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"The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
02-08-2007, 03:10 PM
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#1
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 59
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"The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Since I'll enter my 30's next week, I found this interesting.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...oGetAhead.aspx
Median net worth $44,200
Median net worth of top 25% $128,100
Median net worth of top 10% $317,800
Reasonable.
Median income $48,263
Median total debt $86,000
Not bad considering lots of people buy their first homes in their late 20s and early 30s.
Households with a pension 20.6%
More with pensions than I expected...
401(k) or IRA 53.4%
Median value of accounts $17,000
I wonder what that distribution looks like. The optimist in me says maybe 49% of 30somethings have an extra 0 on the end of that number. The realist says "Doh!"
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-08-2007, 03:13 PM
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#2
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: San Diego
Posts: 5,267
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Hey, in the top 10% for 30 somethings at least, and I'm only 32. Yay.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-08-2007, 03:25 PM
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#3
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Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 20,541
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Great job Laurence. My net worth at age 32 was about $0
__________________
Living an analog life in the Digital Age.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-08-2007, 08:07 PM
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#4
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 699
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
 Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gumby
Great job Laurence. My net worth at age 32 was about $0
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Mine was negative.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-08-2007, 09:15 PM
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#5
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 897
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Somewhat difficult to interpret... I'm assuming most of the numbers are values for individuals, but then they have "household" sprinkled in for other numbers.
Looks like I'm above median in most respects, below median in others...
Interesting, thanks for the post. Buncha other good, random articles relating to each line too. Yay!
-CC
__________________
"There's those thinkin' more or less, less is more, but if less is more, how you keepin' score?
It means for every point you make, your level drops. Kinda like you're startin' from the top..." "Society" - Eddie Vedder
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-08-2007, 09:24 PM
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#6
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Scottsdale
Posts: 54
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Top 25% here at 33 and above median on income. Nice to know I am on my way to ER compared to other 30 somethings.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 12:54 AM
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#7
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 165
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Wow, those statistics really are sad. 
I cant see how the average person doesnt have at least 100k by the time they are 30. Personally I'm in the top 25% and only half way to 30. If I can be at this location with never making over 35k a year then so should everyone.
Eek I am mean!
Trixs
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 06:55 AM
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#8
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 1,719
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Laurence
Hey, in the top 10% for 30 somethings at least, and I'm only 32. Yay.
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Is that just "your" 50% of the marital assets, or you and your wife's assets combined?
__________________
He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it . . . It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. -- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 07:22 AM
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#9
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
100k in what? Personal debt? Personal Net Worth?
-CC
__________________
"There's those thinkin' more or less, less is more, but if less is more, how you keepin' score?
It means for every point you make, your level drops. Kinda like you're startin' from the top..." "Society" - Eddie Vedder
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 07:36 AM
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#10
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Alexandria, Va
Posts: 1,053
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
I cant see how the average person doesnt have at least 100k by the time they are 30.
----
Use your imagination a little. 4 years of college gets paid for with student loans. You get married young, have a kid, and buy a house. It's very easy to have a negative net work at that age.
Karen - also in top 10%, but I'm 37. Would have been in top 25% at 30.
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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by...
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 07:39 AM
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#11
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 1,250
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Whew! I don't feel so bad at all! Lower on many items, but higher on the good ones (except the income!) I agree that our 30's are crucial for retirement savings! Nice to know my adult life is not 100% backwards!
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Make no mistake, my friend, it takes more than money to make men rich. - A. P. Gouthey
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 07:52 AM
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#12
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Crownsville
Posts: 3,156
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
I had around $61K in savings/investments when I turned 30, but it wasn't an easy thing to accomplish. I made a few bad mistakes in my 20's, such as settling for a mediocre job that was close to home and not all that engaging, compared to pushing myself for something better. Also bought a condo I really couldn't afford yet, and that put a strain on me. Then I went through a bad marriage that left me about $27K in debt when I was 26. I had to work two jobs for awhile to keep from losing the shirt off my back, so it's probably a miracle that I made it as far as I did by the time I hit 30.
I think that often there's just too much going on in your 20's...trying to get through college and get it paid off, get a decent job, deciding if you want to get married and start a family, etc, that it's hard for many people to save up an appreciable amount by the time they're 30.
However, by the time you enter your 30's, things should start to smooth out, and if you make the right choices, your savings/investments should start to soar. Most likely, you're making a lot more money in your 30's than you did in your 20's, so if you put that more towards savings and less towards houses, cars, vacations, and wardrobes that are out of your reach, putting money away should come easier.
I think in the end, things turned out okay for me, but I still attribute much of it to luck. While I had trouble affording my condo at the time, I still lucked out and bought it at the bottom of a downward slump. Just a few years earlier it would've probably cost $95-100K, but I got in at $84K. And that wreck of a marriage that forced me to take on a second job also got that debt paid down in 2 1/2 years, paying it off in about half the time that CCCS originally set up for me. And after that debt was paid off, I just took the money left over and invested it. I think I also got pretty lucky because when the markets tanked back in 2000-2002, I was able to keep on investing, so a lot of my investments were made at relatively low prices. I'm sure many people would have panicked during that time, and stopped investing.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 08:59 AM
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#13
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 1,375
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by trixs
Wow, those statistics really are sad.
I cant see how the average person doesnt have at least 100k by the time they are 30. Personally I'm in the top 25% and only half way to 30. If I can be at this location with never making over 35k a year then so should everyone.
Eek I am mean!
Trixs |
Trixs: I don't think you're mean. Just inexperienced. 
Being smug is no way to make friends.
In any case, good luck to you.
P.S. I had a "negative" net worth at age 40.
-hit happens, and sometimes it comes at you in buckets.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 10:53 AM
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#14
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Recycles dryer sheets
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Posts: 481
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
I've looked at these numbers every time they come out, and they always seem very strange to me. Only $86k in debt for the median? Almost 70% own a home, and doesn't everyone in their 30's with a home have over $86k in debt? And the way the numbers are presented is very strange. The median of the top 10%? Isn't that usually called the 95th percentile? Only 11% of people in their 30's have negative net worth? It seems like there are a lot more people with no money and a lot of debt. I'm not sure how they are valuing consumer assets like cars and furniture.
Still, it's always interesting to look at.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 11:30 AM
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#15
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Only $86k in debt for the median? Almost 70% own a home, and doesn't everyone in their 30's with a home have over $86k in debt?
I think some of those figures might be mutually exclusive of each other. The $86K of debt is most likely the median for ALL 30-somethings, homeowners and renters alike. Homeowners will most likely have more debt because of the mortgage, while those who are renting will probably have much less.
FWIW, I think somewhere in the article it said that the median mortgage debt was $114K.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 11:47 AM
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#16
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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Originally Posted by Andre1969
Only $86k in debt for the median? Almost 70% own a home, and doesn't everyone in their 30's with a home have over $86k in debt?
I think some of those figures might be mutually exclusive of each other. The $86K of debt is most likely the median for ALL 30-somethings, homeowners and renters alike. Homeowners will most likely have more debt because of the mortgage, while those who are renting will probably have much less.
FWIW, I think somewhere in the article it said that the median mortgage debt was $114K.
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$114K as a median mortgage debt at first seemed too low to me, but compared with median income it actually seems pretty reasonable.
2Cor521
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"At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may in fact be the first steps of a journey." Violet Baudelaire.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 11:48 AM
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#17
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: San Diego
Posts: 5,267
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jay_Gatsby
Is that just "your" 50% of the marital assets, or you and your wife's assets combined?
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Good question, there was some mixing of "household" and per person statistics in this article. FWIW our "household" NW is ~$400,000 including equity in the home (which they include here) so that puts us at around 200k each, so somewhere between top 25% and top 10% if that's how it was measured. I think most of the statistics are household, though, since the median income seems to match up with household median income I've read elsewhere.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 11:51 AM
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#18
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: San Diego
Posts: 5,267
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
Quote:
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Originally Posted by SecondCor521
$114K as a median mortgage debt at first seemed too low to me, but compared with median income it actually seems pretty reasonable.
2Cor521
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There was a thread on this board a while back talking about it the easiest path to ER is live in an expensive area ( high salary, faster home appreciation) and retire someplace cheap. There are a lot of places you can get a house for this price, and I'm sure this includes condos etc. My friends in Deleware (just outside Wilmington) got their house recently for $140,000, and it's a 5 bedroom with a full basement and hardwood floors throughout.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 01:25 PM
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#19
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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Location: Houston
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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Originally Posted by trixs
Personally I'm in the top 25% and only half way to 30.
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Half way to 30 would be 15 years old. You might want to rethink that statement.
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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02-09-2007, 02:27 PM
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#20
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 1,719
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Re: "The 30s are a real make-or-break decade for many people."
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Originally Posted by Jarhead*
-hit happens, and sometimes it comes at you in buckets. |
I've heard a corollary question related to this one.
Question: If life deals you lemons, you make lemonade. But what happens if life deals you sh*t?
Answer: You make fertilizer.
__________________
He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it . . . It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. -- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
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