Would you buy stock in you?

Yahoo has a news story up suggesting that perhaps you should apply the same financial ratios that investors use when looking at companies to look at your own financial situation. One of these is the one used by mortgage lenders to measure how badly they want to give you a loan. Typically they look at your total debt payments with the hope that they are below 36% of your income and that less than 28% of your income will have to go to housing.

I did a some quick math (I own a Condo so there are a few other expenses beyond just the mortgage payment) and figured out that housing costs amount to about 21% of my monthly budget. All debt payments are about 25%. As it stands right now I'd like to have those numbers down to 18% and 20% in the next five years.

What about you? How do you match up?

From the article:

As people age, they should reduce their debt-to-income ratio by paying down their mortgage and aggressively cutting auto and credit card debt. At age 45, debts should equal your annual salary. By retirement at age 65, those debts should be zero