Are you honest about your finances?
‘How much do you earn?’’ Say it out loud. Don’t be shy. Chances are, the thought of verbalising your salary made you cringe. It’s not something we blurt out very often.
I’d even go so far to say it’s a taboo subject. Polite people simply don’t discuss this sort of thing.
What about behind closed doors with your other half? I hear a sigh of relief. That’s different isn’t it? You wouldn’t bellow it out loud to a newspaper columnist, but you’re quite happy to have a chat about the family finances in the privacy of your own home.
But let’s dig deeper. Do you really keep your partner fully up to date on all your income and savings?
A survey in 2015 by Fidelity (a large US investment firm) shows that 43 per cent of people can’t correctly state what their partner earns. That’s an enormous number and certainly not a phenomenon restricted to American society.
In addition, 36 per cent of people disagreed on the amount of money available for investment in their household.
More than 1000 couples took part in this survey with a good spread of Generation Y, X and Baby Boomers, all earning a family income over $110,000 or having assets to invest of $150,000.
Looking around your own friends, workmates and neighbours, it seems difficult to believe that four in 10 of us don’t know the most basic of information about each other.
Interestingly, more than 70 per cent of us think we communicate well about money and 90 per cent think it’s not difficult to raise the topic at home.
Yet the research highlights what most financial people have always suspected. What we believe and the reality don’t match up. The myth of ‘‘open financial communication’’ is usually dispelled quite early in the career of those in the money industry. Still, nothing can really prepare you for the shock of it.
I had a colleague getting a divorce. Nothing odd about that and after mopping up the tears we did what a gaggle of financial people do best: planning for the future. Her biggest worry was housing and whether she could afford a place on her own. It seemed like an easy riddle to solve.
She worked full time, had no children and there would be joint equity in the marital property.
Our firm had a large in-house mortgage broking arm. We’d have her sorted with a budget by morning-tea time. Unfortunately we fell flat on our faces.
She didn’t know what their house had cost. Alarm bells rang. She didn’t know how much the mortgage was. We could help her figure that out, but she didn’t know which bank held the mortgage.
Her husband’s income was a mystery, and so were their savings, pensions and life insurance policies.
Older colleagues didn’t appear shocked by any of it, but I was rocked to the core. It seemed even more ironic that she worked in a firm that gave financial advice.
It’s common for one partner in a relationship to take the lead financially, but the Fidelity survey uncovered some discontent. The majority of people taking the lead believe their partner doesn’t want to be more involved.
Yet the survey discovered a third of people in this situation didn’t agree. It seems some of our money-leaders might be underestimating the desires of their less involved spouse.
Finally, direct from the horse’s mouth, the 1000 couples in the survey had some financial advice for newlyweds. Their top two recommendations were: save as early as possible for retirement; and make all financial decisions together.
Further down the list, but still wise words, was the advice to ‘‘disclose income/ debts/assets early’’.