I stumbled upon this tool on CNN.com that allows you to enter personal finance information about yourself and then proceeds to give you a grade on how you’re doing. It covers categories like emergency savings, retirement savings, debt and housing payments.
Overall it’s a pretty good tool but it does have a few problems. First of all, you can’t enter an age lower than 25. This is somewhat annoying but it didn’t deter me from entering my info. I figure with me being 24 and 7 months old I could go ahead and round my age to 25.
Once this was done I proceeded smoothly through the different sections on retirement savings, emergency savings and housing expenses ect. Everything seemed to be up to par until I reached the life insurance section. Here I received a failing grade for not having life insurance that amounted to 10 times my annual income. In my opinion this is another flaw the tool has. For a young Gen Yer that doesn’t have children or dependents I really see no need for having life insurance. Perhaps it would have been better if the tool asked if I had reasonable health insurance?
Anyway here’s the link to the CNN finance tool. If you’re in the mood to kill 5 minutes it’s probably worth a look.
Hunh, interesting little quiz. I agree with you, given how young you (we) are, having little or no life insurance just makes sense. Unless you’re supporting a parent or something similar, saving the premiums and foregoing health insurance is a decent financial move.
This little test is definitely oriented more toward Boomers or other older investors. (Which is understandable, given the focus I’ve seen in Money Magazine). It’s still interesting, though.
I agree with you about the life insurance. As for health insurance I think it’s important for everyone to have that. One trip to the hospital could wipe out your entire nest egg.