As some of you know, I am a numbers guy. I like numbers. I like having fun with numbers and in a parallel universe I may just be a mathematician. Alas, I am a business systems analyst. Below I’ve put together some not-so-hard numbers to drive home a point. I hope you enjoy them.  

On Sunday, October 26th, USA Today reported findings from a recent Bank of America Merrill Edge survey of 1,046 people considered “emerging affluent”. Emerging affluent means respondents, contingent on age, had investable assets between $20,000 and $250,000. The survey highlighted that one-third of respondents felt guilty for not investing money more in 2014, considering the stock market’s high flying performance. What interests us more, is the following data.

Today we present to you a guest post from Brian Fourman of Luke1428. Luke was one of our Money Masters last summer and we’re excited to have him guest post for us while we’re visiting John’s family in PA. 

I often hear people justify their use of credit cards this way, “Well, I pay it off every month so it’s fine.” The implication imbedded in that statement is that they are not really going into debt if they pay the card off at the end of each month. The balance is zero so there is no and never has been any debt

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College released surprising figures from a recent study. They found that Americans will need to rely on their 401(k) assets to fund 25 to 50 percent of their re-tirement income. The average income replacement rate will be 73 percent. To meet that average in-come replacement rate, the average household must save 15 percent of its annual income for retire-ment. Unfortunately, only about half of workers are saving sufficiently to meet their future needs.