Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Why Is Income Such a Big Secret?
I've noticed that most financial blog sites don't reveal income. I thought that was interesting. PFBlog.com writes about why he doesn't do it here.
Bloggers have anonymity, and bloggers can talk about our net worth, yet income is taboo? I'm not quite sure why that is. I've actually debated whether to disclose my income, but having to over come my hesitation on posting my net worth is step 1, I guess. There are some good arguments in favor of posting incomes, such as being able to correlate savings rates to income. Or does posting your income really just "show off"?
In due time, I may post my income. Any opinions on why income is not revealed?
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6 comments:
Pretty humorous, too, when you consider that given the net worth spread sheets people put up and just a small amount of math, you could probably figure it out.
We don't put ours up because we're not going the anonymous route. We also don't post monthly statements and try to keep things vague enough that it's not altogether obvious. [Mainly in case someone from my husband's office ever found my blog and put two and two together.]
Not sure why income is such a big secret. I talk about mine all the time...in person and online. I don't consider it braggin' because I don't earn a huge about, but I'm comfortable. I never understood what's the big deal. It's shielded like it's life or death info. If someone knew your salary, what could they do with the information? Tell someone else? Ok, so what?
I think it is a cultural taboo.
I do not disclose my networth and income on my website... sometimes because I do not want to boast about it or make it a competition.
For the record, official personal income is $140K, but since it is comission based it goes up and down. Family income last year, according to W2 was $248K.
Money And Investing
Interesting post. I don't post my income, it just never occurred to me to do so, but since I work at a public university that information is available through a public records request. In fact there is a guy in Central Washington or somewhere who requests that information every year from the university as well as several local governments. He posts everybody's salary on his website.
For me it's an issue w/ pride. I make decent money for someone in my situation, but feel it's not good enough compared to some of my friends and family. I think if more bloggers out there set a trend of revealing their income, I'd feel a little more bold to do so. Maybe you've started something by bringing it up....
Interesting topic and interesting comments. I'm trying to come to terms myself with this topic.
Everyone has an income some a little more then others depending on occupation or business savvy. I suppose we shouldn't value our self worth based on one's income. But given we live in a highly consumerism and materialistic society, it's difficult to ignore sometimes.
Also it's just new territory from our past up bringing and experiences. I'll probably breach this topic on my blog soon. As soon as I get the courage.(lol)
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