Above or below the Wealth Median

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How many Aspies, of either gender, consider themselves to be above or below the wealth median for their community. The Wealth Median being where half a community earn less and the other half more. Made it community based as different communities have different expectations.

Interested in whether people share my experiences. I have a measured and documented IQ within the top 5% of the population. I was trained by the armed forces as an aircraft electronics engineer, later acquiring an MBA in finance and marketing. Commercial pilot for a few years followed by a long career in computers - H/W and S/W. Then before retirement 10 years as an accountant. Yet with all that I have never been able to accrue any assets of any value.

I have a long employment history of being "let go" or "eased out" as not considered a "Team Player", or I have left due to conflict with others. More often that not I have been the best qualified, hardest working (longest hours) and most successful employee, but most work colleagues have seemed happy to see me go. I have never been abrasive or difficult, just a tendency to state my mind in a logical fashion, and an inability to defer to "authority" when I think they're wrong. I suppose essentially I have never really got on with people. Machines are different, but people yuk!!

My search for friendship and accepting peoples has led me to "keep moving" all my life. Lived on all continents except S. America and the Antarctic. Never been anywhere long enough to acquire property or investments, and never been employed long enough to acquire significant cash reserves. Had a lot of fun on the way, but now, in retirement, definitely close to the bottom of the food chain. On looking back I feel certain that a vast proportion of the upheaval in my life has come about due to my ASD/Asperger's. This enables me to mentally pass the buck - hey it weren't my fault.

So are there many Aspies who have gained affluence/assets in their own right, ie. not due to a partner or family, or consider themselves to be well above the wealth media for their community ? Or are my experiences the norm for Aspies?

Alison

I have too much debt--but I live fairly comfortably.

I consider myself about "average" in that sense.

As far as "intelligence" goes, it really depends upon what is measured. On general knowledge, I'm really not bad. On mechanical things, I suck. I think I've developed a decent amount of "common sense" through 54 years of living with "below average" common sense, yet constantly learning about life.

Above the median in both categories. Not excessively so, but enough so that all of my debts have been paid off, all of us have gone to college (wife, kids, and I), and we can afford to vacation outside the U.S. every year or two.

Not bad considering that I was once homeless and living on the streets!

I'm on SSDI and have lots of medical debts. I am definitely below the median.

Definitely in the upper end of IQ, and the low end of EQ. With my skill set and moral inhibitions, I had some success, but was always rated as very poor. For me, it was at least half lifestyle choice, but I never got comfy hobnobbing with the richer people I needed to meet in business. For several years, I couldn't even afford any significant fresh material for my workshop. Now, on the minimal pension, I feel richer than I've ever been before.

My husband and I both have IQs significantly above median.

Our combined household income is above median for our community, but not very much above. We both are in fields that line up with our passions but are known to be not very lucrative. So we work very, very hard for what we have. We also keep animals (goats & chickens) and I have grown vegetables and canned them in the past to keep our living expenses lower so we have more freedom in how to spend our money.

Right now, I am back in school. If this were not so, we would be more comfortable. Ditto with our teens studying music. If we nixed that, we'd have a good amount more ease in our budget. But, given that music is our family's passion and particular area of talent, we can't exactly give that up...

We would also have more money if health insurance and income tax did not come 100% out of our own pocket and was partly paid by an employer, but it is what it is when one is self-employed.

"In the community regulated only by laws of supply and demand, but protected from open violence, the persons who become RICH are, generally speaking, industrious, proud, resolute, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who remain POOR are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person."

- John Ruskin

Depends on the community under consideration.

Among the community of those who age out of the foster care system, I'm practically a one percenter. Only 2 percent of us graduate from college with a four-year degree; I've got that plus trade school. Even though my work history is spotty, I earn decent money when I am working, so on the net I'd guess I'm doing well.

If you're just talking about the region I live in for the community, I strongly suspect I'm below the median but close to it.

My mother, who drove a new Pontiac in the great depression and never wanted for anything, liked cameras, libraries and travel, mostly. She was quite surprised to learn that she was actually living in poverty, by the numbers.
Things are very subjective - I was very surprised to learn that the school year was five times longer than summer vacation. Based on the number of memories each generated, I'd have guessed the opposite until we got to the calendar around grade three.

Poverty is, very frequently, a state of mind.

Money isn't everything, but poverty really sucks.

Sho nuff does!

I'm financially comfortable - not rich but have sufficient funds to meet my foreseeable needs for the rest of my life, augmented by New Zealand's relatively generous pension for senior citizens. Like the OP and others I am highly educated and in the top 5% in terms of the IQ distribution. However my working years were interrupted by family demands, when the children were young and I had to parent alone working only a few hours a week, and there were some years when I was the sole bread winner with very low income where we were really living hand to mouth for quite a while - quite a character building experience. I was fortunate in later life to inherit some money though which enabled me to become mortgage free and also received a substantial gift of funds from an extremely wealthy cousin, who wanted me to be relieved of financial pressure. So I was very blessed really. But had I had no such help, my financial status now would be out of kilter with my ability and educational status. The hard years taught me to make a little money go a long way, and that is a useful thing to learn.