In a tough year for personal finance, what’s normal for debt and saving? – The Globe and Mail
A lot of personal finance exists in an idealized world where people keep debt to a strict minimum and take a maximal approach to saving and investing.
We have just started a year where a lot of people will compare their own situations to the ideal and feel like they don’t measure up. Nothing good will come of this – just frustration, shame and disengagement.
What we need is a benchmark showing what’s normal in each age group for debt, savings and investments and net worth. Millennials could compare their mortgage balance to other millennials, Gen Xers in their 50s could compare their retirement savings with their peers and boomers could compare the value of their tax-free savings accounts.
We plan to build an online tool that will show you all of this in early 2023. To help us get started, please fill out the questionnaire that follows. It’s 100 per cent anonymous – we just want your age bracket and the specifics of what you owe and what you have in savings and investments.
With these numbers in hand, we will build a tool that invites people to compare their personal finances to their peers. Find out what’s normal for your age bracket and see how you compare.
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