The one part of character creation that I like the least, (and the one that I often see players forget they need to do) is buying starting equipment. I know that some people really do enjoy the fantasy shopping minigame, but I have always seen it as a necessary evil. Even after that is done, in play, characters often need to buy (or sell) things. Regardless of how you feel about it, role-playing games need rules for player character economics and GURPS is no exception.
The GURPS wealth rules are often a source of confusion (or frustration) to GM's and players alike. Different types of campaigns have different needs for the role of wealth and money, and the rules in the Basic Set may end up being a poor fit for many of them.
The Rules
The Basic Set
The wealth rules are primarily on pp. B25-B27, B264-266 and B514-516. Characters have a Wealth Level which along with Tech Level determines Starting Wealth. Characters have income, either from Independent Income (B26), a Job (B516-517), or adventuring income and must pay Cost of Living (B265, B516) based on their Status (or risk lowering their effective Status).
Both Starting Wealth and job income are dependent on TL, while Cost of Living is constant at all TLs. This means that as technology advances, characters have increasing disposible income. Historically, this trend isn't a bad assumption, and this simplification mostly works for many campaigns. It tends to break down with space opera settings where technology has advanced but society doesn't seem to have changed much (or is even regressed to psuedo-fuedalism) or in post-apocalytptic settings where the current society cannot maintain the economics of the pre-collapse.
The rules do not expressly say that Wealth Level represents a character's social connections and overall financial health, but this idea may be implied by the rules, and has been supported by the Line Editior.
In general the Basic Set takes an itemized approach to accounting for each piece of equipment and every last GURPS $, with one exception:
The "80/20 Rule"
The Starting Wealth box on p. B26 says:
Realistically, if you have a settled lifestyle, you should put 80% of your starting wealth into home, clothing, etc., which leaves only 20% for “adventuring” gear. If you are a wanderer (pioneer, knight-errant, Free Trader, etc.), or Poor or worse, the GM might allow you to spend all your starting wealth on movable possessions.
While the rules never explicity say this, it's generally assumed (and supported by the Line Editor's comments) that it means that "settled" characters get the lifestyle accoutrements that are maintained by paying Cost of Living, like the modern example given on p. B266, in exchange for 80% of starting wealth. Furthermore, these possessions and assets don't need to be itemized on your character sheet but are largely abstract. Since 80% of starting wealth is rarely enough to pay for all of that outright, one interpretation is that this amount is how much you could hope to get if you liquidated in a hurry and became a wanderer (therefore giving you the same amount of adventuring gear).
One problem this presents is "What happens when a character wants to use their lifestyle accoutrements on an adventure?" This stems from the conflict between the agreement to abstract these possessions so that your character can be assumed to have boring everyday things like bath towels without needing to enumerate them, and the narrative logic that a character ought to be able to drive his Honda Civic into the hellmouth that opened on the I-405 if he wants. The rules really don't address this directly, and leave it to the GM to adjucate, although things like the Vehicle perk (Power-Ups 2: Perks p. 18) support using things "implied by your Status" (but also that such things are easily linked to the PC). I feel like this is subject to potential abuse, and I've seen arguments that a character might own an arsenal or that farm equipment should count as both a full bioassay and a forsensics laboratory, all of which seems to go beyond the intent of mundane lifestyle equipment and into definately "adventuring gear".
It's also worth noting that all four of the "worked example" series: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. GURPS Action, GURPS Monster Hunters and GURPS After the End completely dispense with this and allow (or require in one case) 100% of starting wealth to be spent on adventuring gear, whether the character is assumed to be "settled" or not.
Wealth and Status
High wealth can impute free Status, depending on the setting (B25), and high Status can require the character buy up Wealth to match (B516).
Jobs
The jobs rules on p. B516 allow characters to work an "off-screen" job, abstracting performance to a single monthly roll. Job income depends on TL and the wealth level of the job. You can work a job of higher wealth level and be paid commensurately. Niether character Status nor Wealth Level are factors when finding a job (B518); higher paying, higher status jobs, are harder to find for everyone. Which seems off to me. Shouldn't higher wealth and status give you the connections to find appropriate work?
Becoming Wealthy
The box on p. B27 says "If a poor PC becomes wealthy, the GM should require the player to
“buy off” the disadvantage with character points" and p. B516 says "if the PC’s savings reach the starting wealth of the next-highest wealth level, he must pay the points to buy up his Wealth".
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy makes Wealth directly affect the amount you can sell things for (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers p. 23, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons pp. 14-15).
It doesn't specifcally mention ignoring the requirement to buy higher wealth if your savings exceed higher starting wealth, but given the wealth accumulation "goal" of dungeoneering and the effect of wealth on selling goods, it's probably best to do so.
Adventurers are expected to pay a weekly cost of living (and Status is a trait that doesn't exist in Dungeon Fantasy) of $150, which is simply 1/4th of the CoL for Status 0 (and doesn't include the increase for living on the road and eating out).
Assumed to be wanderers, the "80/20" split isn't relevant to delvers.
GURPS Action
The Standard (and Not-so-Standard) Issue box on Action 1: Heroes p. 27 says "heroes don’t normally buy
gear with starting money" and generally should just have Average Wealth. It gives rules instead for organizational budgets. Signature Gear gets an expansion here with two additional perks. It allows for independent operators who do front their own budgets, but ignores the 80/20 rule in this case, allowing full Starting Wealth on gear. It gives rules for drawbacks afflicting team characters who buy their own supplemental gear. Finally it exempts heroes from Cost of Living expenses, and gives a discretionary personal budget of up to $2,000 each month (which personal Wealth modifies).
It also includes the rules for Pulling Rank Action 1: Heroes pp. 24-25 (expanded in GURPS Social Engineering: Pulling Rank) allowing organizational characters to requisition instittutional assets.
GURPS Monster Hunters
GURPS Monster Hunters: Champions 1 p, 53, Budgeting, is very similiar to the rules in Action. The main difference is that team budgets only apply if the team has a Patron, team vehicle budget is seperated out, Signature Gear allows for bundling multiple pieces of gear under the same point, and the considerations about traceablity and assistance rolls are absent. Notably again the "80/20" split is ignored; characters have full starting wealth to spend on gear, and characters don't pay Cost of Living.
To Gear or Not to Gear on p, 58 gives some more options, for both more or less focus on equipment (but mostly less). Signifitcantly it includes this radical option:
More radically, the GM may simply assign whatever gear he feels is appropriate to each PC – the warrior may get an axe and a smile, while the techie gets a small collection of expensive gadgets.
GURPS After The End
Wealth and Money (Don't Exist) pp. 28-28 of After the End 1: Wastelanders, reflecting an early post-apocalypse before civilization recovers, emliminates Wealth Level entirely. Characters get $500, they can get more only by trading character points for money. Not only is the "80/20" split absent here, characters have use-it-or-lose-it budgets; any money not spent on gear is just lost.
GURPS Power Ups 5: Impulse Buys
P. 8 of Impulse Buys gives some options for Trading Points for Money that are better than the 10% of Starting Wealth given in the Basic Set: 50% of Starting Wealth in cash or 100% in gear.
"Abstract Wealth" Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II
This article gives a system for GURPS that's analogous to credit rating type systems in other games (Storyteller, D20 Modern, etc.). Characters have a Wealth Score that they roll against to make purchases. It's assumed that you can pay cost of living, but are able to live frugally to save for purchases. It's silent on starting equipment, but it also probably mostly makes sense in games where you aren't worried about listing a lot of gear on your character sheet in the first place.
They're still using money. We've got to find some.
Different games need different levels of focus on gear and personal economics. Broadly there are two approaches that games can take: itemized accounting or abstract credit. In the Basic Set, GURPS uses a hybrid of these, with itemized listing of gear and money on your character sheet, but an abstract approach to lifestyle accoutrements. In general games that have a focus on resource managment are going to want a granular bean-counting approach and the less your game is about managing resources (or at least finacial resources) the more abstract you probably want to get.
I think there are broadly five types of campaigns frameworks in respect to character wealth and personal finances.
Part-Time Adventure
The default assumptions in the Basic Set: 80% of starting wealth spent on lifestyle, a background monthly job roll, and cost of living, suggest a game where the PCs have day jobs but get into shenanigans off-work, or where day-to-day work is pretty ordinary, but occassionally something comes up that is worth playing out. This may apply to any number of "everyman" type stories and to genres like cozy mysteries. Such characters may be self-employed too, like a pulp private detective, but the regular business day is reasonably financially stable and non-hazardous.
However, many of these kinds of games aren't really about resource management or gear, so tracking the finances of these characters ends up a lot like doing it in real life. Listing exactly what's in Miss Marple's handbag before you can play her, or having to pay Philup Marlowe's monthly bills is likely a distraction from what's actually important. These kinds of games are exactly what "Abstract Wealth" is suited for.
Murder Hobo Economics
Similar considerations apply to games focused on survival, resource management is just as important, but you probably are using what you find (or steal) more than you are selling it (if there even is an economy to really sell things in). This is the kind of scenario that the After the End rules addresses and a similar approach (limited starting funds that can't be saved) may also apply to e.g. castaway survival or neolithic hunter-gatherers.
Heist movie thieves, however, don't fall into this category. Caper movies rarely have the protagonists living hand-to-mouth but rather are fashionable charmers planning and executing a big score, which is more symbolic of victory over the establishment than it is a sum of money. These kinds of games probably benefit most from the approach in Action.
Mercantile Adventures
For campaigns that are, like the classic mode of Traveller, mainly concerned with a business enterprise, owned and operated by the player characters, managing financial resources is the core of the game. The individual personal finances of each character is probably less important here than activity of the business. The characters are typically not truly "settled" in many of these cases, but it's also generally not worth itemizing every mundane thing in their cabins. Typically, investment in the venture itself would represent a significant part of the character's assets, so applying 80% of their starting wealth to to the startup costs e.g. buying a spacecraft, and still allowing them to abstract lifestyle accoutrements would make sense. Operating the business and making trades is their job, and such characters probably don't make job rolls, but do have to pay expenses.
Adventure IS my Day Job
For police, intelligence, and military procedurals, space exploration, or other games where the adventure is what happens when the characters do their jobs in a large organization, personal finances are typically irrelevent. The heroes don't need to buy adventuring gear, they have issued equipment. The approach in Action (or the similar approach in Monster Hunters) is appropriate here, even for games more realistic than your typical action movie.
No Money Problems
Lastly are games where economic activity is completely absent. This could be because the characters are creatures that aren't economic actors, e.g. wild animals or incorporeal spirits, but it's also true for many one-shot adventures; if you spend the entire game being chased by shoggoths in the woods, how much money you have is irrelevant.
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