How is YOUR pleasure index going? (Hubba hubba)

Posted On Feb 29, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

The AICPA just came out with their latest Personal Financial Satisfaction index (PFSi), and looks like it reached an all-time high of 40.2, suggesting that people are generally *happier* with their finances compared to the past 10 years of tracking.

Do you find the same is true for you?

I’ll hit you with my own set of indexing questions in a bit so you can gauge better, but first – more about this PFSi so it’ll make more sense:

The PFSi is a quarterly economic gauge that measures the personal financial standing of a typical American. The index is calculated as the Personal Financial Pleasure Index (Pleasure Index) minus the Personal Financial Pain Index (Pain Index). These sub-indexes are each composed of four equally weighted proprietary and public economic factors which measure the growth of assets and opportunities in the case of the Pleasure Index, and the erosion of assets and opportunities in the case of the Pain Index. A positive reading of the PFSi indicates that the average American should be feeling more financial pleasure than pain and thus have an overall positive sense of financial satisfaction.

So basically, it uses data – not surveys – to figure out the probability of people feeling good or not about their money.

Which as a personal finance enthusiast I don’t necessarily put much stock in since WE’RE the ones in control here more or less regardless of what the world is doing, but it’s still interesting to see and play along with 😉

Here were some other findings comparing the past 10 years of the PFSi:

Underemployment is at an all-time low (compared to an all-time HIGH exactly 10 years ago!)
The PFS 750 Market index* remains the leading source of financial pleasure
Pain from taxes is the only factor that did not improve over the past decade (shocking no one, haha…)

(*The PFS 750 Market index is an AICPA proprietary stock index comprised of the 750 largest companies trading on the US Market excluding ADRs, mutual funds and ETFs, adjusted for inflation and per capita.)

And then here are some pretty charts saying the same 😉

pain vs pleasure pfsi

pleasure vs pain pfsi

Pretty nerdy stuff!!

And we’ll keep the trend going here with my OWN version of the PFSi – or what I call, the PFSiONE (Personal Financial Satisfaction Index of Number One).

This will really determine how happy or not you are with your $$$ 😉

Jot down how you feel about the following 8 areas compared to 10 years ago, and use the ranking scale of 1-10 where 1 is BLEH and 10 is HOT MAMA!

Then share in the comments or just ponder alone!

Investments: __
Financial Outlook: __
Home Equity: __
Employment Status: __
Personal Inflation: __

Personal Taxes: __

Debts Owed: __
Career Potential: __

PFSiONE Total Score: __

70+ means you’re on FIRE, 60+ shows you’re a growing flame, 50+ means you’re starting to flicker (see where we’re going with this?), and then anything under 49 means you need to be re-lit

I’ll go first, then your turn:

Investments: 10 (was at $171k back then, now over $700k)

Financial Outlook: 10 (getting closer to financial independence!)

Home Equity: 7 (higher than in 2009, but not by much)

Employment Status: 9 (I’m still blogging here, but don’t have a renewed contract yet!)

Personal (Lifestyle) Inflation: 3 (bigger home, bigger yard, more kids, more animals, more food, more everything! (Though personal spending has drastically been cut down thank goodness))

Personal Taxes: 7 (paying more, but also earning more)

Debts Owed: 8 (no car or credit card debt anymore, but still have a honkin’ mortgage)

Career Potential: 7 (technically this should be a 10, but I worry I may be losing my “hustle” gene the more I enjoy life in the real world vs the online one! (*gasp!*))

PFSiONE Total Score: 61 – a growing flame! With only career and kids basically getting in the way of my perfect score, haha…

Good thing they’re so cute!

How about you? Feeling good compared to this time 10 years ago? Anything really surprise you going down the list?

The inflation part def. through me for a loop, wow… I’m doing SO MUCH better in my head compared to the reality! Haha… Life is sneaky!

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