<p>^We have a similar philosophy, NJSue. Since we run our business out of our home, we have what LOOKS like a lot of money coming in from clients. But we have to pay through the nose for stuff, notably insurance - as structural engineers, our liability insurance is through the roof (we are lucky it’s offered at all anymore). So we tell the kids often about what is coming in and how it goes right back out the door.</p>
<p>We had a rough year in 2014 with very little work. This year we’re getting a lot of projects. My son posted this on his Facebook page yesterday: “you know the economy’s doing better when your family decides it’s safe to shop at whole foods again.” LOL! I happened to be in the neighborhood and picked up a few things there. I didn’t realize I was making a statement.</p>
<p>I can see showing a kid the categories NJSue is talking about - “honey, you may not realize, but what looks free to you is actually $X a month in water, electricity, gas, cable / internet, food,” and so forth. I don’t think that necessarily means I have to share “and here’s what I earn,” though. I don’t know. That just makes me very uncomfortable. No judgment on others - just my particular hang-up. </p>
<p>Interesting how broad the responses are. We’ve been fairly open with both D’s about income and what was (not) saved for college. They had access to FAFSA info but didn’t ask any probing questions. My mother, on the other hand, was in the “that’s my own ^$**” business club. :)) </p>
<p>We want our kids to have a good understanding of the family finances–especially now that neither one is a teenager any longer (one is in college, the other a grad student). Recently we took both of them along to a meeting with our broker/financial advisor, and we discussed all of the finances in detail, including future plans. I mean, what if my wife and I both get killed in a car accident? They need to know.</p>
<p>I doubt D has looked at the FAFSA. We’ve not told the kids exactly what we make, but they do know what our monthly expenses are. Now that D is in college, we’ve had more discussions about the importance of saving for retirement from the day she starts working, managing debt, understanding health insurance, and other topics. Net price calculators were pretty meaningless for us, as D was shooting for merit scholarships at schools that don’t have pre-set amounts. She knew how much we felt we could afford to pay, and I helped create spreadsheets of all the different schools, costs, and aid so we could have a rational discussion about cost of attendance. D, H, and I all sat down at the table to crunch those numbers.</p>
<p>I see a tremendous amount of variance here in the way the different families treat this issue. We are far over on the open side, as were my parents when I was growing up. There are no financial secrets and my S, a graduating senior in high school, knows everything about our finances just I knew everything about my parents’ finances. </p>
<p>If your kids know how much you make, they also need to know how much your life costs, the mortgage payment, the utilities, the insurance. I asked my daughter the other day if she knew how much I paid for the rent, and she had no clue. Salary is only important if they know the other costs. Yes, they could figure out that we aren’t going to qualify for PELL or other financial aid because of the salary, but that’s the only context it is useful for if they don’t have the other facts.</p>
<p>Same. We really don’t do secrecy in any area, though. That doesn’t mean they have every little detail since they don’t care, right now. But, questions are always answered.“Dad, how much do you make?” is not a problematic question. Both older kids ask for numbers and complete their own FAFSA.</p>
<p>I don’t see why anyone would keep this secret from their kids. Who do you think is going to be dealing with your finances some day, quite possibly having to worry about finding and funding long term care for you and ultimately in managing your estate? Who might be looking after your minor children, their younger siblings, if something happens to you? That day could be tomorrow. If parents don’t share with their kids how they manage money, if kids have no idea about your assets, income, debts, etc, well no wonder today’s young people are making so many poor decisions and schools are increasingly requiring personal finance classes to get the kids info they should have learned from their parents.</p>
<p>No. I don’t work and my husband doesn’t think it’s necessary for the kids to know how much he makes. We did tell DS how much we could afford for college. I never knew how much my parents made and it turned out fine. I think it’s more important to show the kids how to budget what money they have to work with rather than them knowing how we spend our money.;)</p>
<p>Yes. It’s not something D knew prior to applying. She knew how much we could pay but she didn’t see the numbers until we did the Fafsa and Profile. I filled it out but she read through it and we were OK with that. It wasn’t a secret though I think she understands the numbers better now after some maturity and an Econ class than she would have a few years ago.</p>
<p>No way- We told him from the beginning that we had run the calculators and we didn’t expect any need based financial aid so we were taking the “no merit” schools off the table. (we did tour Northwestern) He knows what is in his college fund and that we would go 10,000 above that. (5,000 out of mom and dad, 5,000 from unsub student loan. He chose wisely and will not have any debt after 4 years.
He was a little curious when he found out one of his friend got a bunch of need based aid at NE fancy LAC. We were not willing to stop funding retirement or making extra house payments. </p>
<p>As I stated earlier, though I saw and actually filled out all the fin aid data for my parents, none of that info stuck. I didn’t help me one bit either when 7 years later my father was dying and I HAD to take over everything. But it wasn’t a huge deal that I didn’t know. It took little time to get things under control when it had to be done. Knowing the basic things like how much wouldn’t have made a bit of difference as it was the niche items that took time to resolve. </p>
<p>I had to go in cold for my MIL’s things a few years ago, and she was a mess. As bad as it gets. Had to do some forensic accounting and things still are probably out there, but just knowing her basics would not have helped with that. The basics took no time to get under control, and she was very tight with her financial info and her records were in no order at all. The main things were easy to get, the details which I doubt are shared unless it’s a changing of the guard or the “you gotta know it all” talk are the problems, they always are. But I could have done a FAFSA, fin aid app in little time with her info if I’d had to do so. Tax return and a list of assets, the best I could gather. </p>
<p>“I don’t see why anyone would keep this secret from their kids. Who do you think is going to be dealing with your finances some day, quite possibly having to worry about finding and funding long term care for you and ultimately in managing your estate? Who might be looking after your minor children, their younger siblings, if something happens to you?”</p>
<p>Oh god, I <em>never</em> want to be a burden on my children like that. H and I fully plan on paying for my own long term care / retirement. I would not dream asking my kids for help unless there were truly some absolute crisis situation. They are taken care of – our “investment” in them is their education – they can find out when it’s time to read the will how much they have coming to them.</p>
<p>I am currently picking up a parent’s finances - a parent who didn’t plan and mismanaged money - and it’s just awful. It’s an emotional, financial and legal stress on all of us. The idea that my kids would one day have to do this for me is horrific!</p>
<p>We have a family trust set up with both a legal guardian and a financial executor. I can’t imagine just expecting an older sibling to take on the burden of younger siblings without any help. We have copies of all our bank statements, retirement accounts, and so on in a fire safe lockbox (which the kids have access to - it’s also where we keep all SS cards and passports) as well as in a safety deposit box. I’m expecting by the time my kids are setting up long term care for me, they’ll have been taking care of their own finances for a bit. And the same person who is financial executor for our estate would help in that situation anyway.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between “keeping secrets” and not feeling like you need to hand over your tax returns to your kids for scrutiny. Many of us have said we’ve shared the cost of what it takes to run a household, have talked about debt, and also about what we can afford to spend on college and the long-term ramifications of the financial choices made now. As soon as my kids started earning money they established their own checking accounts. We’ve talked about responsibly building credit upon graduation. But I still am the one to fill out the FAFSA and CSS Profile. Once my kids establish their own households, I won’t expect to be privy to every financial detail of their lives either. That doesn’t mean we won’t have discussions about what should happen should any of us become incapacitated.</p>
<p>We didn’t tell them because they went to an interesting private hs with some very financially competitive kids (and some from struggling families) and we never wanted them to have a sense of either “we’re poorer than” or “we’re richer than.” If they asked, we emphasized the lifestyle we do have and our values. </p>
<p>I did the finaid forms (I couldn’t trust that to them, it was too important for a rookie to take on; and both started college prior to NPC.) They knew the definition of “dream college” had to include the right FA- and were satisfied with that guidance. A few years ago, when they learned the value of our home, they had a little minute when their heads spun (young folks don’t get the big picture.) But the time is coming when they need to know more, as our back-ups. </p>
<p>“I don’t see why anyone would keep this secret from their kids.”</p>
<p>At what age? Do be aware that teens and young adults, a goodly number of them, do battle the demons and go through some nasty times, hopefully growing up quite sane and responsible. But during those difficult years, there are kids that you many not want to know your SSN and other info. You dont know what temptations and opportunities come their way. You may end up with some loans and other things that you did not apply for, your identity could be stolen, your kids might have opened their mouths venting and told the wrong person the wrong things You are all assuming that your kids are going to be responsible, mature and good about all of this and never, never hurt you. Doesn’t always happen. It’s not always someone else’s kids who get into drugs, steal, throw their parents, family under the bus. Most of the time,…MOST, from what I have seen with my older kids and their peers, they do get back on track but some of the greatest most wonderful young people have had their breakdowns. You really want the stalking out of the house after a fight with you and they have all your financial and ID info? </p>
<p>Mine have a ballpark idea but not specifics. My son is very curious about financial matters, not because he is nosy, but because he is concerned. When he was 3 and my D was 5, he didn’t get an allowance yet and he told his grandma that he was very worried because everybody had money except him. I started giving him a nickel a week then, just to ease his mind a little. He is very frugal and cautious with his money. A couple years ago, he told me he needed some stuff from the drug store and we went to pick a few things up. After I paid, he asked “How do you do this? How do you just always have money for this stuff?” </p>
<p>I spent a little time showing him the income vs. the bills and how I budget things. When I got a bonus and a raise this year, I told him. He knows I’m working like the dickens to get my bills low enough that I can live on one paycheck a month and pay the other one to two college tuitions come fall. I have asked him to be discreet with this information, particularly with his father. Now that there is no longer child support, my finances are none of my ex-husband’s business.</p>
<p>My D however- not so discreet. She immediately told my ex that I’d gotten a bonus and a raise and he sent me a text about it. He said “Too bad I can’t have you pay me child support now” and I responded “Yeah, but if that happened, you’d have to pay half of their college too and you’re not paying a dime now.” Yep, no reason for HIM to know my business. Info is safe with my son… not so much with my daughter.</p>
<p>I couldn’t afford any school without financial aid and won’t be able to until my D is done with school. From that perspective, they could apply anywhere and we had to see who offered us enough money to make it doable. </p>
<p>Interesting perspective. It never occurred to me to be afraid of my kids. My husband went over taxes with our daughter this year. She needs to learn how to do it. I’m sure he didn’t black out our ssn’s.</p>
<p>I just followed my own parents’ example. When the kids were younger I answered any questions they had truthfully. However, I also cautioned them this was private family information and there would always be families with more resources than ours and families with less. And that more didn’t always correlate with living better. I always made sure they knew who would take care of them if we died in an accident and a general sense of how much money there would be for them. They absolutely knew what the house and other investments were “worth” and how much insurance we had. I am another *will in the desk and all other important papers in the safety deposit box * sort of person. Right now I’m in the middle of settling an estate and will receive an inheritance of family property and I asked my adult children what they thought about selling or keeping that property. I was surprised they preferred to keep it and that is what I’m doing. My parents discussed with me their wishes in the event they weren’t able to take care of their own affairs and I honored those wishes. I have made my wishes known to my own children. There, I have a much different plan than my parents.</p>
<p>ETA: We had several discussions about how we were paying for college. How we paid turned out to be an evolving plan and they were included in the unfolding of that plan. Originally we planned to sell the family house and use the equity. That turned out not to be the best way to go. We were careful to tell them “paying for your college is our pleasure” as well as explain why “you must finish in four years” was non-negotiable. : )</p>