Yes. I feel like they would only be acquaintances if they didn't know anything about my life beyond a rudimentary level. It would be also strange if I had a friend who wasn't aware that I enjoy playing cards, living on lake time, lounging on patios, having a drink with friends, deep talks by the fire, trivia, etc.
I have a similar sentiment to @Malkynn on this, it's hard for me to imagine a friend not knowing anything about my plans to be financially secure and retire a bit earlier than normal. Lifestyle and personal finance are so intertwined.
Do I share exact numbers or the minutiae of my FIRE plan? Not usually but I do have some friends who reach out to me and we have deeper discussions every now and then. I don't really have much to hide and feel, perhaps naively, that only good can come from others asking/discussing/knowing a little bit more about personal finance than they might otherwise if they never knew me.
I think a lot of people are able to be close to others and have no clue what their financial situation is, so it's not a given that close friends will always be aware of each other's circumstances.
However, that's largely due to one or both parties either lacking the knowledge or interest in order to be able to infer and deduce.
I'm keenly interested in people's personal finances, so when I take a genuine interest in who they are, what's important to them, and what stresses them, I'm picking up tons of signals along the way that can build a pretty unambiguous picture of their financial situation without ever asking anything about numbers.
Money is just a placeholder for time and energy, so understanding what time and energy means to someone is all it takes to understand their finances.
Hey, whatever works. I'm not saying there is a right or wrong way to have friends, every friendship is unique - was just answering the OP as it pertained to me. Also, maybe my definition of friend is more intimate than the general use of the word or at least as posed by the OP. I generally know what my friends' careers are, who their parents are or a good idea of their extended family situation (if relevant), how many kids they have, where they live and what their house is like, their travel plans, etc. It's hard to not naturally impute from the lifestyle about what the personal finances are like. Plus we explicitly talk all the time about careers, life, the nebulous future, where we want to be, what our next house will be like, kids, joint travel plans, bridging the gap from retirement to pension/SS, healthcare, estate planning, all that jazz - it's what we talk about. These are people that I usually see multiple times a month if they live nearby, or a good chunk on the phone/Zoom if they're long distance.
I have plenty of acquaintances* to talk about the weather and sports and other mundane things whenever I run into them. Do I know about their lifestyles and/or personal finances? Definitely not as well as my friends, but I'm likely not talking FIRE or making plans with them or helping them out with something or asking them to help me out with something either.
*It would be normal to refer to these people as friends, in passing. So I guess I should say I talk about more intimate subjects with my more intimate friends and that inference, context, and other signals are also easier to pick up on the more you know someone (but ugh, that answer made me bored as I typed it).
