How You Doin? (A Self-Assessment)
LFG Marketing | August 2019
What is your financial condition? Are you where you should be? How do you know?
You might not hear those questions audibly, but every day, in some fashion, those thoughts are always there. Money may not dominate your life, but very few of us can completely ignore it. How we are doing with money is a significant measure of how well we are doing with life.
There are lots of ways to assess your financial condition…
- An accountant can calculate your profit and loss and prepare a net worth statement.
- The Personal Finance industry has a plethora of statistics, ratios and computer programs to determine your financial fitness, to tell you if you’re on track to retire, have enough insurance to survive a loss, and whether your allocations match your risk tolerance.
- Government agencies, economists, and research teams compile statistics, so you can determine if you’re above average compared to your peers.
…but the answers aren’t definitive.
These resources can give you an assessment, and a context to determine your financial condition. But measuring your financial life against an external standard has some shortcomings. By definition, everyone cannot be above average; inevitably, there will always be someone, somewhere, at some time, whose condition is better than yours. Just because you’re doing better than someone else doesn’t mean you’re in great shape.
And while a lot of personal finance can be expressed in numbers, it’s not the whole story. A subjective assessment may be a better way to define your financial health.
The following is a quick 10-question quiz from personal finance columnist Jared Dillian. The objective: to see if you are happy with your financial situation and whether you have a healthy relationship with money.
The self-assessment: “If you can answer ‘yes’ to most or all of these questions, then money is your friend. It works for you—you don’t work for money.”
There’s nothing earth-shaking here. But beyond the typical questions about debt, saving and retirement, the quiz gets you to think about whether you enjoy your money, how it affects your relationships, and how others might interpret your financial life. That’s a pretty comprehensive assessment – and it doesn’t require any math.
Lifetime Financial Growth, LLC is an Agency of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian), New York, NY. Securities products and advisory services offered through Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS), member FINRA, SIPC. OSJ: 244 Blvd of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 (412) 391-6700. PAS is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Guardian. This firm is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS. 2019-83746 EXP. 08/2021