Ever wonder the demographics of who else is reading and commenting on Financial Samurai? I’ve always felt the community here is one of the most financially savvy on the web based on my interactions with so many of you. I just didn’t have a post to prove my belief until now!
Polls are a great way to anonymously figure out what other people are thinking and how other people are doing. Everything is relative when it comes to personal finance since we all live in one of the most prosperous countries in the world.
Everybody wants to know their position vis a vis another. It’s the reason why the following posts are some of the most popular on Financial Samurai:
How Much Should I Have In My 401k By Age?
The Average Net Worth For The Above Average Person
What Should My Net Worth Or Savings Be By Income?
How Much Do The Top 1% Income Earners Make?
Over six years I’ve conducted around 100 polls. Almost all of them received over 500 submissions, a dozen received over 1,000 submissions, while a handful rocked the 5,000+ submission level.
In other words, these polls are statistically significant for a demographic that enjoys reading about personal finance. Here is the latest data for 2019.
Where Do Financial Samurai Readers Come From?
One could argue that those who read personal finance sites are inherently wealthier than those who don’t. Ever since I was in middle school, I remember always gravitating towards money magazines at the library. The Lifestyle Of The Rich And Famous was one of my favorite TV shows! If you really like money, you’ll probably earn more of it.
One could also argue that those who read personal finance blogs become wealthier and more financially savvy over time as a result. After all, how can you not learn new information, make better financial decisions, and get motivated to save and earn more when you see others do the same thing? I’d love to think the skew is 80% in favor of the latter. But the truth is probably a little more balanced.
A reader’s ability to soak up information on a site is limited by the knowledge of the person writing the content as well as the skill and determination of the person to keep putting out value-added content. This is why I’m extremely proud of the community we’ve built here.
The quality of the comments is so high that I like to leave a day’s gap before publishing the next article just so I can read all the comments and respond where necessary. The FS community gets an A+ when it comes to dialogue!
Here’s some basic data from Google Analytics:
Traffic source: 72% of traffic comes from search engines. These are the people who seek answers to their questions. Most will never return, but those who see personal finance as a long term journey will stick around and subscribe to my e-mail feed. You can also join the Financial Samurai Forum where we talk about early retirement, real estate investing, stocks, bonds, career strategies, negotiating a severance, entrepreneurship and more.
Traffic numbers: Roughly 1.5 million organic pageviews a month from 1 million visitors. High quality traffic focused on the specific articles. In 2019, the Financial Samurai Forum was launched to capture more dialogue.
Geography: 84% of you are based in the United States. 3.5% are from Canada. 2.3% are from the UK. 1.3% are from India. 1.2% are from Australia. And 2.4% of you are from Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Kenya, and The Netherlands.
Sex: 54% of you are male. 46% of you are female.
Method of reading: 48% desktop. 42% mobile. 10% tablet.
Browser: Chrome 41%. Safari 35%. Internet Explorer 9%. Firefox 7.3%.
86% of readers hail from America. California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington lead the way
83% of readers are from America followed by Canada 4%, UK 2.7%, Australia 1.3%, India 1%, Singapore 0.53%, Malaysia 0.47%, Germany 0.43%, Philippines 0.4%, and S. Africa 0.38%
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the polls to see what you guys are all about!
Financial Samurai Reader Demographics
* Age: 76% of you are between the ages of 26 – 45. 11% are under age 26. 13% are over 45.
* Annual Income: 33% of you make between $100,000 – $200,000 a year. 18% of you make over $200,000 a year, while 17% of you make between $75,000 – $100,000 a year. 3.3% of you make over $500,000 a year, the level which I consider to be the definition of rich. Impressive that 45% of readers make over $100,000 here.
* Value Of Primary Residence: 39% of you said your apartment or house is worth between $250,000 – $500,000. 28% said your apartment or house is worth between $500,000 – $1,000,000. And 9% of you said your apartment or house is worth more than $1,000,000. Most homeowners have refinanced at least one over the past 10 years to take advantage of record low interest rates. Check out LendingTree for some of the lowest rates where banks compete for your business by letting you know their best rates.
* Retirement Savings: About 19% of you have saved over $1 million dollars for retirement, excluding the value of your primary residence. Another 18% of you have saved between $500,000 – $1 million dollars. While 38% of you have saved between $100,000 – $500,000. Roughly 35% of you consider using a low cost digital wealth advisor like Betterment to manage a portion of your after-tax retirement investments.
* Social Class: 67% believe you are considered in the Mass Affluent Class followed by 20% who believe you are Middle Class.
* Education: 62% of you went to public university while 29% of you went to private school with grants or scholarships worth at least $4,000 a year. Roughly half of public university attendees got grants or scholarships worth at least $2,000 a year.
* Debt Levels: 52% of you have $0 consumer debt outstanding. While 22% of you have less than $10,000 in consumer debt outstanding. 36% of you have total debt outstanding (mortgages, credit cards, student loans, etc) of between $150,000 – $500,000. 15.5% of you have no debt of any kind.
* Net Worth: 35% of you have a net worth of between $300,000 – $1 million. 23% of you have a net worth over $1 million. 80% meticulously track their net worth with free tools like Personal Capital at least once every six months. Leveraging the internet to grow your net worth is a no-brainer.
* 401k/IRA Savings: 21% of you have between $100,000 – $200,000 in your 401k or IRA. 25% of you have between $201,000 – $500,000. 17.5% have over $500,000.
* Ideal Income For Happiness: 14% say you need to make $101,000 – $150,000 a year to feel “very happy.” 22% say $151,000 – $250,000. While 52% of you need to make over $250,000 a year to feel very happy.
* Savings Discipline: 15% of you save between 11% – 20% of your after tax income each month. 18% save between 21% – 30%. 28% save between 31% – 50%. While 23% of you save over 50% of your after tax savings.
* Career Risk: 53% of you say you’d prefer the stability of a full-time job over the flexibility of being a contractor.
* Retirement Safety: Roughly 40% of you have a significant pension that will cover a large part of your living expenses in retirement. While 13% of you also have a pension, but nothing worth writing home about.
FS Readers Are Well Above Average
The Financial Samurai community is doing very well compared to the average American who has a $52,000 household income, a median retirement account of under $100,000, and a pitiful savings rate of under 5%.
What stands out most about the community is how aggressively we save. Roughly 70% of us save over 21% of our after-tax income every month. The other surprising stat is that 52% of us think we need $250,000 or more to feel very happy. It looks like I’ve got a lot of work to do to convince y’all that trying to earn much more than $250,000 will likely not lead to any more happiness.
If you are below some of the financial survey results, I suggest sticking around because we tend to evolve into the people we associate with most. And if you’re ahead of these financial results, then please continue to share your strategies for building wealth with the community!
For those who haven’t filled out the survey questions before, below is a list of the 40 most popular survey questions. From start to finish, it should take no more than five minutes to answer them all. As soon as you answer one of the questions, the result appears. Over time, I’ll continue to add new polls to this post.
Debt
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Lifestyle
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Education
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Loading ... Loading ... Loading ... Loading ... Loading ...Career
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Updated for 2020 and beyond. If you got this far and want to join a wonderful community of personal finance enthusiasts, head over to the Financial Samurai Forum where we talk about early retirement, real estate investing, stocks, bonds, career strategies, and more!
Very interesting and informative site. It would be interesting to relate one’s marital status with their current “financial health”.I make an inference to divorce after decades of marriage which can easily cause one to plummet from an “above average” financial status to “average” at best.
I spent several years of my life in a pressure cooker job in finance on Wall Street in NYC. I recently took a corporate job with a $100,000 annual pay cut. My wife and I are in our early 30s and have no children yet. We plan to have a child in the next 2-3 years. We will earn about $317,000 of gross income for 2015 and are expecting about $400,000 of gross income for 2016 with probably 3-4% annual increases thereafter. 2015 was an anomaly due to the job change in mid-2015. Our combined monthly cash flow from salaries (net of taxes, 401ks, ESPPs, medical and dental insurance, transit costs for Metro North, etc.) is about $13,500 plus we get about $75,000 or so net in bonuses combined each December. We budget and monitor our spending closely (although we don’t always hit our targets). On paper, we can save 56% of our gross income and still live a very comfortable life, but due to some additional vacations and a new BMW lease, we are likely to end 2015 with a 43% savings rate based on gross income (which is about 60% of take home pay).
Here is a snapshot of our current financial life:
Cash: $13,000 (this emergency fund is low because of access to HELOC; it should probably be $30,000-$60,000 based on our living expenses)
Stock: $517,000 (i.e., $96,000 personal accounts (all individual stocks) and $421,000 retirement (all in S&P 500 fund))
House: $800,000 (based on recent sales in Westchester, NY where I live; I paid less for it in 2008 post-Lehman but before bottom)
Mortgage: $75,000 (2% for 3 more years of ARM until it adjusts based on PRIME to 7% max)
Personal Property (including cars): $48,000
Car Loan: $15,000 (1% for 2.5 more years on our Toyota)
Student Loan: $30,000 (1.5% for 17 more years)
Credit Card Debt: None
Total Combined Net Worth: $1.26 million
My plan is to plow all savings into debt repayment over the next year and end 2016 debt free (unless Apple hits $92 per share again like it did a few weeks ago and I am compelled to redirect that money into the market).
It costs us $3,350 per month to live, including mortgage, car loan, student loans, food, utilities, property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, car lease and car insurance. In addition, we spend about $26,000 per year on vacations and another $2,000 per month on dining out and entertainment (e.g., golf, tennis, sporting events, weekend getaways, wine tastings, fancy dinners, new BMW sports car lease, etc.).
We are projecting the following net worth by age:
Age 34: $1.6 mm ($158,500 in personal brokerage account earning approximately $462 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 35: $1.9 mm ($333,000 in personal brokerage account earning approximately $1,000 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 36: $2.25 mm ($424,000 in personal brokerage account earning approximately $1,236 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 37: $2.58 mm ($620,000 in personal brokerage account earning approximately $1,800 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 38: $2.95 mm ($830,000 in personal brokerage account earning approximately $2,400 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 39: $3.35 mm ($1 mm in personal brokerage account earning approximately $3,000 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 40: $3.77 mm ($1.2 mm in personal brokerage account earning approximately $3,500 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 45: $6.4 mm ($2.88 mm in personal brokerage account earning approximately $8,400 per month in passive income (gross))
Age 50: $10.2 mm ($5 mm in personal brokerage account earning approximately $14,500 per month in passive income (gross))
Beyond age 50, the assumptions multiply and it’s hard to project anything with any degree of certainty, especially any bear markets!
These projections assume 3.5% annual COLA adjustments across the board, no promotions and an average investment return of 6% per year. I will also receive a pension for about 25% of my final annual salary for the rest of my life after retiring at age 65 with a death benefit for my wife after I die. My wife is a sales rep and needs to travel so I don’t know if she can still do that job once we have children. I also don’t know if I will be promoted from Director to VP and get a nice bounce in salary or even make CFO one day!
Is it crazy that we are spending $10,000 per year on a BMW lease? What about $26,000 per year on vacations? Are these choices fiscally irresponsible? For a long time, I felt that raising my net worth and decreasing my debt load was a reward enough for working hard and staying motivated, but I feel like I have lost that recently because I realize that life is short and you can’t wait for retirement to live. This makes me want to travel and get a new car and do work on our home to live life to the fullest, but then I check my spreadsheet and see all the money we have spent and get upset that much time and money was lost in achieving the net worth projections provided above. We feel bad about these choices but my wife thinks that we should be happy with the milestones we have already reached and we don’t have children yet so we should enjoy taking vacations to South America and Europe and driving a nice car now before we need to switch those in for trips to Disney and driving a Honda Pilot! We are also concerned about what will happen when we have children and need one of us to have a flexible schedule and also pay about $20,000 per year for childcare! My wife and I are from West Virginia and our parents both live there so we don’t have childcare resources in NY. People on this forum are similarly financially-minded, so what do you guys think?
The savings rate of FS readers is easily the most striking difference from the nationwide demographic. Perhaps that’s the only meaningful thing that eventually leads to all the other financial differences: net worth, portfolio, passive income, etc.
It’s both sad and amusing to imagine an actual connection between happiness and income. So much of that confusion is a consequence of living in a country that prioritizes people based on income and imagined income. After your basic needs are met (which is likely true for every single reader of this blog), there’s a long list list of things that go into happiness which have little connection with finances. Relationships, fitness, hobbies, travel, learning are just the beginning and your bank balance improves none of them.
My favorite quote on the subject is “Money magnifies the person you already are.” It really isn’t any more complicated than that. If your readership truly believes more money = greater happiness, you indeed have a lot to teach them.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris,
The savings difference really is incredible, and I’m proud of these savings rates for the community!
Hi Sam, just to add to your demography, you have a reader from Brazil. Even though our economies are very different, posts and comments are very interesting. I don’t comment, but normally compare the american perspective to an emerging economy like Brazil…
Great to hear! I loved visiting Rio and SJ back in 2005. Which city do you live in and what do you do?
Brazilians know how to enjoy life!
Live in Sao Paulo, and work in the financial industry. Really like personal financial literacy, but still working hard to achieve my financial independence. On my way though…
Anybody reading personal finance blogs is definitely a highly educated, highly paid, self-selected group. Definitely the kind of people you can hold interesting conversation with.
Unless I missed it (and it’s getting late) something on job would be interesting.
I’d expect a lot of finance people and engineers for some reason.
Mr Z
Could you clarify what “something on job” means? thx
I knew it was late! :)
Was thinking along the lines of what occupation your readers fall into.
Possibly hard to group (I’m an actuary so would that be finance or insurance?) And how much detail do you go into?
Maybe “what is your occupation?
– civil engineer
– aeronautical engineer
– software engineer
– accountant (practice)
– accountant (corporate finance)
– accountant (in house)
– banking
– actuary
– lawyer (practice)
– lawyer (in house)
– carpenter
– electrician
Etc
I’ve always wondered who it is that’s reading these blogs.
Mr Z
Got it. I can do a poll on occupation with my next Career-related post!
Sam ~
if you are looking for some interesting divisions that you would like to be able to do some interesting data analysis with for a subsequent article pick your categories from the “Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey” from https://www.bls.gov/oes/#data. That way if you get some interesting results it can be compared with the US percentiles for state/occupation and may provide for an interesting series.
May result in nothing, but having used those statistics to back up some negotiation re: pay (starting and raises) they aren’t bad for most to know where to find them. thanks for sharing your interesting articles and incites.
~T~
Sounds good. Thanks for the suggestion.
It would be interesting to compare who chose the man to pay the bill with the gender gap question. I wouldn’t be surprised some are advocating bridge the gender wage gap (I’m all for it), but then say the man should always pay the bill (I voted for whoever asked the other out).
Well, since less than 1% say a woman should pay, then it is clear there is some double dipping/standards going on!
I am currently not the typical demographic financially that FS readers are (earning circa $40K, but am highly educated and experienced) – but I am an aspiring individual hoping to eventually create wealth and stability in the ranges you have mentioned.
I do enjoy reading your blogs though and gain inspiration from them.
The most fun is seeing progress. If you’re at $40K and X amount of net worth, it is a thrill to build those figures higher! Once you get to your target, you’ll be satisfied but then ask, “Is that it? What’s next?!”
Enjoy the journey!
Interesting questions! Some of them I did not answer because I did not feel like whipping out a calculator. ;-) Also, on the Career section, I suggest adding options for “part time” or “nonprofit” (read: low-pay) work in addition to “full time” vs. “contractor”. I’m currently working part-time for a nonprofit, and I’ve never been more satisfied with my work, despite the low paycheck. It also allows me flexibility to be home when the kids are home without sacrificing work experience/history should I ever need to return to FT work. My husband is working a corporate job that he loves, and his career is advancing, so there is no need for me to also work FT right now.
On a related note, this scenario is why I did not see an answer I could agree with for the “pay gap” question. Some women are working fewer hours for lower pay by choice. Others took the lowball offer when they were first hired, and did not try to negotiate a higher salary either due to ignorance, fear, or due to choosing a flexible schedule over the money. Over time, the “gap” will increase due to simple math: Adding an average 3% COL increase to $40,000 vs. $45,000 results in an 11% difference in pay after just 10 years.
Also, if I’ve taken time off, or a voluntary demotion in exchange for flexibility, why should I expect to be paid the same as others who have years more experience in the role than I do? Just my $0.02… :-)
That’s just too logical CincyCat! :)
Hey Sam,
Great insights on who we are!
I know this might be a good bit of work, but could you link each poll to its corresponding original post? I had voted on many, but for those I hadn’t voted on, I would like to go back and read what started the conversation.
When I get back from Hawaii, I might look into it. Any questions in particular in the meantime I can help you search for?
There are two similar polls that might be on a single article that I must have missed:
What is your percentage of TOTAL DEBT to TOTAL ASSETS?
How much TOTAL debt do you have?
It’s from this post:
The Best Strategies To Get Out Of Debt And Be Happier In The Process
Thanks!
When I went through the poll questions above, it already had answers for some of them filled in. Apparently they were from several years past, because the numbers and answers I chose were way different than I would have put today, and I had no way to update them.
Yep, if you are answering from the same IP/device it will probably save. Feel free to answer again with a different device!
Social Class: 67% believe you are considered in the Mass Affluent Class followed by 20% who
believe you are Middle Class.
— Really pity, when the poorer among us should be following blogs like this ! —
This was a fun read! I do agree that reading financial blogs has improved my way of thinking and has motivated me to be more successful. The crazy part is i only just discovered financial blogs this year. Kind of crazy! And I was so impressed that I created my own. It’s a real blast having a blog and now I am even more motivated to succeed.
It was interesting to see that most of my answers were the majority to your readers.
Now the key is to keep your writing up for a couple more years. You’ll surprise yourself to see what could come of your blog!
I would just tell my parents and SO. And I’d treat my parents to a 30-60 day first class luxury cruise :)
What is the context of this comment?
Appears to be a pretty savvy group of readers here on Financial Samurai. Makes the comments and discussions that much more credible. It also means that there is some fantastic content on this site that attracts some of the most affluent readers.
One more question I would have like to have seen would have been. In addition to Financial Samurai, what other blogs/magazines/articles do you read?
It’s a good question,but I’ve got to come up with the answers to select based on the poll format.
I bet most people read The WSJ, FT, and Yahoo Finance.
$250,000 to be happy?!?! I’ll never be happy in my life! I wonder if this demographic is just scared to jump into financial independence with anything equal to or less than what they make now. Or maybe their retirement plans involve a lot more cruises than my retirement plan. :)
Ah, but look on the bright side. There’s still a chance you can get to $250,000. Never say never. And that means, there’s a chance you might feel even FURTHER happiness as your income grows.
I do firmly believe that $200,000 per individual – $250,000 for up to a family of 3 or 4 is the ultimate income. I’ve done the written observations!
I am surprised 50% of the folks need more than $250K to feel very happy. The treadmill at work!
Great post. Love your blog. Statistics like this always freak me out though, like is the internet a virtual panoptican and even as readers we aren’t as anonymous as we think?!
If Obama doesn’t know all, the NSA does. No hiding from BIG BROTHER!
Fascinating demographics on the typical financial samurai reader! I’m constantly impressed with the comments on your site and the poll stats explain why. Having an interest in personal finance and being part of the community is definitely motivational for me and helps keep me active in creating and achieving finance goals. I think others will say the same. Keep up the great posts and insightful polls, thanks!
Fun post! What a well to do group of readers!
I have to think that a poll for years in your career would be interesting information. Being brand new in my career definitely skews my numbers a bit. :)
Everyone is welcome. The thing is, given that over 500 people respond to the survey questions, one person can’t really skew things one way or another. The results are statistically significant!
Not sure if you’ve asked the poll question…but really the most important one: “Are you happy – yes or no?” Would be interesting to see it as a subset to some of the other questions such as net worth, income, debt level…etc.
Good question! I’ll ask, with some more complex answers to choose from. I would guess 80% would say “yes.”
Positive folks attract other positive folks!
It would be interesting to see how many folks are happy and how many are content; happiness and contentment are different things that appeal to different people.
Leave it Sam to come up with a formula for quantifying happiness.
I love the polls and finding out how others have answered. Thanks Sam!
Yeah, I’m addicted to those polls too. Seeing if I’m part of the majority of voters or not is a big part of the fun!
This is such great information! I love the idea of embedding polls in a post. May I ask what software you use to add the polls?
I think I’m generally doing pretty well financially for my demographic, but seeing how well other Financial Samurai readers are doing is really inspiring. I hope you’re right that you become more like those you associate with!
It’s called WP-Polls. Do a search in the plugins section and I’m sure you’ll find it!
Sam – I have a minor suggestion on the polls. If the poll host gives the option, after you vote the results should show up in the order they were displayed rather than in order by percentage of the vote. When looking at a poll with a bunch of choices, such as a person’s income range or net worth range, it’s far easier to read and understand the results if they are displayed in the original order.