Hey folks! Solidly into Fall here in New Hampshire. Pretty much (cc: our dogwoods) all of the non-evergreens have started changing their colors, and it's quite a beautiful sight. There's also incredible weather today – what a great weekend.
Speaking of Fall, I finished my annual income update without dragging things into Winter this year. Here are all of the income posts I updated since last Weekender, in rough order of popularity:
- Income by City
- Income by State
- Income by Education
- Income by Sex
- Income by Race and Ethnicity
- Salary Statistics
- Salary by Age Statistics
Find the whole Income group on the dedicated Income page. And if there's an angle I should cover, please get in touch. You can see the variables I use for the annual update on IPUMS' CPS website (filter for 'ASEC' variables).
Charitable Donation Tracking
I'm working on Charity Record, a charitable donation tracking app. Check it out – and if it looks interesting? Join the beta waitlist.
In September, Intuit emailed the users of its charitable donation tracking app ItsDeductible, saying it would shut down on October 21, 2025. That's in two days. If you're a user, download your historical data right now.
...and we've been users since 2014. Long story, short: I decided to build a modern replacement.
In the immediate term, I'm working towards feature parity with ItsDeductible. Of course, I'm also taking the time to add features to fix things that have annoyed my wife and me since the beginning (autosaving item donations, mobile friendliness, etc.).
After that? Sky's the limit! But, for example, why couldn't I upload receipts, pictures, and appraisal records? Where can I see my giving trends over time? (You know I want to make charts, that's my thing)
If you'd find a modern replacement for ItsDeductible useful, head on over and check out Charity Record. See how it compares to ItsDeductible, then think about joining the beta waitlist. Things are looking good, so expect a beta in or around 2 weeks from now.
How about net worth updates?
I make my net worth statistics updates roughly every three years. I use the gold standard survey for US net worth statistics, the Federal Reserve (and NORC's) SCF. The 2025 survey is in the field right now, so I'd expect a microdata release sometime in late 2026. I'll update my posts quickly after that!
Some financial news sites have recently been publishing on the 2024 SIPP, or the Survey on Income Participation from the Census Bureau. You can hop right to the wealth tables here. As you can see, the SIPP found a $599,600 average net worth and a $191,100 median – compare that to $1,059,470 and $192,084 in the most recent SCF.
There are some differences between the two surveys (and the third extensive US survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics or PSID). The SCF includes several features that suggest it's the best survey here: it has a "likely to have higher net worth" oversample and asks more detailed questions about individual asset categories.
So, I'm not ignoring the new surveys (I promise!). I'm just waiting for the next SCF, which is the most complete picture of wealth in the United States.
What's Next?
With the release of Anthropic Claude's Sonnet 4.5, I'll do a number of experiments with agents and investing tools. I built that last set of investing tools with moderate AI Agent help – let's see how far I can push it to deliver features you're asking me to add (yes, yes, including indices on the return calculators. Let me figure out dividends and I'll add that).
I also owe my friends at OpenAI a trial of Codex, their competitor to Claude Code. (I also still have my subscription to Cursor – things are adding up, haha). Let me know if you have any tool ideas that you think would make a neat trial for the tool(s).
Also, with charitable donations on the brain, I'll do some research on donations in the United States. Things have changed a lot due to the 2017 TCJA (which raised the standard deduction) and the 2025 BBB, which reinstated an above-the-line charitable deduction but added a minimum deduction floor for itemizers. The aforementioned PSID has a good philanthropy panel, so I'll see what I can put together – consider it market research for the new app.
And to address the funny question: I told you I'd work on a different app a few Weekenders back. Replacing ItsDeductible has a deadline, though! I'll explore an investment/watchlist tracking app later. (Until then, I'm updating a brittle Google Sheet.)
And I know, I know: work on my deck, I'm running out of time for Winter, haha. Our drink rails are showing up next week – Fiberon's Latte color. I guess our first big test will be them surviving a New Hampshire winter! (I kid, we have a few events first.)
Hope all is going well with you – stay in touch!
