What Is The Average And Median Net Worth For Those 55 to 64 Years Old and How Do You Stack Up | Retirement Planning

Troy Sharpe: We all want to know how we compare to others when it comes to net worth. In this video I’m going to talk to you about the average net worth and the median net worth for those aged 55 to 64.

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Troy: Hi, I’m Troy Sharpe, CEO of Oak Harvest Financial Group, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional (CFP®) and host of The Retirement Income Show. Hey, if you could just take one second to hit that thumbs up button, and what that’ll do is YouTube will show this video to other people so they’ll understand where they compare to others when it comes to net worth. To understand average and median, we’re going to look at a set of data points because I know not all of you are mathematicians here. The average, if you remember from school, is the sum of a series of data points divided by the number of data points.

If we add all these up, a million plus a bunch of zeros, it equals a million. There’s 10 numbers so if we divide by 10, we get an average of 100,000. The median is the one in the middle, so the one in the middle is zero. Obviously, the average tells a completely different story than the median. This is important to understand because when we’re looking at these numbers, the average will be skewed by outliers. There are some people who have very, very high net worths, and there are some people who have low net worths, even negative net worths because they have a ton of debt.

The median is the one where we should be more focused on because the median is the one that’s right in the middle. If we had a million people on this side, and a million people on this side, the middle is the median. That’s a more accurate comparison number to go off of. For ages 55 to 64, the average net worth is $1,176,520. The median net worth is $213,150. Again, the average is going to be skewed because of the outliers. The median is right in the middle. If we’re somewhere in this range, we’re doing a good job, but we can always do better, we can always save more money, we can always spend less money, we can always invest.

We need to be investing. If you’re not investing, you’re making a mistake at this age. Where do you stack up when it comes to your net worth? Do you even know what your net worth is? Do you keep track of this information? At this age range, you need to know what your net worth is, you need to know what your assets are, because you’re getting close to retirement. Unless we know how much money we have, we’re not going to be able to figure out how much income you can live off in retirement, and having that retirement income plan and that tax plan is extremely critical at this stage of the game.

Additionally, what these numbers don’t take into account is– This video is going to be part of a data series and I’m going to give this information to you in a separate video, so if you want to continue to receive this information, so you can see where you stand in comparison to others in your age range in various financial categories, hit that subscribe button, and that bell icon and you’ll be notified when our team completes the research and we publish this data for you. What this number doesn’t take into account is how much of this is inside a retirement account? How much is inside a tax deferred account, and what our tax rate’s going to be in the future?

I can’t tell you what tax rates are going to be in the future, but I can tell you that if you have $1.1 million, and it’s all inside a 401(k) or an IRA, not all of that money is yours, because if you go to take a distribution to live off of retirement income, Uncle Sam’s going to get his cut, and we don’t know what that’s going to be. If that is you, make sure to check out some of the other videos I have about tax planning and retirement, extremely valuable content. There will be a link in the description if you’d like to talk to someone about your particular situation, if you need help navigating retirement because it is a series of complex decisions that all of them interact and impact with others.

Again, if you hit that subscribe button and the bell icon you will be notified when we make this data public. This is just going to keep you connected to your money, help you be more educated and understand where you compare to others in various financial categories. Again, hit that thumbs up so YouTube will show this video to other people.

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