It seems like funding in the lab I work in is getting tight, and since I usually end up spending a fair amount of money buying supplies for the lab, It'd be nice to have an accurate picture of the lab's financial situation so that I could make more informed decisions. I've pretty directly indicated to my adviser that I'm interested in more details about how the funding situation in the lab is, but it seems my adviser doesn't want to talk about it. On the couple cases I've mentioned it, they've avoided directly talking about it or have given me very vague and not very useful responses.

I'm currently self-funded, so I'm not particularly concerned about losing my job or anything. I'm sure my adviser would tell me before things got too crazy bad, but I'd just rather not be so in the dark about these things. How unusual is it for advisers to hide this info from their students? Would it be appropriate / inappropriate for me to push further? I realize that funding is probably a somewhat sore & frustrating subject for many professors.