<prompt> Human: I just graduated from college and accepted a job offer with a base salary of 45K annually. I live in a fairly low cost of living city, so thats a pretty good amount to be making. However, most of my friends are accepting jobs in the 30-35K salary range and have started to ask me about how much Im making though I havent told most of them that I even accepted a job yet since I dont want to explain my salary. My opinion is that I dont like to talk moneyfinances with friends since its not really their business, but many of them have openly shared their salaries with me already so I dont know that I can say that. Is it okay to lie about my salary to them and say its lower? I feel bad about it but I know if most of them knew how much I was actually making, theyd expect me to always pay for everything when we go out and live more extravagantly than Id prefer. Any advice on what to do in this situation? I also have no debt and cant use the rationale that I need to save and pay anything down.  <response>: If these are middle class people with middle class values, then I doubt they will expect you to pay for everything because you make a tiny bit more than them.I suspect they are trying to gauge whether their offers are fair or not. If these were close friends, I would just tell them. Its not a crazy difference, so I doubt anything would come from it. And this information being shared only helps employees. 