Are you a Prodigious or Under Accumulator of Wealth?

[Andrey Y.]

I am reading the book "Millionaire Next Door" which had been rec'd by a few podcast guests if I recall.

They discuss the following formula as a guide to what your net worth should be:

Multiply your age times your realized pretax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by ten. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be.

These two terms I really like -

Prodigious accumulator of wealth (PAW) = twice (or more) the level of wealth expected

Under accumulator of wealth (UAW) = half (or less) the level of wealth expected

The expected number as well as the actual can be shared. This can be kept anonymous as you need not share your age or income. Based on whether you fall into the average, under, or prodigious accumulator of wealth category, we can see how we are doing relative to the average. Although, I suspect their may be a bias toward the PAW category for those on BP, but who knows!

[Andrew Johnson]

@Andrey Y. My very unscientific estimate has me very safely in the PAW category.  The fun of BP is that you get to have everyone estimate what their property portfolio is worth!  Since most of us think that our babies are the cutest (read: properties are valuable) it wouldn't surprise me if our numbers skew more PAWish than most.  It's amazing the number of posts I see where someone bought a property for $40K last year, put $5K into it, and it's now "worth" $80K.  Maybe it has doubled in value but I'd imagine that cute-baby-syndrome sweetens up that PAW status somethin' fierce!  

My big takeaway, I'm over 2, it's time to ditch the Lexus and blow some cash on a sweet sports car... 

Where the heck is your number?  Don't tell me the person asking the question won't answer it...