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Maybe We're Better at Saving than Paying Down Debt

The average American household has $175,510 in savings!!! Taken at face value, this statement makes the situation sound great, however...

The median household currently has $11,700 in savings. So if you lined up every household from largest savings to smallest savings, the household smack dab in the middle has $11,700 in their savings vehicles (retirement accounts, money market accounts, CDs, savings accounts).

29% of households have less than $1000 in these accounts.
22% of households do not have any of these types of savings accounts.

The top 1% of households have an average of $2,495,930 in these accounts.
The bottom 20% have an average of $8,720.

When looking at the averages of households that actually have these accounts, it looks like this:
51% of Americans have a savings account, with an average balance of $32,130.
52% of Americans have one or more retirement accounts, with an average balance of $277,670.
18% have money market deposit accounts, with an average balance of $74,470.
7% have one or more CDs, with an average balance of $79,240.

As we learned above - the outliers pull up the averages significantly.

Signs are seemingly pointing to a recession and market crash - or maybe I'm just too cynical and the economy will continue soaring. The government shutdown proved how many households are living check to check. I'm really hoping to not be a "statistic" by the end of the year. Debt low, savings high. Frugal living will continue, it's just how I roll.


*These stats are based on 126 million US households

**This was from 2016 data from Fed's Survey and Consumer Finances adjusted to 2018 levels by using 2018 market values and fund flows

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