10 Jaw-Dropping Money Stats of the Average Person (2026)

[00:02] what net worth puts you in the top 10% of all Americans? These are just some of the jaw-dropping money statistics we're going to go over in today's video. I've compiled 10 of the most shocking money stats and let's get started with number

[00:15] 10. And this stat comes from the world of automobiles. And the stat is that 26.6% of trade-ins for new cars have negative equity on them. And the average amount of negative equity as of 2025 is negative6 $6,754.

[00:30] goes to trade in their car, they actually still owe more money on the car than it's actually worth. The term for this is called being underwater on your loan. And listen to this. 32.6% of underwater trade-ins had between $5,000

[00:43] and $10,000 of negative equity. Which means that if you were to go and trade in, let's say, a 2020 Kia Nero, for example, and it's worth $10,000 in trade in value, but you still owed $5,000 on the loan, your net trade-in equity is

[00:57] only going to be $5,000. This is a problem that has been worsening due to longerterm car loans, for example, 84 months or perhaps 96 months, and vehicles that were bought during the pandemic when prices were inflated a lot

[01:09] due to supply chain shortages. If you combine these factors with car depreciation, it creates a perfect storm for negative equity to form. So, how do we avoid situations like this? So, here are my three takeaways. Number one, I

[01:21] think you should buy a used car. Depreciation is at its highest for new years, four years, or maybe even a 5-year used car, you can acquire the car chipped away already. The second takeaway, don't worry about what other

[01:35] people are thinking of you and what you drive. Because a car at the end of the day is just to take you from point A to point B. Of course, you might want some completely get that. But if you are buying a car just to impress other

[01:48] people, I would stay away from that. And the third takeaway is to try the 2410 rule for buying a car. You could even expand this to the 2510 rule. That car, you should at least put 20% down on the car. Try to pay off the car within

[02:01] four or 5 years. And all your payments for your car on a monthly basis should not exceed 10% of your gross monthly income. When it comes to car payments, spending on a percentage basis of our monthly income. And what we really just

[02:15] want to avoid is having a car payment that takes up like 25 or 30% of our ridiculous, but trust me, I've actually seen it happen. People have thousand car payments on the reggg and they just see that as a normal way of life. Car

[02:28] your wealth. I've made so many videos on this channel about that fact that I will link down below and later on. Shocking money stat number nine today is all about buy now pay later debt. So the average user of buy now pay later

[02:41] carries a loan balance of $760 according to Morgan Stanley. The firm A firm, I out and said that the average outstanding balance of BNPL was $736 for

[02:53] that don't know, buy now pay later is that when you buy something online or option of buying something in installments instead of paying for it all at once. The problem though is that it kind of makes overspending really

[03:07] pain of paying for that item in that moment. While some people think that they won't make a late payment, the statistics show otherwise. Over 24% of BNPL users have made a late payment in 2025. And nearly 40% of Americans who

[03:22] use BNPL actually end up regretting it. Now, if you think you're not susceptible to buy now pay later because perhaps you make over $100,000 and you can afford Stanley found that high-income households are the main adopters of buy

[03:36] now pay later with 38% of those earning between $100,000 to $150,000 per year actually using buy now pay later. So, my takeaways are the following. Number one, if you can't afford something, don't buy it. There's a famous phrase that says if

[03:49] And I would heir on the side of that. Number two, BNPL programs might seem harmless because of the interest free loans, but it is a gateway habit to more poor financial decisions. And number three, debt is still debt at the end of

[04:04] a period of time, you're still going to owe money to somebody else. All right, if you thought that last money stat was crazy, wait until you hear this. There is over $18 trillion sitting in deposits at all commercial banks in the United

[04:17] States as of right now. According to a CNBC article, 82% of Americans don't keep their cash in a high yield savings account and 57% just keep it in a little interest, which means that people are losing money every single year

[04:30] without even realizing it. For example, $5,000 in a regular savings account at 0.4% is only $20 in interest after one year. But if you were able to save it in a high yield account that offered 350%

[04:45] APY, that would be an extra $175 for no extra work, that's enough for a brand money could buy. So, my takeaways for you here is that you should at least at account for your real life savings goals, and you can do so at many

[05:01] partnering with me for this portion of the video. The second takeaway is that should be putting that in a high yield savings as well so that you're at least earning interest on that. And the third takeaway is that you can even start

[05:14] doing something about your savings is much more important than not doing anything at all. So I would definitely just encourage you to get a high yield most out of your money. Chime offers a 3.50% APY, which is eight times the

[05:28] monthly fees or no minimum balances. The minutes to sign up and you can access your money at any time. And as of today, you can earn up to a $350 bonus just by opening a new checking account and

[05:42] completing qualifying activities. I will link to their landing page down below appreciate them sponsoring this portion of the video. At the very minimum, just working for you because that's what's important to building wealth at the end

[05:55] of the day. Now, this next stat is always a pain in my side. It always baffles me, but it's that 60% of Americans cannot afford a $1,000 Rates. And we are essentially a paycheck-to-paych nation. In order to

[06:10] cover an emergency, the same survey reports that 25% of people would turn to a credit card in order to pay off this $1,000 emergency expense. Now, if you look at this table, you can see that the younger generation of Gen Z, 34% of them

[06:23] have no emergency savings. And for the first three buckets of generations, Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Xers, close to one-third of them have some emergency savings, but not enough to cover three months of expenses. So, my takeaways for

[06:35] you are young or you're just starting your financial journey, any amount of money that you can save should go first towards building your foundation of emergency savings. Number two, having this emergency fund will give you peace

[06:47] better at night. And number three, don't touch this money unless an actual people, they dip into their emergency with their main checking account. So, what you want to do is ideally separate

[07:01] account altogether. The six money stat today are actually the median account United States. And according to Bank the United States is around $8,000. And you can see it broken down by age right

[07:15] here. The older that you get in general, the more savings that you will have. But as we know, the amount that you have in your bank shouldn't just be dependent on shows you just how much your income plays a role into how much money you

[07:27] will have in your bank account. You might call me Captain Obvious here, but that sometimes you might see a stat like the median bank account balance in the United States is $8,000. And all of a sudden, you might think to yourself,

[07:39] well, I have $12,000 in my bank account. I'm probably doing pretty good. And yes, while you might be above the median in America, perhaps if you're earning $153,000 or more, the median bank balance there is $33,800.

[07:53] perspective. My takeaways for this money stat are pretty straightforward. Number one, if you do have $50 to $100,000 in your bank account, please make sure you for that. Number two, pay attention to statistics with a grain of salt because

[08:07] the right amount of cash for you might differ from the right amount of cash for somebody else depending on your spending habits. And number three, income is the primary driver of being able to save more money. So try to invest in your

[08:19] order to become more financially comfortable, especially if you're still in those earlier income brackets. All right, shifting gears a bit to the boggles my mind, and that is number five. that 28% of people who roll over

[08:33] their money into an IRA, they leave it in cash. This is more common than people contribute their money into their Roth IRA or their IRA or when they roll over their money from a 401k to an IRA that the cash just automatically gets

[08:47] invested. The former situation is one that really makes you feel dumb if you you put your money into this Roth IRA or this IRA and then you realize, oh my god, I've been putting my money into an IRA for the last 3 to 5 years and it

[09:00] just hasn't been invested into anything. You must remember that you have to invest that money into something, whether it's an index fund, a bond, a stock, etc. The second situation where you roll over your money from a 401k to

[09:12] an IRA. This is the situation that can actually kind of catch you a little bit offguard and can be quite confusing. According to Vanguard, 68% of people don't realize how their assets are even invested. And what happens is is that

[09:24] when you roll over a 401k to an IRA, you might be invested in an index fund, but when that gets rolled over, it gets converted into cash within that IRA. According to this CNBC article, the financial institution that receives the

[09:37] money doesn't automatically invest the savings in an S&P 500 fund. The account owner must make an active decision to move the money out of cash. The takeaways are pretty simple here. Number one, check what your IRA is invested in

[09:49] today. Make sure you're not making this mistake of keeping it in cash. Number two, if you are rolling over funds from a 401k to an IRA, anytime that happens, you're still invested in whatever you were invested in originally. And lastly,

[10:02] the third is a really simple takeaway. Don't make any assumptions when it comes investing. Always make sure you double four today is also investing related, but it's that the market doubles every

[10:15] 10 years. Now, depending on the rate of return of the markets, this can be longer or shorter, but in general, 10 years is a really good rule of thumb. experience cycles of bull and bare markets. And on any given year, when we

[10:27] risk our money in stocks, we're going to be subject to some volatility. According to Financial Samurai, as you can see here, 38% of the years from 1930, the here, 38% of the years from 1930, the S&P 500 has fallen 10 to 20% intraear.

[10:39] And 16% of the years the S&P 500 has fallen in excess of 20% intraear. That means that market corrections and significant downturns are a normal part of investing in stocks. And you must accept this volatility if you want to be

[10:52] the long term, the average annual return sits between 8 to 10% even through all of these cycles. You can see that with this graph that through all the bare markets and crashes, there's usually some gains afterwards. Looking at this

[11:05] chart of the S&P 500 since 1962, there are going to be years and stretches are going to be years and stretches where you're up 48% to 582%. catastrophes from time to time like the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic

[11:19] CO 19. But the market has delivered consistent wealth to patient investors. The takeaways for this money statistic include number one, don't stay on the your cash loses purchasing power to inflation. If you miss just 10 of the

[11:32] years, you could erase your gains by 54%. Missing 20 days and 30 days, respectively, will cost you 73% of your total gains and 83% of your total gains. Takeaway number two is that you must be patient and willing to sit through lots

[11:47] investing for the long term, because it will be unavoidable. If you are takeaway number three. And that third takeaway is that index investing is quite powerful. That's when you just try to seek to match market returns. This

[12:01] and get those returns without stressing out too much. Stat number three today is that the median age of buying a home these days is now 38 years old. And back in 1991, the first time home buyer's median age was 28 years old. That means

[12:15] three decades later, that number of how old somebody is when they buy their first home is almost 10 years higher. More people are choosing to rent instead of to buy, especially because housing affordability has just gotten out of

[12:27] this with the fact that many people are starting to run their numbers a little realizing that, well, it might just be better to rent and invest my money flexibility of having to be able to leave almost whenever you want, and

[12:42] owning a home, like home insurance, maintenance, property taxes, etc. typical home buyer needs to earn $112,131 per year to afford the median priced home, which is roughly 25K more than the

[12:57] it's no surprise that affordability is a lot lower these days compared to 10 years ago. And if you are going to buy a house, there are some takeaways that I one, if you want to buy one, you want to stay in it for at least 5 to 10 years.

[13:11] will give you some optionality in terms of refinancing if you ever need it. and you also will mitigate some market risk over time because homes will appreciate over time in more in- demand regions. Takeaway number two is don't feel

[13:24] ways to build your wealth and owning a home is just simply one option. And lastly, make sure you can afford the house itself. Do some research on the hidden costs of maintenance, insurance, property taxes. There's a lot more to

[13:37] payment. This next stat I'm really excited about. It's that the amount of net worth required to be in the top 10% of Americans is now 1.0. 06 million. The data sources pretty much all converge together and they say that to enter the

[13:51] top 10% of American wealth that your net worth needed to hit around 970K back in 2022. So if you adjust that for inflation, that's just around $1.06 million as of 2025. The takeaways you must know for this money stat is that

[14:04] reflection of what you do with your income. You could have a top 10% income, that you'll be in the top 10% of net worth because if your financial habits are poor, then you could get stuck not generating any wealth. Number two, I

[14:18] worth, the more it's going to grow. So, I used to like checking it once a month, checking it once every six months or maybe even just once a year because your time just due to your investment portfolio. Number three, if you aren't

[14:32] where you want to be with your net worth, don't worry just yet. I would say to just start small and doing anything is better than nothing. So, if that looks like tracking your net worth or perhaps investing $50 or even $100 a

[14:44] something, some action is better than none. And the number one jaw-dropping savings rates. And I will give you this crazy example. Pretend that you have two people earning $100,000 per year, and both are trying to save their way to

[14:59] $100,000 in net worth as quickly as they can. The first person, investor A, will save 10% of their income every year, but only gets a 1% rate of return. That's hardly even great. His strategy here is to save a lot more than investor B. So,

[15:13] investor B will save 5% of their income every year, but they will get a 10% rate of return. That's 10 times the return as investor A. So, who do you think gets to investor A. So, who do you think gets to $100,000 in savings faster? Well, I will

[15:27] tell you. Investor A reaches 100K in about 9.6 years. and investor B reaches 100K in about 11.7 years. That's insane 10% return which was 10 times higher

[15:40] are simply number one when you're starting from scratch the amount that you save matters much much more than the return rate itself. Remember that investor B is getting a rate of return that's 10fold but saving half as much

[15:54] yet investor A still wins the race. And takeaway number two is that everyone is so focused on returns when in fact if you could just ramp up your savings rates just a couple percentage points that's going to make a huge difference

[16:06] at the beginning of your financial journey. So I hope those were stats shocked you the most? Let me know in the comments below. Again, thank you this video. If you are interested in their high yield accounts, I will leave

[16:20] Thank you for watching this video. I will see you guys in a future one. I'll even leave one up right here. Perhaps my best money lessons. And until then, best money lessons. And until then, peace. [music]