I've just read in a respected newsletter (www.the-privateer.com) (note: subscription access only) that a recent Aussie survey revealed that over 50% of respondents did not have $Au500 in savings and in a crisis 60% could not come up with Au$2000. This information must have been reported in the Oz media recently.

I don't know who was being asked, certainly I'd expect that 99% of welfare recipients anywhere in the west (my own UK included) would be within the group that said no, but I'd expect that sampling must have included working people too.

Any comments? Do people really have so little in reserve? We hear of many who live off credit or from one wage to the next. But those 50/60% figures. Would you expect it to be so high?

Quote from the Privateer: . . . a recent survey asked Aussies if they currently had at least $A 500 in "savings". More than half said NO. It went on to ask that if dire necessity arose, could they come up with $A 2000 in "liquid capital". More than 60 percent said NO.

My amount in savings here in Thailand varies, but I don't let it go below 400,000 baht--and usually it's about 600,000. It took a long time to get it to that level and once I did, I've been careful to keep it there. Twice a year I have a whole lot of expenses that come due--and that's how I figured out I needed a cushion. Couldn't pay the bills that month--that causes too much stress.

Back in August 2007, at the start of the really acute and obvious phase of the credit crisis, I ran into an article which said that the median household net worth in the U.S. was US$98,000. That included equity in the house, as well as cash savings and so on.

There are a lot of people here who live from paycheck to paycheck, or who have been living on home-equity credit and who now have negative net worth due to the housing-price collapse.