The aim of the paper is to identify the socio-economic conditionings of financial situation of households described on the basis of their subjective evaluation, to verify the legitimacy of households’ classification according to this evaluation and an attempt to use the food rate in examining the wealth of households. The empirical part of the paper is based on a 37,508 – element sample taken from the research on households’ budgets conducted by the Central Statistical Office in 2006. As a result of the research, it was suggested to implement an original classification of financial situation of households according to the food rate.