What if you could freely ask people about their money?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Based on a number of recent threads asking about money it seems that dopers are curious about other people’s money. Would you like it if the social norms were changed so you could freely ask people about their financial affairs? And it would be appropriate to answer honestly. In fact it would be considered rude to withhold information.

For instance conversations like the following would be common:

“What do you do for a living?”
“Surgeon.”
“How much do you make?”
“About $200,000 a year.”

Or:

“How do you and Cheryl maintain that lifestyle? Two BMWs, kids in private school, always coming back from some expensive vacation. I figure with your job you couldn’t earn more than $90,000.”
“Close, I made $89,500 last year. It’s all from Cheryl’s father. He pays the tuition directly. The cars are in his name. He pays for all the vacations. And he gives us about $1,000 a week in walking around money.”
“What’s his net worth?”
"About $4 million or so. "
“Isn’t he concerned about saving for his own retirement?”
“He earned over $600,000 from his business last year. He’s fine.”

I think I’d like it. I’m curious about people and how they get by. Working, by Studs Terkel, is one of my favorite books. This is a book where a lot of people talk about their jobs, including how well they are paid. Also, if there’s a copy of one of those money magazines lying around I’ll generally choose to read the article about how some couple is planning to retire. How much they made, how much they saved, what they sold the house for. Fascinating stuff.

OTOH I’d also have to answer. I wouldn’t mind talking about my money but I wouldn’t want all the crap that would go with it. Mostly jealousy and competitiveness, I’d guess.

2

In some Islamic countries friends will ask you questions about your income and your finances. This isn’t considered rude because it shows that they are concerned about your well being.

Marc

3

No, because then I’d have to talk about what I make. And I don’t make squat.

Plus, I just really don’t care all that much. As far as subjects that are taboo in polite company, religion is more interesting, IMHO.

4

No I hate it. I was talking to my mother last week and I blurted out that I wanted to know how much she made. Answer :$200,000. I told her uh, I didn’t expect her to answer that question and I really didn’t. It does me no good and she is very financially irresponsible and I most likely will never see a penny which is fine because I have my own money.

Even worse, my father and his sister just hit a Beverly Hillbillies windfall from our families mineral rights on our land. My brothers and I got sent tax bills from the trust company as a mistake. They were for about $5,000 dollars a piece and I freaked out because they were payable immediately and I had no idea what it was for. A call to the trust company confirmed that I needed to send in the cash right away and I was furious.

I called my grandmother and she wouldn’t tell me anything so I called my father who is a selfish asshole beyond belief. I asked him what this trust was and why I was getting billed. One of my brother’s had just done the same thing. I just asked him how much was in the trust because I was pissed off - Answer: $50,000,000.

If I had a normal family, that would be a cry for joy. However, my father has never sent as much as a birthday card to anyone including my small daughters. He has only seen my 5 year old 4 hours in her life and my 2 year old for about 3 hours. My brothers and I might inherit something from it but he is so unbelievably selfish that he will live to be 120 years old and will blow it all on hookers and drugs. I don’t even worry about that stuff but it is irritating because he can obviously help my children with some nice things and have basically an infinite amount left over for himself but he doesn’t think that way at all. I would be better off never knowing about any of it.

There is nothing good about knowing about someone elses finances including people in your own family.

5

This is, to me, a particularly amusing question, because I bartend and the nature of my job is to talk to people…about their jobs, their SO’s, their cars, their beliefs, their whatever…

I’ve never asked anybody what they make; I’ve said things like “You must do pretty well doing that!” if it’s appropriate, but that’s as far as I go.

But the same courtesy doesn’t apply to me; I dunno how many times people have asked me what I make hourly, or asked me what I’m doing bartending, because “I seem so smart” that I should make a better living.

I make between $800 and $1000 a week, take-home…not a fortune by anybody’s standards, but IME a lot more than a lot of people would assume. I don’t tell my bar patrons this, because it’s none of their business and it could be counter-productive, but I have always found it intriguing that they feel comfortable asking me such a personal question.

So yes, re: the OP, I would love to feel comfortable asking people what they make, because they feel comfortable asking me. And IME I don’t see much correlation between the amount of money people make and how much they spend at my bar or how much they tip me; for a lot of people it’s actually inverse. The more they make the less they tip; the less they make the more they tip. Usually for people who’ve been in the business.

I’ve been stiffed by more wealthy people than “working class” people. Perhaps that’s why they’re wealthy; there’s no tangible gain from tipping well, so they refrain…and if they apply that theory to money in general, they are bound to have more in their savings account than I do.

But regardless of all that, I would love to ask people what they take home per paycheck. I can’t see it as anything but an eye-opener. When I decide to quit the business altogether, you can trust that I will ask every question that’s ever crossed my mind, and that will be a frequent one!

6

Sounds like an intersting topic for a new thread, if it hasn’t already been done.

What do you do, what geographic area do you live in, and how much, roughly, is your annual income?

I’d participate.

7

I would gladly tell people how much I make, because folks seem to have this insane notion that I’m making money hand over fist. The reality is, civil engineering is not a lucrative profession, especially for the self-employed (taxes bite!).

8

I’ll tell my parents what I make, and how much my bonus is, but tbh, no one else has ever outright asked what I make.

It seems to me that public service people (fire, EMT, police) don’t mind everyone else knowing how much they make because they generally don’t make very much for the job they do. I think it might be public information in fact.

9

Phew. In academia, at public schools at least, everyone’s salaries are public knowledge and at Purdue are printed in the Exponent once a year. It’s the most-read issue, around the department offices. Who got a raise, who didn’t, how much, who was hired at how much, etc.

Out here in the real world, I was surprised by how secretive people are about what they make. Knowing someone else’s salary, or knowing how much of a raise someone got, is a huge playing chip in office politics. Huuuuuuuuuuge. I totally understand why it’s a bad idea to know what co-workers make.

10

I agree. I’d participate as well.

Actually, what I’d really like to see is a thread where several different people from different areas and of different income levels give a moderately detailed account of their monthly budgets: How much for rent / mortgage, how much for gas, what their utilities are, etc. It would be utterly fascinating.

11

If I could ask anyone about their money, I would ask certain people why they feel the need to wad bills up like tissue paper.

12

If they were sent to you in error, that tells me that the person they were supposed to go to most likely expected to receive them, and consequently pick up the tax burden him/herself. Why are you expected to pay it when you didn’t expect to receive it in the first place?

13

Hee. My parents count the collection baskets at church and talk amusedly about the bills that get dropped in completely folded up into tiny shapes. They can’t understand how it happens; I just assume some parent let the kid hold it and they played with it??

14

Maybe because they use them like tissue paper?

15

I don’t think discussions of money go anywhere positive. I can still remember the time I was discussing work with an I-Banker friend - he was negotiating a new contract with one of the top investment banks - you know their name, trust me. While describing the back-and-forth, it came out that they were haggling over differences in the mid 7 figures - yep, *several million dollars *base + bonus.

I know this guy, and really respect him - but there is nothing uniquely special about what he does. He was well-prepared and fell into a fortunate situation - and he would be the first to acknowledge it.

But it changes our dynamic whether we want to admit it or not…

16

This is true in Alabama as well, but the state deliberately makes it as difficult to learn as possible. The answers are not posted anywhere online and are kept only in hardcopy in certain libraries and have to be checked out in 30 minute increments for in-library use only. (IIRC they can’t even be photocopied due to some “it will fade it” BS.)

In Georgia they’re online (the state auditor’s report) but you have to really know how to use it. When I first started working in academia it was a shocker to see how much professors who I knew were poormouthers earned; in a podunk college in “Neverheardofitville, Georgia” it wasn’t uncommon for a tenured professor of a humanities subject to earn $60k+ per year and yet plead poverty to his/her students.

On another subject, I remember watching the documentary Daughter from Danang in which a Vietnamese child raised by American foster parents goes home and sees her birth mother and biological family for the first time in many years. It wasn’t an altogether happy reunion, and largely it was about money; the woman was middle class by U.S. standards but rolling in money by Vietnamese standards and as such money was a major part of the conversation. Her host/interpreter explained that bluntness about money is not considered rude in Vietnam, but the woman felt she was being attacked by the “how much are you going to send us to take care of our mother?” questions that began the first day of her visit.

17

That wasn’t the circumstances. My grandmother has always had trusts. I have no idea what is in those but she wrote money gifts from them and the checks came from the trust.

The tax bills we got recently were detailed financial statements that were specifically sent to all of the grand-kids with little explanation. I called the trust company immediately and was told that I needed to make payment right away and this was for thousands of dollars. I called my grandmother and she told me to disregard it and tear it up. I called my father and he said the same thing. No, no, no, my family is rich yet dysfunctional and very elusive.

I wouldn’t be a responsible person unless I knew what that was about. I finally called my aunt you set the whole thing up and it turned out that bill was a trust specifically set up as a college fund for all of the young great-grandchildren. That sounds great for me and my two young daughters. I have no idea whatsoever why they wouldn’t just reveal that.

I wanted to know about the whole thing so I called family members again and they all stonewalled. I just called my aunt again and I drew up a flow-chart over the phone. My great grandfather was a Warren Buffet of sorts and he bought up tens of thousands of land outright or just the mineral rights to them. They just made one of the largest inland natural gas strikes in Louisiana history on one of them. My family kept making oblique references to it every time a saw them. I got tired of that and just wanted to know what they were talking about. I didn’t even care about what the amount was. I just didn’t want to keep getting things and still be kept in the dark. I have little idea how much the whole thing is but my father said $50,000,000 but he was drunk at the time as usual and prone to manipulation.

I found out how everything worked and how the whole process works. Both of my daughters have college funds from multiple places and just that sounds good to me. I don’t get anything until my father dies which is fine as well. He is a master of spending cash however so I am confident he could blow it all with little effort. He just paid cash for an $80,000 SUV in cash and he will probably buy an actual ranch in cash if the mood strikes.

That’s fine, I have my own money. There are a few reasons why I could never count on that and his mind doesn’t ever think to give his kids or grand-kids anything at all consciously. That is one of the dangers of freely sharing information about money and I feel the same way. The family had a minor melt-down over this but it could have been a million times worse if all of it was completely exposed from the beginning and lots of families make that mistake by blabbing irresponsibly.

18

I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t read it, either.

Too many people, including me, are very judgmental and controlling, about other people’s money, and I don’t care to play that game. The IRS knows how much we make. My employer knows how much I am paid, hubby’s employer knows how much he is paid, our accountant knows how much the business makes or loses.

Our families, friends and aquaintances do not, because they have no say in what we spend or don’t spend, and we don’t care to hear their opinions on how we should manage the details of our finances. On the rare occasions we do want a someones input, a specific question will be asked.

I am a product of my upbringing. *In the new thread, * without the addition of long boring (since I am not your banker) details: If you tell me you are in tall cotton with no debt, I’m going to, by sheer reflex, think you’re a smug braggart. If you tell me you lost your job, and are concerned about continuing to live indoors and eat, by reflex, I’ll worry about you and wish I could help. If you are anywhere in between, I will automatically wonder whether you are whining or bragging, and about your motivation for posting.

Society has decreed that one musn’t talk about money for a reason.

19

Well, there’s an obvious solution there that doesn’t involve changing the social norms.

Why don’t you do a re-make?

I like talking about money with people; how they save, how they spend, how a couple handles yours-mine-and-ours, where they’re frugal, where they’re not …

but even when dollar amounts are mentioned, salaries are not.

Still, it’s interesting.

20

Why does it have to be either whining or bragging? How a person spends their money shows what they value more than any words can. That was my motivation for posting in the other thread. I think that was the motivation of most of the people posting in the other thread as well.