Are You Doing Better Than the Average American?
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How does my financial situation compare to the average American?
Back in
the saddle, guys. Are you doing better than the average American? I am so excited about this because we know that our folks, they don't like to compare themselves. That's not what we do here. But it is great to just have an idea of where am I? Where are others? How do I stack up? How do I know if I am doing the same types of things that other financial mutants are doing? And today's show is all about figuring out how we are going to discern that.
Well, I mean, look, if we want to just have a baseline, what is the median financial assets of the typical American if you exclude home value? Look at this. I mean, this is why, if you were using comparison, the typical American is not who you want to compare anything to. So if you're trying to do any type of pace setting whatsoever, just to know if I'm doing the minimum, so I know if I'm ahead of the curve, behind the curve, right where I'm supposed to be, there needs to be a better way to know how to do money.
Now, these financial assets, this is like checking, savings, retirement accounts, pension. It does not include vehicles, other types of assets, home equity, collectible. So if you're just thinking about kind of like your liquid portfolio, you would look at this. And if you're a 35-year-old, you say, hey, if I have more than $37,000 in liquid assets between my retirement accounts and my cash and my checking, I'm probably doing okay, but we know that even as valuable as this data can be as a checkpoint, a lot of you, a lot of the financial mutants out there, you don't want to be the average American. That's not who you compare yourself to. That's not who you want to stack up against. So we decided that there's a better way.
Rather than seeing how you stack up to the average American, we want to look at how do you stack up to other financial mutants.
And with that, we're introducing our annual survey. Look, no, no, no. This is the thing. Look, I know I'm a little rusty. I took two weeks off. And I know we're sitting over there. We got Reby in the wings, and she's about to jump in. But this is one of my favorite things. If I could give you the vision of what motivated me when I started this all out is that I had read The Millionaire Next Door, and I loved how that book shed light on the fact that millionaires were different than what Robin Leach on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was sharing. So imagine my happiness that we have now reached the level of success that we have enough viewers that we can every year survey not only our millionaire clients, but survey our audience.
Yep. So we can create content and make something beautiful. That's what I get excited about because the educator, the heart of the educator that I have really does. And I would beg and plead that you guys, I know you've probably done it every other year. We've done it. Please do it again because we use this for content.
Yeah, I think what's so great is a lot of people, we're not just looking for, hey, who are the financial mutants out there that are killing it? Who are those people out there that are in step nine and crushing it? We want to know wherever you are. Maybe you just found this and you're 45 years old and this is your very first interaction with The Money Guy Show and you're starting to make good decisions. We want to know about that. Maybe you're someone who's been a father for the decade and you're doing all the things right. We want to understand where you guys are. And the reason we want to do that is so that we can create valuable content that helps all of you live better financial lives. Those of you that are ahead of the curve, those of you that are behind the curve, and those of you that are right on the curve.
We use this to figure out how we customize, create, and curate content for For your benefit. It's why we do it. So, Reby, if there are folks out there and they're like, all right, I want to do it. I want to participate. I want to get my data in there so that I can be represented. What do they need to do?
Step one, just complete the survey.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How does my financial situation compare to the average American?
0:05–7:29
2
Why should I take the Financial Mutant Survey and how does it help me?
7:29–15:49
3
How should I account for my pension in my net‑worth calculation?
15:49–26:03
4
Should I use a HELOC or save up to finance a new deck?
26:03–31:59
5
What does the 25% rule mean for home‑ownership and mortgage budgeting?
31:59–41:27
6
Can the 3‑5‑25 rule be adapted for renting instead of buying?
41:27–47:37
7
How do I balance Roth vs. traditional retirement accounts when I’m near a tax‑bracket edge?
47:37–54:09
8
When is it no longer appropriate to use a target‑date or single‑index fund?
54:09–1:03:41