question are the ve...

2007-10-09T19:31:00.000-04:00

A lot of the responses to your question are the very same situation as you and your friend represent. It is all kind of relative to where you live and what things cost.
Ciao

I would also be interested in knowing how much peo...

2007-10-09T18:47:00.000-04:00

I would also be interested in knowing how much people save, as a percentage of their total income. I work with a lady who lives on 50% of her income and saves/invests the other half. I am not even close to being able to do that.

Yeah, people talk more freely about sex than about...

2007-10-09T17:57:00.000-04:00

Yeah, people talk more freely about sex than about money. One of my fellow guy friends has a rule that he won't date a woman with a FICO below 700. It doesn't matter if she's a 10 on other scales. No FICO, no dessert.

"What's your sign?" has now become "What's your FICO?".

Btw, I'm a 34 yo male (760 FICO).

From my experience, friends, acquaintances, and th...

2007-10-09T16:21:00.000-04:00

From my experience, friends, acquaintances, and those I've been in relationships with have been more than willing to share extremely personal details about themselves. But oddly when it comes to talking about finances and about how much they make, everyone suddenly becomes nervous and on guard. I guess it's still a strangely taboo subject.

I'll have conversations like that with a very few ...

2007-10-09T11:09:00.000-04:00

I'll have conversations like that with a very few trusted friends. They all know I'm obsessed with personal finance anyway.

Last night, I posted a corollary to your question about asking people how much money they make. My question was about asking people how much they save. I'm curious to know the answer to this one if anyone's willing to share:

http://frugalzeitgeist.blogspot.com/2007/10/discussing-your-savings-rate-is-like.html

PS - welcome back!

It's great that you have a friend that you can hav...

2007-10-09T09:51:00.000-04:00

It's great that you have a friend that you can have such open financial conversations with. All of my friends avoid talk about finances...and prefer to talk about weddings and clothes...