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By Rob Gerlsbeck on September 21, 2009
Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Feeling wealthy?

By Rob Gerlsbeck on September 21, 2009
Estimated reading time: 1 minute

Advertisement

Maybe it isn’t the best time to ask that question. After all, recessions have a funny way of making people feel poor. This one is no exception. Yet there’s some good news for all of us when it comes to our wealth. Canadians are getting richerâ€“albeit slowly. According to MoneySense’s most recent All-Canadian Wealth Test, the average household in this country is 7% richer in real terms than in 2000, during the height of the dot-com boom. Oh sure, this recession has made a dent in our wallets. Canadians are 10% poorer than they were in 2007, which is the last time we did this study.Â You can read all about it in the October issue of MoneySense, on newsstands now. The article was written by Roger SauvÃ©, of People Patters Consulting. Roger is one of the foremost experts on family finances in Canada. This year MoneySense found that the median net wealth of households is $170,000. That figure represents all your assets (including your home, pension, investments, RRSPs) minus all your debts (including mortgage, student loans, credit card debt). Of course, wealth varies widely by age. Most of us have very little wealth to brag about in our 20s. We start to build it up in our 30s when we pay off our student debts, buy a house and start to invest. It continues to grow in our 40s, and by the time we reach our mid 50s and 60s, we’ve accumulated an impressive amount of money and assets. The median wealth for people 55 to 64 is $420,000. If you want to figure out your own wealth and compare it to otherÂ Canadians just like you, go to MoneySense.ca. We’ve got two handy calculators that let you crunch the numbers in minutes. Who knows, you may actually be richer than you think.

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