And the Survey Says . . .

The dumbest personal finance decision people make is  . . . getting into debt. See, CNN, Money. Many won't admit to any mistakes at all, but as the chart below indicates, there are plenty of us that do own up to personal finance mistakes.

 

The Survey also covers other great points, like living within your means as a success strategy, but the most surprising point to me is that people feel rich if they have $500,000 (I would expect that to be higher).  Happily, the survey indicates that we've passed the point where people are overly worried about their homes declining in value for the most part.  This is probably a change from a couple of years ago.

 

The biggest obstacle to financial security: income (31%).  I'm not sure that I agree with that, given some of the other survey results.  If you follow the other pages, it would seem that not getting into debt and living within one's means might be key players here, so long as the income is not too meager.  But, once there is debt and lifestyle challenges, a low income can become that obstacle.

 

CNN ran a survey back in 2011 that found that half of Americans did not have $2000 in emergency savings.  This new survey concludes that almost two-thirds could handle a $1000 emergency, but only 42% could handle a $10,000 emergency.  It seems we still have a way to go as Americans when it comes to saving.

 

- JSM