How come we're not rich?? (vent/whine) - Page 3

[mnnice]

Okay the zip code thing was fascinating. I got out my address book and looked up all sorts of different places where I have friends and family.

My brother's zip code was very, very low income, and had very view returns filed for a place has lots of people (and limited of open space/agricultural land). I know it's not as low as it looks since he live in a college town and lots of people are still subsidized by either parents or loan and grant money.

[Drummer's Wife]

I wish my zip was available on that site, b/c I'm curious. I live in the land of custom homes, and am wondering just how much less $ we make than our neighbors

[Seasons]

Originally Posted by HappyLittleHouse

Wow, that tax statistic website was interesting!! Our zip code's AGI is a whopping $233,000.

And I thought my zip code's $115K+ AGI was high!

Originally Posted by amandaleigh37

I'm tempted to look up what the average household's credit card debt is?

Average credit card debt per household -- regardless of whether they have a credit card or not -- was $8,329 at the end of 2008. (Source: Nilson Report, April 2009)
The average outstanding credit card debt for households that have a credit card was $10,679 at the end of 2008. One year earlier, that average was $10,637. (Source: Nilson Report, April 2009)

and

Alaska is the state whose cardholders have the highest debt: $7,827. Alaska is followed by Nevada at $6,636 and Tennessee at $6,568. At the other end of the scale, the states whose citizens carry the lowest card debt at a given moment are Iowa ($4,277), North Dakota ($4,403) and West Virginia ($4,517). (Source: TransUnion, December 2008)

and

About 40 percent of credit cardholders carry a balance of less than $1,000. About 15 percent are far less conservative in their use of credit cards and have total card balances in excess of $10,000.

and

Miami residents are the biggest overspenders, one study says. The 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas were ranked in terms of percent of median yearly household income owed to credit card companies and Miami residents owed 22.61 percent. Tampa (17.1 percent) and Los Angeles (16.81 percent) came in second and third, respectively. (Source: Forbes.com, Equifax and US Census Bureau, April 2009)
Anchorage, Alaska, has the highest credit card debt. (Source: Men's Health magazine's personal debt survey, July 2008)
Lincoln, Neb., has the lowest credit card debt. (Source: Men's Health magazine's personal debt survey, July 2008)

also:

In 2007, before the recession began, 14.7 percent of U.S. families had debt exceeding 40 percent of their income." (Source: U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee, "Vicious Cycle: How Unfair Credit Card Company Practices Are Squeezing Consumers and Undermining the Recovery," May 2009)

all from: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-ca...stics-1276.php

So, from the above, average CC debt per household is $8,329. Total average non-mortgage debt per household is $18,654 . (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...ebt/P70581.asp ) The average mortgage amount is approximately $136,000 for U.S. consumers, with only 10% of consumer mortgages exceeding $250,000. (for 2004 - http://www.nationalscoreindex.com/Sc...rchive_02.aspx) That's actually a lot LESS debt than I thought. If your total debt, including mortgage, is less than $154,000, then you are above average - in a good way.

But at this: About 43% of American families spend more than they earn each year. http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...ebt/P70581.asp

[liam's mom]

Originally Posted by amandaleigh37

I'm tempted to look up what the average household's credit card debt is?

I found this:

# Average credit card debt per household -- regardless of whether they have a credit card or not -- was $8,329 at the end of 2008. (Source: Nilson Report, April 2009)
# The average outstanding credit card debt for households that have a credit card was $10,679 at the end of 2008. One year earlier, that average was $10,637. (Source: Nilson Report, April 2009)

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-ca...stics-1276.php

[vm9799]

okay, that zip code website is awesome! we are not surprisingly quite a bit above our zips average AGI ($35,991) as we chose to live in an established inner city historic neighborhood, but the zip code near us (where several of our friends live) has an AGI of $182,723!! that's an almost $147,000 difference! WOW!

[choli]

AGI for our zip was $139,887 for 2007, and it was down from 2006, interestingly. In 1996 we were 98% of national average, 2007 only 91%.

5,245 - Filing Single
1,122 - Filing Married or Joint.
170 - Filing as head of household.

I guess that means that this is closer to a per person earning than a per family earnings. Either that or most people in this neighborhood are single.

[Drummer's Wife]

Hey, 90210's is only $507 K

[Monarchgrrl]

Interesting website. We're way above for our zip code, but we're still no where near "rich", by rich people standard. I feel very lucky that we can live the life we want, but we have to sacrifice things that "rich" people might not. We live in a small house (rented- heck even if we were rich we still probably wouldn't/couldn't afford a mortgage in a nice/bigger house here!) We're going to have to sacrifice even more once we have kids. We'll be getting rid of cable, etc. But I also think we're rich because we will have almost no debt (car and student loan) and DW will get to be a SAHM, which is way more important to us than any amount of money and well worth the sacrifices.