Finance talks....

emma245

This question is for all of you in new relationships since your divorce.  When does the talk about finances and your salary come up?  I have been with my boyfriend for 9 months and I think he thinks I make significantly more than I do but I have never been one to talk about money. 

 I just dont know how or when to bring it up since I know finances is such a major issue.

River Pestie

The BF and I have been dating a little over a year and I have no idea what his salary is, although I do know he makes more than me. I don't feel it is any of my business as to how much he actually makes in a year.

I do know he doesn't have any debt and that he has a healthy savings account and retirement fund in which he contributes on a monthly basis. 

I am not sure if he knows how much I make, but I work for the government. If you know my name, all you have to do is google me and my salary comes up. 

He knows the only debt I have is my student loan and that I am working on building up my savings. 

UDscoobychick

I don't remember how or why it came up the first time, but I know how much BF makes, that the only debt he has is his mortgage and a car payment, that he has a savings account that he is building up, and tha he has a pension plan through his employer.  He knows what I make (I told him when I got my job offer back in October), that I have no debt, and that I have a savings account and a 401K.  We've been dating a bit over a year.

FormerlyAK

BF and I talked about it in real numbers when we started talking about moving in together (around the one year mark). He wanted to make sure things were fair and really understand what I was dealing with budget wise.

Now that we are planning to get married, we have talked even more about it because we have certain financial goals we want to reach together. And we had to talk about how we would split things and merge things once we are married.

dmarie979

It came up when we talked about living together. My XH and I fought constantly about money and it was a huge issue.

I basically told him about the issues with XH and how I didn't want to continue that cycle. He had similar issues with his XW. So we came clean in regards to salary, debt, savings, etc.

Mominator

I've been with my BF for just under 6 mths. I don't remember how/when/why it came up, but I know how much he makes and he knows the same about me. We both come from marriages where our spouse was less than financially responsible, so learning about how the other is with their money was kind of a potential deal breaker for both us. I don't know what his monthly bills are or anything and he doesn't know the specifics of mine, but I think we both have a pretty guesstimate based on each others spending habits and knowledge of salary. I don't think that there is any sort of need to go beyond that until such time that you are thinking of co-habitating, but like I said, for me, it was important to at least get a glimpse of the big picture before moving too far into our relationship.

lovelybb

We've begun talking about it more since we're working towards the goal of moving in together at some point. We haven't talked specifics about yearly salaries since ours both fluctuate (we're both business owners).

I know what debt he has and he knows mine... we both agree that we don't want to fight about money so we've been fairly transparent about  our goals and how we'd like to set up handling the finances.

GhostofZeldaFitzgerald

We'd been friends for years and both groused to one another about being underpaid, so this wasn't really an issue when we started dating.  We already had a clear picture of the other's income.