#financial transparency

Ask the Bitches: Do I Have a Right To Know the Private Details of My Partner’s Finances?

When we started Bitches Get Riches, we thought we’d be writing mostly about paying off student loans and building credit scores. And to be fair, we’ve done a lot of that! But more and more we find ourselves coming for Dear Prudence’s job. Because it turns out handling finances within a romantic relationship is hella complicated! And sometimes we get a question about financial transparency among partners that does us a concern.

Like this one:

Hey bitches! I know personal finance is personal, but if your significant other is being cagey about their finances even after you’ve been together for years and want to move in together/get married, is this a red flag? I don’t expect them to disclose all their spending habits or whatever, because yeah, personal finance is personal. But I feel like it’s reasonable to want to know what their income is and how much debt they have, especially if they know those things about you and you’re planning on a life together. Those things affect the rent you can afford and all sorts of stuff. But they act like I’m unreasonable and invasive for wanting to know, which makes me wary.

Hi Tumblets. Tumblergs? Tumbloids?

Anyway.

I recorded a new video for you! Make It Pay is a high-level lecture I gave to the Kansas City, MO chapter of the SCBWI about making money in creative careers, introducing different publishing and funding models, budgeting concepts, and other resources. 

Resources/articles/things I mention that you might want to check out:

Aminatou Sow on Making $300,000

Lillian Karabaic's Oh My Dollar podcast + Get Your Money Together workbook

My deep-dive lecture on Kickstarter best practices

The organizational "whiteboard method" of accounting, according to Frank Chimero (this post was dug up from the internet archive by Stephen Lovell—thanks Stephen!)

And many thanks to Steve Lieber, Hope Nicholson, James F. Wright, and Jeph Jacques for sharing their income ratio pie charts for my money talk at VanCAF several years ago.

"...honesty is a bitch when its required of you. If you are supposed to represent the highest of ethical and moral standard, honesty should be the only option." Thomas Palani Montgomery 

Update: Do I Have a Right To Know About My Partner’s Finances?

Ask the Bitches: Do I Have a Right To Know the Private Details of My Partner’s Finances?

When we started Bitches Get Riches, we thought we’d be writing mostly about paying off student loans and building credit scores. And to be fair, we’ve done a lot of that! But more and more we find ourselves coming for Dear Prudence’s job. Because it turns out handling finances within a romantic relationship is hella complicated! And sometimes we get a question about financial transparency among…

Friends, I come to you today breathless with excitement. Remember Anonymous Rex, the bitchling who wrote to us about their secretive significant other? The one whose partner was all like “I can know about your finances, but you can’t know about mine“? The one whose partner was most likely hiding something sketchy from Anonymous Rex, according to moi? They wrote back. And oh baby is it…

Ask the Bitches: Do I Have a Right To Know the Private Details of My Partner’s Finances?

Read part 2 here!