Financial infidelity: The things we buy, the lies we tell

You've finally found the coat you've been looking for all season - a perfect fit, in the exact shade you're after. Now you've tried it on, the cut is every bit as sublime as you'd hoped. And the cost: £300.

You've got to have it. But, there's a phone bill that needs to be paid, there's no food in the fridge and there are a hundred other things you should be spending your money on. You admire your reflection in the mirror again. The coat is beautiful, and it's the last one in your size. There's no way it will still be there for the sales.

The next thing you know, you're at the cash register, hands trembling, heart racing, punching in a pin for a piece of clothing you know you can't really afford. But the anxiety is not caused by the thought of your credit-card debt, or whether you can justify the expense to yourself. The question is, can you justify it to your partner?

And then it occurs to you: what if you just don't tell them how much it cost? Or round the price down by, say, a couple of hundred quid. They'll never know. And so you begin to weave the web of deceit known as financial infidelity.

From lying about the price of a coat, to concealing your losses from a game of poker with the lads, to fibbing about the cost of a meal with the girls, millions of Britons are failing to tell the whole truth about their financial lives. And with gift spending, according to the consultants Deloitte, predicted to hit £16.9bn this Christmas, the capacity for telling a few whoppers about how much you've really spent on the presents - and those little extras you might have thrown in for yourself - will no doubt be enhanced over the coming weeks.

Not that budgetary stealth is confined to the season of goodwill. Steady post-war increases in personal wealth, and the fact that many of us now have separate bank accounts from our partners, present opportunities for financial fibbing all year round.

There is a sociological factor, too: couples are marrying later in life, often having been with their partners, and had separate accounts, for years. They like their financial independence and do not welcome being suddenly accountable to new boyfriends or girlfriends. People now have more money to spend on dresses, or CDs, or weekend trips, and they want to feel that how much they spend is a matter for them, as individuals.

Andrea, a 26-year-old perfume executive, is a seasoned veteran of the little white lie. "My husband is well aware of my exorbitant spending habits, but sometimes even I can't bear to admit how I've frittered away my pay packet. My most cunning ruse is to approach the word 'new' with a certain degree of elasticity. When I've splurged, I hide whatever I've bought in my wardrobe for a couple of months, so that, when asked, I can pretend I've owned it for 'ages'. It's pathetic really. And I'm sure my husband is utterly complicit in my deception, but it spares me the indignity of having to confess to every last wasted penny."

And it's not just women with unhealthy shoe habits who are getting up to mischief. "The amount of money I spent on tickets for the World Cup will go to the grave with me," says Joseph, a 32-year-old IT worker. "Buying €500 tickets from the touts outside the various games, the conversation would often revolve around how much we could get away with telling our wives they had cost. Normally we settled on €200, less than half the price of the cover charge.

"In a bar one night, we noticed that one of our group had moved his wedding ring to a different finger while flirting, and it caused outrage. The next day another friend got quite serious about it. Even my geezer mates thought that by pretending to be single he had been morally repugnant. But no one suggested that a white lie about splashing out hundreds of pounds for 90 minutes of footie was repugnant at all."

When First Direct commissioned research on couples' financial habits earlier this year, the desire of many people to keep the true level of their spending from their nearest and dearest was clear. And the young were leading the way. Of those asked, a quarter of women aged 19 to 21 admitted to the fact they had misled partners over the cost of their purchases, compared with one in seven in their fifties. One in five women of all ages kept a lid on their credit-card debts.

But how do millions of people deceive their partners, with whom they share their lives so intimately? Keeping a separate account may help. While the male breadwinner may have been the one with the current account in the early 20th century, both men and women are valued bank customers in the 21st, and many couples shun the idea of a joint bank account altogether.

"Over the last five years, we've seen a large rise in the number of sole-account applications compared to joint, as more and more couples elect to keep their finances separate," says First Direct's chief executive Richard Kimber. "You might call them Salties: people with Separate Accounts Living Together. This is hardly surprising - today's couples are marrying later after years of managing their own money. It also reflects the fact that over two-thirds of today's women have their own income through working, compared with just 43 per cent back in 1971."

While couples may utter the words "to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part", in earnest, a third of them, according to the surveys, fail to take the sentiment to heart.

But this duping is common to many cultures. Women often salt away money each month just in case - in case they want to run away. Or in case their husband does the running away, and takes the money with him. Jewish women call a furtive hoard a knipple (pronounced a kah-nipple), Caribbean women a sous-sous and Chinese women a hui.

In her book Money, A Memoir, the American author Liz Perle recalls her grandmother handing her a banknote. "This is the beginning of your knipple," she was told. "It is a woman's private stash. Every woman needs one. A just-in-case account. Every woman needs money of her own that her husband never knows about, so that she can do what she wants."

Women can even learn methods for such duping in the help yourself book How to Hide Money from your Husband... and other time-honoured ways to build a nest-egg. Author Heidi Evans has a simple message: women cannot rely on a man to look after them, so they should build up a secret stash instead.

Among the 20 money-building tips she gives are: starting a secret part-time job, rounding up the household bills, and rifling through a sleeping husband's pockets. One Londoner says: "My friend's great-aunt kept a 'running away' fund of about £5,000 secret throughout her marriage, including during periods of serious shortage. Her husband found out after she died and was furious, but she maintained that she'd needed it. Most of my female friends keep a small stash secret for the same thing - 'setting-themselves-up-again money', just in case..."

The First Direct study found that 19 per cent of women keep such a fund. And in 2002, Home Truths, the last big report by the Fawcett Society, the women's campaign organisation, found the practice commonplace.

Men are similarly capable of small deceptions about the cost of things, but the amount they hide varies greatly. At the low end, 33-year-old Alfie hides the receipts in his parcels from eBay because his wife has no idea that the sporting autographs he collects each cost up to £300, believing she would deem them a waste of money. He asks friends to confirm they cost just £20. Yet at the top end, some men channel millions of pounds into hard -to-trace offshore accounts.

Julian Lipson is a lawyer who handles multi-million pound divorces at the City firm Withers. "There's quite a lot of hiding of money that goes on, when people don't admit to having money or play down the amount of money they do own," he says.

So how does he think men and women differ in their deceit?

"I don't think you could say the concealment of debt is more done by women than by men. But lying about assets is mostly done by men - they are generally better off than women and hence it's more often the man who is lying about the financial situation than the woman."

Higher living standards and the explosion of cheap credit have allowed men and women to rack up debts that could not have been hidden in previous generations. Women over 35 are estimated to owe £8,219 on average, compared with £3,436 for men.

When the Consumer Credit Counselling Service asked 1,500 of its clients about their financial honesty, a third of men had not told their partner they had run up debts. In women, the figure was 40 per cent.

According to research for Alliance and Leicester, some 17 per cent of women said they refused a joint account because they did not want to be answerable to their men about their spending habits. A quarter of men feared that their partner would overspend if they had one.

"I am always struck by the number of couples who come to see me who don't know what their spouse's or partner's income is, or who don't what's in their partner's bank accounts or how much is owed on the home," says Denise Knowles, a Relate counsellor for 20 years.

"In the worst case I can recall, it wasn't until the bailiffs started knocking on the door that one man's wife realised that the house was being repossessed."

Debbie Greenwood, 47, TV presenter, London

I spend a lot more on shopping than my husband suspects, but that's because men don't always understand the things that women need. And that sometimes "need" is the same thing as "want". My wedding dress was one of my biggest financial infidelities. When the bill came for the second instalment, he thought that it was the bill for the whole thing - but it was only half. He has no idea how much things cost, and he would probably think, "it's only a white dress - how expensive can it be?" But I suspect he isn't entirely honest about how much he spends on gadgets and shiny toys either.

Ben Fitzgerald, 25, recruitment consultant, Salford

There's been a string of white lies to my girlfriend. The biggest secret was the true cost of a skiing holiday to the Alps with the boys. I told her we'd got a last-minute deal for £200. It actually cost me £700, plus spending money. I figured she would have been jealous that I was spending that much on a holiday with the lads while she was stuck at home. I've always managed to keep that extra £500 a secret. I also go on shopping trips alone and buy myself designer jeans without telling her. I'm young, so I take the opportunity to spend the cash while no one is dependent on me.

Dan O'Leory, 25, advice worker, London

I went to see an ex-girlfriend in Scotland without my girlfriend knowing - and paid for it all on a secret credit card because I couldn't have afforded it otherwise. I told her that I was going home for the weekend. In the end I reckon I spent about £1,500 without telling her. I don't think there's anything wrong with a minor financial infidelity as long as there are strands of truth holding it all together. A white lie never does any harm.

Linda McDyre, 25, retail manager, London

Buying online is my biggest weakness - and my boyfriend has no idea. We don't have a joint account so I can spend all of my money unwisely, and it's usually on shoes and underwear. I bought a pair of shoes the other day that were £200 and I told him they were on sale for £39 - and he even thought that was too much! He'd laugh if he knew the truth. He doesn't know how much I earn or how much I spend, which is about not being too dependent on each other and not feeling guilty about what I spend. My money is my own, and I can do what I like with it. I like to feel independent - and I won't dream of telling him how much I spend this Christmas.

Michael Wohlman, 25, factory worker, Maidstone

On a night out the other week I told my girlfriend I took £100 out of the cashpoint, when I really took out £250. I spent it all buying drinks for these three girls at a fancy bar. She would have had a right moan if she'd known. She would want to know why I wasn't buying her things and helping her pay off her bills. I like to keep things separate: I earn my money, she earns hers.

Sandra Aldridge, 67, retired nurse, Brighton

I give my daughter money that my husband doesn't know about. She's single and she's just bought a house, so I'm helping her to pay for her new kitchen. She's my daughter from my first marriage and it's my money, so it's nothing to do with him. Generally we're open about money; we have a joint account and I've never bought anything big in secret. But when I come to London with my sister I don't think he knows what we spend.

Dimitris Tsakumis, 29, mechanical engineer, London

My girlfriend has no idea about how much money I owe on my credit card. She thinks that when I get her a present I saved for it, when really it's all money I've had to borrow. It's all about the game of seduction, but you don't always have the money available to play it. I bought her a Chloé bag the other day for £1,500 - and it all went on my credit card.

Rhwena Thomas, 26, human resources administrator, London

My boyfriend is the big spender - and it usually goes on presents for me. I've only kept stuff from him on a couple of occasions, where I've bought two pairs of shoes and told him I've only bought the one. Generally we're very honest - we have a joint account for the bills and separate accounts for other things. Being dishonest can cause major problems, so I try to avoid it.

Karen Edmunds, 43, carer, Radcliffe, Greater Manchester

While my husband is inclined to accommodate my shopping habit, I do resort to dishonesty after a more extravagant trip. The biggest lie was probably a pair of designer Chloé shoes. They were £140 in the sale - I told him they'd been reduced to £30.I felt guilty for spending the cash when there were bills to pay. But what he doesn't know can't hurt him.

Peter Maine, 62, sales manager, London

The only thing I keep from my wife is that I like to have a little bet on the horses now and again, at Newmarket, or Ascot, but I don't always tell her how much I've lost. She'd rather I didn't gamble but I like having a flutter. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I've been married 34 years and it's never done us any harm; we have a joint account that we pay all the household bills from and also separate accounts.

Molly Browne, 54, shop assistant, Manchester

My sons are the cause of my financial infidelities. There are two of them and I did spoil them when they were growing up - but without my husband knowing. The boys are now aged 23 and 27 and live in their own homes, but I'm still surreptitiously bailing them out. I've loaned both of them hundreds of pounds to pay off debts. They know they have to pay me back, but we agree that it's better if their dad doesn't find out. When they were younger I'd buy them bits and pieces to keep them happy and we wouldn't tell him. Now I buy them things for their homes but I tend to hide them away. If my husband knew he'd disapprove because he feels they should be fending for themselves now.

I'm honest with him about most of the things I buy for myself, but occasionally I'll sneak clothes into the house. The second I get in, the labels come off and I hang them in the wardrobe as if they've always been there.

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