Are you worth more than you earn? Poll results/discussion

Sally87

Charis wrote: »

If you have been made redundant and are living in your car, provided the car is your own you are liable to be at the top of this league. Value of car divided by JSA = .....

So? The poll isn't 'how rich are you?', it's whether you are worth more than you earn, and in the situation you describe, you are.

irishwench69

Well I'm an 'E'. That seems worse than I think my position is. I earn a high salary but have a relatively large mortgage left, so I think that has skewed things a bit.
I have savings and pension funds, but these don't seem to have affected the figures too much (as I'm relatively young, these are smaller than my mortgage!)

No other debt outside of mortgage - think its having a mortgage left that will skew the choices people make, much more than other debts or savings, unless you're retired!

FWIW, I didn't think the poll was that difficult to understand? Have I missed something?

IW x

XRAT

Dear Coveredinbees,
Make the most of it, if she wants a divorce you'll be 'coverdinsolicitors' and you will be lucky to see 5%.

MSE_Martin

Hi folks,

I think the results are fascinating and will be blogging on it and nice to see so far over 4,000 people have been working it out.

What's interesting is how different people at different life stages vary. I suspect many towards the higher wealth scale are retirees who own their own homes. Many towards the heavy debt scale will be people who have had major change of circumstances and lost jobs.

The younger you are the less chance you will have had to built up wealth.

I think its an interesting exercise in itself, to work out whether you're financial strength (if you have one) is one of assets or income...

Martin

buxtonrabbitgreen

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Oops, i clicked the wrong one.. forgot that my house was an asset worth more than the mortgage!

Yes me too. We should read the instructions. So I am quite in credit really as I only owe about £1000 on the mortgage

meester

Hmm, I typed the wrong thing. My worth is less than twice my salary! Bit confusing, divided my salary by ten before working it out.

I don't think it's terribly meaningful though. I have just over £200k in cash and liquid investments. I'd say that makes me asset-rich, compared perhaps to someone with £100k of house equity (I have none), £5k of savings, and a £35k salary.

There are far too many variables. I'm 26, for instance. If I were 56, I'd be in a relatively poor financial position if I had the same assets, whereas as it is, I'd say I'm in a very comfortable position.

Also I'd say there's a fair difference between house equity and other investments. I'd leave house equity and mortgage off.

I think 'how much savings do you have' is more interesting, as I think firstly the bands here must be very skewed (average income of £20k is unlikely to have much savings, and a better income is unlikely to have a high multiple of savings), and also heavily distorted by when they bought their house.

sdooley

Charis wrote: »

If you have been made redundant and are living in your car, provided the car is your own you are liable to be at the top of this league. Value of car divided by JSA = .....

JSA of £2700 p.a. * 21 = £56,700

Don't see many homeless people driving second-hand Aston Martins....

plebeian

Over the whole population this would probably be a decent bell curve, but in the MSE populous it's interesting to note the two small peaks at either end of the scale. The fit the two MSE stereotypes - ie the people deeply in debt who need help and have come to MSE, and the people who really scrimp and save and have plenty of assets and savings.

UltraViolet68

I missed the chance to vote - only saw it on the email, but I sit in J

I'm quite happy at that since I am a single income household and many many years away from retirement.

Debt_Free_Dreamer

sdooley wrote: »

Although "are you worth more alive than dead" is an interesting one. I'm definitely worth more dead than alive to my loved ones in purely fiscal terms but I'd hope they'd see it differently in general!

My OH and I had this conversation last week. I am worth a lot more dead than he is, as I have a very good local autority pension. He commented at the end "That he would rather have me!" Which is reassuring..... He probably got a bit concerned when I was sugggesting we took out some insurance on him. :rotfl: :rotfl: