Counting My Pennies

I kind of like my privacy

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Over at Always the Planner, asgreen recently wrote about someone who accidentally outed her in her blog, and later provided a followup about going public.  Ginger also wrote about keeping some things private  at Girls Just Wanna Have Funds.
One thing I’ve noticed about personal finance bloggers is that there is a wide variety in our comfort levels about how much to share.  Some people are happy to publish their names and their income, debts, and net worth in great detail.  Some will post names but not numbers, and many post numbers but choose to remain anonymous.
I choose to remain semi-anonymous, and I rarely post specific numbers.  I discuss my net worth in terms of the percentage change.  I never give actual numbers about salary or how much I spend on rent or food or clothes or anything else.
Clearly, I am a federal employee working in Washington, D.C., and I’m a lawyer, but I think I have just described half of this city.  Possibly more.  This is both to keep my privacy and keep my co-workers from finding this blog but also because while I am generally happy to have a job, and like my job well enough (perhaps I just like paychecks), I have also discussed my desire to find a new job.  I’m not sure that’s something I want the higher ups in my agency to know (my boss knows).  Plus I don’t want disgruntled citizens coming to my job to complain about something the government did.  I have no control over anything.  Trust me.  That’s probably a good thing, because it means I can’t make a tragic mistake.  I’ve been inside federal prison.  While it was much nicer than I expected, it’s not really where I want to spend the next 10-20 years.
Various people in the PF Blogosphere know my real name, and I do have one friend who reads this because I’m comfortable with her knowing what I’m saying.  (And I have this feeling that if J. Money thinks about it, he can very easily figure out where I work, as I think we may work in the same neighborhood).  But I have other friends who know nothing about my blog and I prefer to keep it that way.  I’m not sure that I would want my friends or co-workers monitoring my spending like that.  “Oh, you went out for lunch again?  Are you going to write about that on your blog?  Do you have room in your budget for that?”  I do talk personal finance a lot with people who want to discuss those subjects, but it seems like money is a taboo subject.  It helps that I work in the government, where we all work on a standard payscale, so it’s pretty common to know exactly what someone makes.  But it’s mutual.  They know what I make, I know what they make.  And sure, there are the occasional whispers about “So and so makes how much?  That’s ridiculous.”  But it’s public knowledge so it happens.  If it were one-sided, I would be very uncomfortable.
For now, I’m comfortable with my level of privacy.  I’m aware that at any point, someone I know could stumble across this blog and start reading, and that’s why I choose to not talk specific numbers.  I’m impressed with bloggers who are comfortable with that level of transparency, and I often wonder if blog readers learn more when they see actual numbers.  Overall, what’s ultimately important is if those numbers go up or down, I suppose.  If your net worth was $500,000, but last month, you overspent a bit less you’re perhaps not doing as well as the person with a net worth of $10,000 who managed to pay off a substantial chunk of debt last month.  Yes, the person with the higher net worth may have more, but the person with the lower net worth might be making better decisions and may very well be better off in the long term.
What’s your comfort level?  How much detail are you willing to share?

Comments

  1. J. Money says

    haha, yeah i could probably figure out where ya work but too lazy…but it’s def. fun just wondering if it’s YOU walking next to me on my morning starbuck runs 😉

    as for all this anonymous stuff, i’m slowly not caring one way or the other…i don’t think i’ll go 100% legit and start marketing myself to my friends, but i might take down some specifics as far as my net worth at that point. not so much in that others get to see where it comes and goes (i could care less really) but more for my own personal safety. there are some nutt jobs out there…

  2. Thankful says

    I’ve been struggling with the same thing. I intentionally leave specifics about salary and investment accounts, etc., off of my blog. That said, I have told a few of my friends about the blog, one specifically the address. The others just know that it exists somewhere in the ether.

    I was surprised at how interested friends were in reading it. Of course, that’s my biggest fear, is that a friend will find themselves reading about their interactions with me. That would be more difficult for me than them finding out my salary or amount of debt. So I just try to be aware… J Money also brings up a very good point about safety.

  3. asgreen says

    Thanks for the shout out. Your post really got me thinking a bit more about my privacy. Money is such a weird thing and while I am comfortable talking to my friends about it that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable talking to everyone.

    I’ve decided to take down my net worth and remove my personal budget information. I am keeping my side bars though, but when it comes to everything else I’m following you and only using percentages.

    Thanks!

  4. Penelope @ Pecuniarities says

    We (my sister and I) also like to keep things private. You never know who might be reading and what sort of delusions people might develop about you.

    We don’t give specifics about ourselves – net worth, income, etc. – but I do try to add my personality into my posts and interactions with readers and other bloggers so it’s still the real me.

    We also don’t tell friends about our blog – only 1 or 2 of them know about it.

  5. Megan says

    I think that’s a good decision. You still get to be “accountable” to the public, but you still get to remain private.

  6. troy says

    So on the personal privacy issue – how much does a roommate who paid to add onto my home deserve to know about all of my personal finances?