how much of your personal finance business do u tell?

[Caoineag]

I am generally very open though I agree that specifics on income should be left out unless you know the person you are talking to won't have an issue. I will talk in percentages and will discuss budgeting with whoever wants to hear it. My best friend definitely has specifics because I used my finances to teach her how to manage hers (as a result I know a lot about her finances too).

[rizzmo]

For many years I did not share any information with anyone. I learned this from my parents who did not discuss finances with us kids, just as their parents had not discussed it with them. Then about 6 years ago I started to read up on this subject and started openly talking about the subject around my family and friends. At first my parents were resistant to it not offering up much in return, but overtime they became more and more open and now my youngest brother is reaping the benefits. Some of my friends do not like to discuss finance ... so with them I don't. However most of my friends are excited to discuss this stuff openly and it dominates a lot of our conversations. So now I have a great network of family and friends who openly share financial information. My best friend's strength is budgeting, his weakness is financing. My parent’s strength is frugality and savings, their weakness is they are very adverse to any amount of risk. My wife and I, have strengths in business, inventing, and a strong interest in investing with a high risk tolerance. We benefit from each other’s strengths, and learn from each other mistakes. It couldn't have turned out better for all involved.

[dmontngrey]

I'll talk to most anyone about debt and saving money and such, but I don't really get into specifics. Occasionally I'll throw out a monthly payment amount, but never the interest rate or current amount owed - unless it's a 0% balance transfer. I will NEVER talk about how much I make or how much DH makes, especially not to either of our parents. Our parents on both sides have made some really stupid financial decisions over the years and I don't want to repeat them. They know we get our bills paid, they know we have "debt", and they know we watch our spending most of the time. That's enough. My mom makes so little that I think she'd ask for money if she knew what I made - back to that entitlement issue she has. DH's parents couldn't cosign a car loan for him once years ago - but I could! They were denied for bad credit. I saw the loan paperwork at the time and that's how I found out how much they made. Jobs have changed since then, but that gave me a good starting point to go from to guess what they make. I think they make about the same amount as us, so I'm not sure how they get by these days. They're spenders and I know that's catching up to them right now. They need to stop trying to buy their kids! They don't own DH though.