The Official 2025 FI Survey is Here
The official 2025 FI survey is now accepting responses!
ALL data will be released in a spreadsheet to the sub. If you’re not comfortable with that, don’t take the survey. Whenever possible, identifying information (such as age) is obscured in ranges. The survey does not ask for location, username, email, or other unique information, so your privacy is reasonably protected.
Because there are several numbers involved, here is a preparation spreadsheet you can use to organize your information before opening the survey itself.
For previous results, go here.
Survey Instructions
These instructions are also available on the first screen of the survey, but you may want to keep this post open in a separate tab to refer back to them. Throughout the survey each section includes instructions at the top of the page as well.
The survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete, depending on how prepared you are with your numbers.
Enter all annual information for calendar year 2025 (January 1 – December 31, 2025). Enter all point in time data (like account balances) as of December 31, 2025 (or as close thereto as you can get).
Enter all amounts in current dollars (or your native currency).
The survey asks how many people contribute to your household finances, and thereafter your responses should include all assets, debt, etc. belonging to those people. You determine the number of people who contribute to your finances. Demographic questions include demographics for "contributor 2" and "contributor 3", if you have more than one person contributing to your household income, you can include their demographic information there.
Remember that personal finance is personal. Enter your numbers as you interpret them, personally. If you really get stuck, I will be watching the posting thread and answering interpretation questions as able. Because personal finance is personal, some buckets may not be precisely consistent with your personal buckets.
You are able to return to the survey and edit your answers later if needed; just skip to the end and submit to get your return link.
The survey will be open from April 17 – May 15.
Enter dollar amounts as a whole number, appropriately rounded. E.G. $32,594.56 is entered as 32595, with no commas.
Enter percentages as a number, not a decimal. For example, 4% is entered as 4 (not .04), 20.5% is entered as 20.5 (not .205), etc.
Do not use symbols for dollars ($) or percentages (%).
At the end of the survey, you will be asked for any comments on the survey. If you had any confusion or issues with a question, please refer to it in your comments by the question number plus a brief description of the question (question numbers change depending on your circumstances). Because the survey does not ask for identifying information, I will not be able to follow up with you, so please be as specific as you can about the issue or difficulty you encountered. Vague comments like “the question about income felt weird” cannot be acted on.
Almost all questions are skippable; if a question does not apply to you or you haven't yet determined the answer, skip it.
The survey will ask for an approximation of the cost of living for your area, use this Cost of Living Index to get as close as you can. If you are on mobile, find this number before you open the survey so you don’t lose your survey progress.
Now that you’ve read all that… you can go take the survey!