This is a guest post from Crystal of Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: A Personal Financial Blog about the Next Financial Step. It’s an open fiscal diary and a personal finance blog rolled into one that is looking to get as many people involved as possible.
This article at Yahoo Finance, How to Gauge Your Middle-Class Status, made my inner-financial competitor salivate. It’s chocked full of ways to compare yourself to others. I know that is a bad thing, but I want to spread the naughty.
According to the article, the typical two-parent, two-kid household:
- Makes $51,000 to $123,000 with both parents working a total of 3747 hours per year.
- Owns a home worth $231,000 that is about 2300 square feet.
- Spends about $5100 a year on health insurance and non-covered expenses if their employer provides their insurance.
- Spends $12,400 a year on two medium-sized sedans that were bought for $45,000.
- Puts $4100 aside for college expenses for two kids (it seems to mean total…that’s a little low if you really want to help, right?)
- Spends $3000 on an annual one-week vacation.
- Doesn’t save at least 3.2% a year for retirement.
- Spends about $14,200 a year on clothes, food, entertainment, and living expenses.
- Has a typical head of household that has about 2 years of college under his/her belt.
- Wants free time more than they want healthy kids, a strong marriage, or to be wealthy.
- Has a net worth of about $84,000.
- Spends about 18% a month towards debt.
Okay, so my husband and I seem to be doing very well comparably, but we don’t have two kids to contend with either. Here’s how we fall; we:
- Make $78,000 with both of us working about 4000 hours total.
- Own a home worth $130,000 that is about 1750 square feet.
- Spend about $1500 a year on health insurance and non-covered expenses – my company provides insurance and hubby pays $75 a paycheck.
- Spend $7000 a year (including his car payments) on two medium-sized sedans that were bought for $12,000 and $21,000.
- Put $0 aside for college expenses (I know, unfair comparison, we suck)
- Spend $1500 on an annual one-week vacation.
- Save at least 15% a year for retirement.
- Spend about $12,000 a year on clothes, food, entertainment, and living expenses.
- Have two college graduates and one person in graduate school.
- Want health and a strong marriage way more than free time or to be wealthy…although I want it all.
- Have a net worth of about $125,000.
- Spend about 19% a month towards debt (since we overpay our mortgage).
What do you think of the typical amounts?
Check out these other posts from Budgeting in the Fun Stuff:
The BFS Way To Diagnose Your Financial Health
Want a Raise? Got These Traits?
Determining Our “Allowances”