How bad are you?
It might surprise you to hear that I am not a hardcore money geek. In fact, I feel a bit inadequate sometimes when talking to real money geeks.
Take a look at the Money Geek Scale (TM) below and see where you fall:
0 Financial Disaster
Has trouble paying bills each month. No savings.
1 Normal Person
Doesn’t really think about money beyond getting paid and paying bills.
2 Financially Stable
Some savings. Insurance. No problem paying bills. Wonders about investing.
3 Financially Competent
Knows how much they spend and save each month. Has savings and investments but might not fully understand them.
4 Financially Informed (geek)
Reads financial blogs. Knows about tax-advantaged vehicles. Has a financial plan and knows about alternative approaches.
5 Financial Expert (uber geek)
Does their own taxes, reads company financial statements.
In the scale above I would say I am probably at level 4. I’m too lazy to do my own taxes and exhaustively research investing opportunities.
Like I talked about in my post about ‘enough’, I don’t think I need to do more than I am doing. I don’t need to beat the market or become fantastically wealthy. I just need to keep doing what I am doing, and my family will be fine. In some ways, I have already won.
I think it is worth getting to level 3 or 4 in the scale for almost everyone. The danger with level 3 is that it is easy for people to take advantage of you. The drawback for level 4 is that a lot of people find personal finance extremely boring 😉
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If you are an uber geek please comment or write guest posts for the site. We need your knowledge 🙂
Shoot! Based on your definitions I’m probably a 4.5 right now. I was a 1.5 less than 3 years ago.
I’m happy to be a money geek: I’ve described in my blog not so long ago that it feels like a super power: It makes me strong, not everyone can actually have it, and it comes with some responsibility.
That’s awesome, SB 🙂
Like the concept. It certainly makes a huge difference when you get a grip on this stuff: like that scene in the Matrix where he can see the source code for the first time…
I think I’m a 4.5, too. The “doing your own taxes” should probably be at level 4. I have done my own, but with our financial conditions changing (for the better), I’m thinking it will be smart to pay an expert to do ours. I doubt many millionaires do their own taxes.