its probably both..they are curious and in our case Beaver would reward the kids for finding "information".  Most times if asked my response is...why do you need know?  You paying for it?  No...didn't think so.  When you are paying for it then it will become your business.  Till then..its none ya bidness..

Periodically SD will ask a question like that but usually she is just geniunely insterested to know.  She is trying to figure out how economics work at this point. 

When it comes to skids digging/spying for bm I completely understand being cautious and withholding information.

I may be running off-track here, but I really cringe at this "Don't talk about money, it's rude!" concept. I think it's a leftover sentiment from the time of oligarchies when the wealthy didn't talk about it because it reminded them of all the raping and killing it took to make them their money...

If you make your money in a honest way, and earn a few nice things along the way why is it rude to talk about it? Americans are so, so financially stupid and I think it is strongly connected to this notion. 

I think these situations provide excellent opportunities to start financial discussions to teach our kids about money management. 

"Well YSS I'm curious how much do you think it cost?" Make him answer the question. Flip the script, I used to do this to Spawn all the time because she loved to tell Meth Mouth about everything we bought.
We got new furniture one time and Spawn asked how much it cost.
Me: How much do you think it cost?
Spawn: *shrugs shoulders* a lot!
Me: Well I'm curious how much is a lot?
Spawn: like 1000.00
Me: okay well a lot to me is like 10,000
Spawn: It cost 10,000!
Me: No, but by your definition and my own we spent somewhere between 1000.00 and 10,000. How much do you think your grandmother spent fixing her car after your mom wrecked it again?
Spawn: *pinched angry face* a lot!
Then she stormed off.

If it was your own kid, yep, tell them - it helps them learn about money. But it's a partially alienated skid, who is only asking to give BM the information.  I wouldn't tell him anything.

We haven't seen skids in 2 years but they will call and text...mainly to ask if we still have this or that asset.  I know they have been watching his fakebook marketplace ads.

The kids would claim their mother only had $20 in her account and could dad give her his glue gun/crockpot/etc and 5 minutes later talk about the brand new bicycles they were getting.  And occasionally DH would blurt out our bank account balance and I would be like are you f'ing stupid?! 

"A gazillion dollars."

Every damn time.

She actually bragged about how she is "good at finding information".

She collects and reports to us about her mother. Its a long-standing habit, started because we were genuinly concerned for her safety "over there". Her father wanted to keep tabs in case he needed to step in somewhere, and at first I understood. But now Im screaming "enmeshement!!!"

Shes a talkative kiddo. She talks all day long about everything and nothing.

And she asks a multitude of questions. And this is DH's daughter, so he feels somewhat safe answering the questions. To me, I do love her BUT shes and "outsider". The way I grew up, my own parents did not share financials with me AT ALL.

So - I talk about financials with her sparingly and vaguely. Nothing specific. Unless Im talking about general "cost of living", and how much things cost separate from what we are actually buying. For example, Ill take her shopping and give a budget. Or we talk generally about the cost of homes in our area.

One time she asked "how much is the mortgage?" I told her, no worries, weve got it!"

- We bought a boat. No discussion of how much it or the motor costs.

- House cost not discussed

- Renovations, no cost discusssed

- Separate bank accounts, not discussed

- bills not discussed

- new cars bought and sold not discussed.

period.

I love all the suggestions on how to deflect!!!!!

OMG!  I used to get the same questions from DH's daughters when they were younger.  Never once gave either girl a straight answer because I knew this prompting was coming straight from BM's mouth.  I started answering "about a million dollars."  They finally stopped asking.

That is just not ok but haha, you know BM is fishing through her kids.  We had an incident where the BM told SD to tell her dad to "shut up and pay for it, he drives a 50k truck".  She put that in a text.  My husband was getting grief because he wanted SD to stay in network for braces-which is a reasonable ask since he pays for the insurance.  BM wanted SD to go out of network which would cost almost 2k more.  You just have to ignore it.  If BM is that sad/pathetic/unhappy that she needs to use her kids to spy or to play the Price is Right every time they come over...then you should find some satisfaction in that. 

Yeah, I have a thing about giving SDs too much information as they already have too much power and they are NOT adults. While my parents did not share financial details I was raised to be financially savvy - it's doable to do both.

I would help my dad write checks to the utility company (remember checks!) and I got my own bank account I was resonsible for starting at age 10. He taught my sister and I how to account and balance our funds, we had to do deposits by ourself (parent with us for support at the beginning) and how to get funds out. If we wanted something special we had to explain why and make sure it was a resonable cost. My parents said no to a lot of things because "they couldn't afford it."  Either the mortgage got paid or we did a big trip was explained.

The SDs here are not exposed to ANY of that. DH just doesn't see it as reasonable. So YSD has no money in an account (but a bank account was set up for her with $0) and no experience paying for much of anything herself. She's a hoarder (a neat one, but a hoarder nevertheless) and has a big wallet stuffed with money. Luckily she never asks how much anything is because she doesn't care. She does want a bank account and to learn how to do it (she told me thus the account was set up), but I'm not the parent so disengaged from that. OSD used to ask about things but I told DH to NOT tell her ANYTHING for G*d's sake. Nothing about raises, promotions, purchases, etc. DUH.

We told my SD that everyting cost 10.00.

"How much was your house?"  "Ten dollars."

"How much was your car?"  "Ten dollars."

In other words, none.of.your.business.

You want to know the price of everything but the value of nothing.  Had to use it a lot when YSS was a teenager.