I was surfing the New York Times web site and happened upon their personal finance calculators. Now I love online calculators because they give you fun figures and you have to do a minimal amount of work. The first calculator I used determines how wealthy you are compared to “others in your age range”. The variables you input are your age, your income, and your net worth.
The third variable got me. How much am I worth? Friends and family would say a million bucks because they are sweet but also delusional (you know, in a fun way). Here is a link that’ll help you calculate your net worth to the actual world. Meanwhile with my car, various possessions, savings, and retirement investments, I’m worth about $55,000.
All told, according to the calculator, for my age and income, I am 0.962 of the Desired Net Worth, meaning that people my age making my salary are worth a little more than I am. The only reason I am worth even close to what my peers are is that 1) my parents started a retirement account for me earlier than I ever thought of it and 2) my grandfather died last year, leaving me some unexpected money. To be an average accumulator of wealth, I need to be making at least $29,000. Hmph.
To make myself feel better, I did the simple savings calculator. If I’m able to continue putting away $50 a week into my retirement over the course of 25 years (even at a merely three percent) for $70,000ish I will have invested, I’ll have acumulated $45,000 in interest. Yay compound interest. But that means I have to keep at it.
Do you know of any good calculators for personal finance? Leave them in the comments for others to see! Until then, have fun with some numbers, knowing that the more you can save, the less you’ll cost yourself in the long run because in some ways, it’s good to be a cheap date. Happy 2008.