Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Total Lifetime Earnings


So this was a homework assignment from J. Money at Budgets Are Sexy. The idea is too look up your total lifetime earnings (at www.ssa.gov/myaccount) and compare it to your current net worth to get some sort of lifetime savings rate or as J. Money calls it Lifetime Wealth Ratio or LWR. Is it meaningful? Most certainly not, but is should be a fun experiment.

It was pretty easy to log into the SSA site (except for finding an available user name) and I copied the info into Excel and added my "phase" of life for reference.



Obviously I didn't really start earning money until the last couple of years (having a grown-up job will do that to you).

My total (taxable) earnings turned out to be: $295,760
That's a pretty high number, its not surprising in that I can pretty easily account for my earning. But it is surprising to see it all at once, it makes you wonder where did all that money go?


My latest Net Worth:  $107,806

Giving me a LWR: 36%
This number is pretty meaningless but 36% sounds like a pretty good number to me. And according to J. Money's made up lifetime savings index, my 36% puts me squarely in the "You’re on fire, baby! Give me your number!". So even J. Money agrees its good!
Additional note: I used my current net worth with my total earning only through 2013 so my savings rate will actually be lower, I'll have to experiment with this again at the end of the year.

J. Money's LWR is 55% and Jacob from iHeartBudgets.net has an LWR of 9%. What does all of this mean? Nothing but its fun to look at.

Because I recently put together my net worth history for another post, I can combine my net worth history with my history of earnings and come up with an LWR over time.


Well my LWR bounced around a lot more than I would have expected but I suppose that's what happens when you go back to grad school (also known as going broke).

What about you? What is your LWR?


Thanks for stopping by.


-Nick

4 comments:

  1. You are on the right track and lookin forward in seeing your net worth grow!

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    1. Thanks Asset-Grinder! Net worth is always a secondary goal for me but it sure is rewarding to watch it grow!
      Thanks for stopping by!

      -Nick

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  2. Interesting post Nick...it appears you are taking good care of your money and not just dwindling it away! My guess is that your LWR will continue to grow in the upcoming years now that you are making a good living. Keep up the great work! AFFJ

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    1. Thanks! Yeah I am always trying to do good things with my money. It will be interesting to track my LWR, I'm really curious to see what it will look like at the end of the year.
      Thanks for stopping by!

      -Nick

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