then how much money have you saved? (Don’t actually tell me. I don’t want to know).

A Wealth of Smarts Does Not Guarantee Actual Wealth in Scientific American indicates that IQ isn’t correlated to wealth (but it is correlated to income…which is just….sad). Hence, smart people make money, but do not save it, and so are not necessarily wealthy people.

According to Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University, IQ can be correlated to earning potential, but not to wealth. That’s actually fascinating. An excerpt:

Zagorsky used these intelligence scores and compared them with financial data collected in 2004. For each IQ point, there was a rise in income of between $202 and $616 annually. (For example, a person with an IQ of 130 earns between $6,000 and $18,500 more per year than a peer of lesser intelligence.) But this higher yearly income did not translate into higher wealth. In fact, people with slightly above average intelligence (105 IQ score) had an average net worth higher than those just a bit smarter (110 IQ). “There are some very smart people who get into financial difficulties,” Zagorsky notes. “Even smart people don’t save.”

Aee! It’s all about saving, people. Not about IQ. But, of course, saving is pretty hard to do.