Think you live in a fiscally responsible place?
With only two in five adults saying they maintain a budget and keep close track of their spending and nearly one in four confessing to not paying their bills on time, the personal finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s Best & Worst Cities at Money Management.
In order to identify where Americans are best at handling their personal finances, WalletHub’s analysts compared 2,570 cities based on eight key metrics. The data set ranges from “credit score” to “average number of late payments” to “mortgage debt-to-income ratio.”
WalletHub has compiled the list as follows, based upon Cities Whose Residents Have the Best Money-Management Skills and Cities Whose Residents Have the Worst Money-Management Skills
BEST | WORST | ||||
1 | Cupertino, CA | 2551 | Lancaster, TX | ||
2 | Saratoga, CA | 2552 | College Park, GA | ||
3 | Laguna Woods, CA | 2553 | Buckeye, AZ | ||
4 | Los Altos, CA | 2554 | Indiana, PA | ||
5 | Lexington, MA | 2555 | Capitol Heights, MD | ||
6 | Sun City Center, FL | 2556 | Rio Grande City, TX | ||
7 | Pittsford, NY | 2557 | Statesboro, GA | ||
8 | Palo Alto, CA | 2558 | Clinton, MD | ||
9 | Scarsdale, NY | 2559 | Lithonia, GA | ||
10 | Chevy Chase, MD | 2560 | Fairburn, GA | ||
11 | Winchester, MA | 2561 | Collegeville, PA | ||
12 | Sun City West, AZ | 2562 | State College, PA | ||
13 | Potomac, MD | 2563 | East Stroudsburg, PA | ||
14 | Foster City, CA | 2564 | Mount Pleasant, MI | ||
15 | Sunnyvale, CA | 2565 | East Lansing, MI | ||
16 | Mountain View, CA | 2566 | Pullman, WA | ||
17 | McLean, VA | 2567 | College Park, MD | ||
18 | Bethesda, MD | 2568 | Gettysburg, PA | ||
19 | Belmont, MA | 2569 | Athens, OH | ||
20 | Arlington, MA | 2570 | Boone, NC | ||
Comparing the Best & Worst
- Athens, Ohio, has the highest credit-card debt-to-income ratio, 113 percent, which is 23 times greater than in Cupertino, Calif., the city with the lowest, 5 percent.
- Boone, N.C., has the highest mortgage debt-to-income ratio, which is 18 times greater than in West Mifflin, Pa., the city with the lowest.
- Boone, N.C., has the highest car-loan debt-to-income ratio, 404 percent, which is 27 times greater than in Scarsdale, N.Y., the city with the lowest, 15 percent.
- East Lansing, Mich., has the highest student-loan debt-to-income ratio, 745 percent, which is 24 times greater than in Saratoga, Calif., the city with the lowest, 31 percent.
- Alice, Texas, has the highest average number of late payments, 6.96, which is 16 times greater than in Saratoga, Calif., the city with the lowest, 0.45.
- San Tan Valley, Ariz., has the highest average percentage of credit used, 61.3 percent, which is three times greater than in Laguna Woods, Calif., the city with the lowest, 20 percent.
For the full report and to see where your city ranks, please visit here.
Readers who are curious to know how their money-management skills compare with those of the average Jane or Joe in their city can get an analysis of their free credit score by joining the WalletHub community.
