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Facts About America’s Richest 1%

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 9 Comments

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Here are the top 5 facts about the 1% of our nation from Yahoo! Finance.

Top 1% owns 40% of the nation’s wealth. 25 years ago, the top 1% owned 33%. The bottom 80% today owns 7%.
Top 1% take home 24% of U.S. income. In 1976, the 1% took home 9%.
Top 1% own half of the country’s stocks, bonds and mutual funds: The bottom 50% of Americans own only 0.5% of these investments.
Top 1% of Americans have only 5% of the U.S. personal debt. The bottom 90% have 73% of total U.S. debt.
Top 1% take in more of U.S. income than at any other time period since the 1920’s.

What are your thoughts on this?

Here’s what Kevin on the comments of the article said:

“It doesn’t bother me so much that 1% are so rich, rather that 50% need to struggle so much.
If we as a nation could enable the working class to have a decent standard of living, making life affordable with the income provided from a decent job, I doubt we’d be as concerned with how much the high enders had.”

And on the other end, here’s what Sleeper Doc said:

“No comments on what it takes to be in the top 1%??? In my case…4 years undergraduate school, 3 years graduate school, 4 years medical school, 3 years residency. My parents were not rich….paid for by joining military. At age 57 I still work 55-70 hours per week. I enjoy what I do (anesthesiologist) so I am willing to make the sacrifice. If you didn’t invest as much time or money as I did in making yourself valuable….that may be part of the difference.”

Bad Financial Habits To Drop

Last Updated: September 25, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

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Blonde on a Budget had another great post on her blog, check it out! It’s about breaking bad habits. She read a LearnVest article and listed the habits that she has, and I thought I’d do the same. Check them all out right here. I’m thinking I might do some sort of series everyday on how I can improve all of these also.

Impulse shopping—you should learn to buy what you actually need.
- I’m bad at this. I LOVE clothes and it’s hard for me to wear the same thing when I go out at night. I blame this on the fact that I think business clothes are so boring, and I have to wear them 5 days a week, so I like to mix it up at night time.
Not asking for a raise when you deserve one. If you’ve never asked for a raise, check my tips, here.
- My pay now is good, but when I used to manage a clothing store, I made a pitiful amount of money, and it was shameful. I won’t even say the amount. But the people that I would hire would start out at a $1 or $2 less than me, that’s how bad it was.
Thinking that investing can only be boring.
- I definitely don’t think that investing is as fun as paying off debt. It’s nice to see my debt shrink down to a tiny amount, but investing just seems so boring, and I can’t really reap the benefits for quite some time.
Not having a firm grasp of your budget: what you can afford, what you can’t, when you can afford to splurge a little, and when you need to save for a while.
- I splurge too often. I need to control this.
Not naming beneficiaries or having a will.
- I don’t have beneficiaries, or a will. I don’t have kids so I never think about it. But I do have a family, so I should have a will.
Not saving a set amount automatically out of every paycheck.
- I’m guilty of this also. I just save whatever is left over pretty much, because I’m so into paying off my debt.
Not having AAA if you own or rent cars.
- I’m not really sure what the plus of this is? Will someone tell me? Is State Farm not enough?

What are you guilty of?

Spending, Life and Food Updates…

Last Updated: October 1, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 7 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I ate out the other night for dinner. Shhh don’t be mad. I went to Qdoba with friends and I miss eating dinner with them! We’re all on a food budget right now, so it’s not like I’m feeling left out though. I’m glad they are all watching their spending also, because this makes it easier for all of us. My total was around $6.45 I think, so pretty cheap for dinner!

Oh yeah I also forgot I bought new hair products the other day because my hair is so frizzy from my perm. I like my wave perm, I’m just starting to kind of miss my straight, non-frizzy hair. I do like having curly hair though, I just feel like I’m running out of hair style ideas. Any ideas? Also, what do you put in your hair to tame frizziness? And one last question about hair. If you’ve ever gotten a perm, will my hair ever be straight in about 4-5 months or do I have to wait until it’s fully grown out?

Our spending has been good. The BF cannot, I repeat CANNOT, let go of his crazy daily Lion’s Choice habit. It’s only $3.24 a day, but he gets it everyday, so of course this adds up! That $3.24 a day is pretty much the only thing we spend everyday though, as I’m only going grocery shopping every 2 weeks.

Financial Boot Camp

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I got the idea for this post from Blonde on a Budget. She currently imposed a financial boot camp on herself, which I think is a GREAT idea! I’ve been following along and it’s been really good so far, so that’s why I thought about stealing her idea and making a post about it.

Being honest with yourself about how much debt you have is an important start in order for you to grasp your financial situation. For some reason, people say they don’t have any debt, but then they say they have a car loan and a mortgage, have you ever met someone like that? It never makes sense to me, debt is debt! Anyways, here’s mine:

Student Loan Debt: $28,773.65
Car Loan: $6,600
Mortgage: $115,238
Credit Card: $0

Total Debt: 150,611.65

What’s the most expensive thing you have bought with a credit card?
I don’t have any credit card debt. I pay off my credit card in full every month. I do charge my vacations every time to my credit card though, just to make my monthly cash flow move more smoothly, but like I said, I pay this off in FULL every month.

Why do you think you made those purchases?
I’m going to change this up a little bit from what she meant by this question, as I have no credit card debt. I’m OK with my student loans, I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without my student loans, but I do have a plan to pay off my student loans completely in 2 to 2.5 years. So I don’t think that’s too horrible. This does mean monthly payments of around $1,200 for 2 years though, but oh well. I don’t want to be paying for my loans for 20 years like some of my friends.

My car loan I am good with also. My car is worth around $10,000 more than I owe, so I think that’s good. I do think about selling it though and buying a car that’s around $10,000 to eliminate the debt though.

And my mortgage, well I need a place to live. I bought the house in 2009 and got a deal on it, so I’m happy.

How To Start or Fix Your Budget

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 4 Comments

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Creating a budget is very important in managing your money well. If you’re not like me, creating a budget probably isn’t any fun. I enjoy making a budget and finding ways to somehow beat it every month. I know, I’m extremely dorky.

Here are tips on how to beat your budget from Wise Bread:

Be realistic with your budget. Don’t try and create some kind of dream budget that would be impossible to achieve.
Include entertainment in your budget and be realistic about it. You need to have entertainment in your budget. I understand that sometime it does need to be cut for a little bit at a time, but you can’t just cut fun out for months at a time.
Adjust your budget regularly. Try and have a monthly finance meeting with your family so that everyone is on track. Your budget won’t be perfect, so do slight adjustments every so often to see what you need to work on.
Allow for budget busters. Make sure you set up an emergency fund, because not everything will fit into your budget is something big and unexpected happened.
Give the budget a chance and some time to perfect itself. Your budgets not going to be perfect, hopefully you will constantly improve it.
Make progress with your budget. Hopefully your budget will motivate you to lower your spending and improve your finances.

Any tips on budgeting? How did you start your budget?

Is your Budget in Balance?

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 Comments

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I found a great link for a budget calculator, find it here.

I don’t know if I agree with how everything is organized, such as my car could be in the “fun” category as well and not just in the “needs” category. It’s definitely not something I need and I could get something more practical. And I would consider internet a “need” also. BUT, the calculator is interesting to see how you are dividing up your money.

My needs are 60%, wants are 17%, and savings are 23%.

Mine results are kind of close to their 50-30-20 rule (ok not close at all). The article says 50% should be needs, 30% should be wants, and 20% should be savings.

How are your finances divided?

Grocery Shopping Update

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I went grocery shopping today, and I don’t think I’ve gone for awhile. Maybe around 2 weeks? I might be wrong, I have a horrible memory (as if you all didn’t know that yet). Today I spent $83, which I don’t think is too horribly bad. I’m trying to just go shopping every 2 weeks, as this helps with time and me not buying too much junk food.

My total today would have been A LOT cheaper, if I didn’t go grocery shopping when I was hungry. EVERYTHING looked good. I spent around $7 on guacamole and bought lots of croissants (around $6) and other little junk food things that sounded good. Big mistake, but at least I’ll be happy with the food I bought.

There’s also a Qdoba right next door to the grocery store, but thankfully I resisted the urge to walk in and get a burrito.

Anyways, this grocery challenge that I imposed on us has been going well. $83 for two weeks is not bad. I’ll of course run into the store and spend maybe $20 next week on bread, milk and some fruit, but this still isn’t too bad. This will put our monthly food budget to around $250 a month! YAY! I can do this!

Me and the BF ate dinner in this whole weekend also! We did go out for drinks, but I consider that entertainment money, so in my head that doesn’t count.

How has your grocery shopping been going?