Financial Honesty Can Help Your Marriage

DENVER (CBS4) - Financial infidelity appears to be on the rise. No matter how close the marriage, apparently there are often secrets around money. A new study suggests it's mostly women who are financially cheating on their husbands.

4 On Your Side Money Saver Suzanne McCarroll found happily married couples who admit to keeping some money secrets. A lot of the secrecy revolves around shopping and credit cards.

The majority of those who admit financial cheating say they have a credit card tucked away that their spouse knows nothing about.

Patty Spurway keeps her shopping bags in her trunk so her husband of 40 years doesn't know what she buys.

"It's easier on me and easier on the marriage," Spurway said.

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Brian Sells and his wife Nancy never bicker over who pays the lunch bill, but there are bills that Brian finds hard to digest.

"I'm a financial planner, and so we had a little situation where we found a mystery credit card that had racked up a little bit of money on," Brian said.

Nancy said she had been buying clothes.

"But I get the mail," Nancy said.

Secrets about money are incredibly common in couples, according to a new study by CreditCards.com.

"About six million people have some kind of financial account that they kept secret," Ben Woolsey with CreditCards.com said.

Women are most likely to have secret savings accounts. Men are more likely to have covert credit cards. The average purchase hidden from a spouse is $266.

"Most of the issues or the hiding came from women, not men. Well that didn't surprise me, just based on people that I've talked to and just being in my business," Brian said.

Spurway apparently isn't the only one with a stash of secrets in her trunk.

"I would assume everyone shops like this," she said.

LINK: CreditCards.com