How to Talk About Money on a First Date
Whether you like it or not, there are many ways to assess someone’s socioeconomic status before you ask them out on a date. You may remember Anna Helen Petersen’s viral analysis of how much social and financial information we can extract from a single Tinder photo , for example:
Take a closer look at this image: Yasmin’s teeth are white and straight, and her skin is clear. Her shirt is nondescript, but not readable, at least from the fact that we can judge of her as “cheap”. The contrast between the color of the shirt and the house in the background makes it crisp and clean. Her all-encompassing look is bourgeois, like the model in the Real Simple room .
However, just because someone looks “bourgeois” does not mean that they have no debt or that they can save for the future. He doesn’t tell you if they are a budget employee or a wasteful, and he doesn’t predict if their financial priorities will align with yours.
And as a new Bankrate survey shows , more and more millennials are eager to disclose this information as quickly as possible.
Like, on the first date.
Millennials are almost twice as likely as their elders to say they are comfortable sharing credit ratings and swapping debt stories with potential love interests, according to Bankrate’s Love and Money Survey.
“They are really more open to talking about money with their partners early on, which is definitely a generational change,” says Mara Liz Meinhofer, Certified Money Coach and Founder of Love & Money Therapy. “It’s something that hasn’t happened before, and it’s great that this is starting to happen among them.”
According to Bankrate, 35% of millennials and 36% of Gen Z will feel comfortable asking about money on their first date. But how exactly can this topic be brought up?
One Bankrate expert interviewed suggested approaching this topic by discussing retirement. (This is likely to be more suitable for dating millennials, the oldest of whom are fast approaching 40, than for younger Gen Z.) Finding out if your date has a plan for their eventual retirement, whether they are planning one, or whether they plan to retire at all should give you a good idea of how they are managing their finances.
If you don’t want to be so straightforward, Bankrate offers several other options:
If you ask your date where they bought the clothes, you can figure out where they shop. If you ask about their profession, you can find out if they have large student debts . It may even be helpful to ask about your spouse’s childhood.
The only option Bankrate doesn’t offer is to share your own financial information first . Instead of sneakily figuring out if your date has a bunch of student loans, for example, you can mention where you are in the process of paying off your loan. (It probably won’t work for people out of debt either; it will look like bragging.) Being honest about your financial strengths and weaknesses, whether you talk about them on the first date or later in the process, will help you. find out if your potential partner is ready to talk about his.
Have you ever brought up financial issues on your first date? How was it? What advice do you have for people who want to know if their date shares their financial priorities? And most importantly, have you ever stopped dating someone because their finances didn’t match yours?