Net worth vs lifetime earnings.

[Plantman]

Curious as to whether your net worth is more or less than your lifetime earnings. Ours (wife and mine) is but not by much.

 

[rk911]

Our NW is very, very much more than our combined lifetime earnings.

 

[RetiredHappy]

Our lifetime earnings were way more than our net worth. We were spenders, and saved on the side. We also paid the highest level of CA and Federal income tax brackets for many years. There weren't alot left after paying taxes. I just looked at our SS statements, we made 8 figures between the 2 of us.

 

[disneysteve]

I have no clue what our lifetime earnings were. I guess I could get a ballpark figure from our SS statements. But without doing any investigation I would assume our NW is higher than our earnings. I did inherit a good amount a few years ago. Without that it might be close but I’m honestly not sure.

 

[Car-Guy]

OMG, I have no idea.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

net worth is about 3x total w2 earnings

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Or you could consider the opposite order of the terms in the title:
Lifetime income vs. net worth

 

[Koolau]

Net worth by back of the envelope is about 4 X total earnings.

 

[youbet]

Net worth by back of the envelope is about 4 X total earnings.

Did you include investment income in your total earnings?

 

[Koolau]

Did you include investment income in your total earnings?

No. I took (salary start + salary end)/2 X years employed = total earnings. Definitely back of the envelope. Too lazy to go look up the actual earnings for each year.

 

[Time2]

Our net worth is 2.7 times earned income. But we have excuses! And darn good ones!
(if you know, you know )

 

[old medic]

Our lifetime earnings were way more than our net worth.

Same here, W2 earnings to current NW, We have kept maybe 1/3. But If you count our pensions towards NW using the 4%WR We have kept almost all of it, Just getting it back a little at a time...

 

[Surewhitey]

Probably close but we're not done yet and then there's the growth after earning in the future. Lots of variables.

 

[COcheesehead]

Not sure what the end result would tell you for all the time required to figure it out.

 

[bonvoyage]

Our NW is very, very much more than our combined lifetime earnings.

Exactly the same for us. My wife and I were both high earners but we lived on only one salary for over twenty five years and saved the rest.

 

[Just_Steve]

Don't know, don't care.

 

[ERD50]

Not sure what the end result would tell you for all the time required to figure it out.

It didn't take me long to get a rough estimate, using combined SS numbers for 'earnings' (are investment returns 'earnings', or just use 'earned income'?). A rough number is ~ 3x to 4x, but yea, not sure that tells us anything useful, but it was easy enough, and I was curious.

 

[CalBird]

Net worth > earnings. Earnings stopped after retirement but NW keeps growing life time. Maybe the value of doing this exercise is whenever you see your NW is more than your earnings, you should seriously consider retirement.

 

[COcheesehead]

It didn't take me long to get a rough estimate, using combined SS numbers for 'earnings' (are investment returns 'earnings', or just use 'earned income'?). A rough number is ~ 3x to 4x, but yea, not sure that tells us anything useful, but it was easy enough, and I was curious.

I’d have to go into my account, then my wife’s account. Get 2FA codes to make that happen. Then make some SWAG on lifetime investment income all to get a number that, well, tells me nothing.
If there were a meaningful comparison ratio or other way to “value” the number, I might be curios, but it seems totally irrelevant.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I added up all my earnings that have been taxed for Medicare as listed on my SS statement. My current NW is a tad above 2x my total earnings. However, the NW is joint with DW but I didn't take time to add hers up. Her salary was about the same as mine but she RE'd several years earlier, so the total is probably right about equal NW to lifetime earnings.

 

[Jerry1]

NW is less than half my total earnings. Did like to spend but managed to save enough to make a comfortable retirement work.

 

[CalBird]

It’s apple to orange comparison. NW is in today’s dollar while earnings are in yesterday’s dollar.

 

[pb4uski]

Our NW is about 97% of our lifetime earnings.

 

[pb4uski]

I have no clue what our lifetime earnings were. I guess I could get a ballpark figure from our SS statements. But without doing any investigation I would assume our NW is higher than our earnings. ...

I would have assumed that as well but even with an inheritance, it is not.

 

[Al18]

NW is in the ballpark, but less than lifetime earnings