What Makes a Financial Mutant? The Survey Results Are In!

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0:38Brian Preston:Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. We asked, and boy, oh boy, did you guys answer. Brent, I am so excited about this because we asked you, the audience, to share data from your financial lives with us, and 25 ,000 of you were kind enough to do so and help us put this show together. So today, we're going to share the findings of that survey and see just what makes a financial mutant so special.

1:21With that, let's jump right in. $25 ,000.

1:30Brian Preston:Brian, financial mutants are a rare breed. We already know this. They look different than the world around them. But let's talk about what they actually look like. When we say financial mutants, we talk to those of you out there listening. What and who are we talking to? And this, from a demographic standpoint, is what we found. That from an age standpoint, it is fairly diversified, but we have a lot of folks in that 30s to 40s range. Yeah, I mean, it was kind of amazing to see who you guys were or are. I don't know why I use past tense. But it was, I mean, look, this gets me excited. 20s. You know, you guys have the world by its tail, and there's 23 % of audience.

2:17That's healthy. That's super awesome. About 30s messy middles, 41 % of our audience. In their 40s, 22%. And even us a little bit older, getting a little wisdom under our belts, 10 % of the audience is in the 50s. So guys, this makes us excited. And then look at this. For all the people who are in the comments section, trolling marriage, it's not my financial mutants because 68 % of our financial mutants are actually our married financial mutants.

2:43Brian Preston:And again, this is of the 25 ,000 respondents that responded to our financial mutant survey. And another question we asked, okay, this is what they look like from an age and from a marital status standpoint, but where are they? Where are you financial mutants? And it was awesome to see that you guys are all over the country. Yeah, it doesn't matter. High cost of living area, low cost of living area. This is why it is a blessing and a curse is because now we know you really are all over the country. So as we create content, we try to make sure that we are loading you up. But it is one of those things is you can't just say, hey, all of our audience is out in California.

3:20Nope, it's California. It's just as much in Texas. It's just as much in the Northeast. It is amazing. And we do not take this for granted.

3:27Brian Preston:But what this also lets us recognize is that the information that we share, the concepts that we lay out on the show are broadly applicable. And one of the things that you hear us go back to over and over and over again is the financial order of operations. It is a nine-step process to help you understand what you should do with your next dollar. What it shows us by where you guys are located is that this really is an all-terrain vehicle. Whether you are in a high cost of living area, low cost of living area, north, south, east, west, the financial order of operations can work for you. So if you don't have your free copy, make sure you go to moneyguy.com slash resources and download your free copy right now.

4:10So we now know ages. We know where they live. Let's get into the meat of this thing, though. How good are they with money? And this is the part that floored me. Because remember, this is not our millionaire survey. This is not just what the average public. This is financial meetings. You guys proactively went out there and filled out a survey. Our audience did to tell us who you were. And by the way, this is going to create some fantastic content. because we're, yes, this is the survey results show, but this content was so good. The data was so good. We're now going to lay it against what our millionaire clients look like, what the general public looks like, and we're going to compare and contrast.

4:48So that's even more content that will be coming. But here's what we want to show you. Median net worth. If you think about the typical American struggles to just get above zero, and then when I see that the median net worth for our financial mutant audience is$650 ,000. Wowzer.

5:08Brian Preston:That's only part of the story though, because$650 ,000 is the median. And we showed you that demographically, you guys are sort of all over the place. And we know that the median age of a financial mutant is right there at 36 years old. But when we think about breaking out net worth across the different ages, think about this. The median net worth for our 20-year-old financial mutants, $185 ,000. For our 30-year-old financial mutants,$650 ,000. Mutants in their 40s, $1.3 million median net worth. Those in their 50s,$2.3 million median net worth. And for those in their 60s, almost a$3 million median total net worth.

5:54Brian Preston:Now, this is all net worth. These are assets that include home equity and all the other assets that show up on your financial statement. But we know, Brian, when we think about the average American, the average American, while they've seen their net worth increase, it's not always for the reason we'd like to see. Yeah. I mean, when you think about the FRED data coming from the Federal Reserve, it's like the 30 % increase has been all home equity. Financial assets still stayed practically at nothing. So imagine our surprise when we ask you, financial mutants, how much in financial assets, because it's one thing to have net worth.

6:27How much of this is actually liquid financial assets? I'm talking about cash reserves, your 401ks, your brokerage accounts. Check these numbers out. The median number, remember the median net worth was$650 ,000. Imagine how it's surprising when we find out median investable net worth,$405 ,000. And that doesn't even tell the whole story because for the 20-somethings,$120 ,000.

6:50Brian Preston:For the 30-somethings, it goes up to$400 ,000 of median investable net worth. For the 40s,$880 ,000. For the 50s,$1.6 million. And for the 60s,$2 million. What this shows us is that financial mutants recognize that part of the way that I build up wealth is actually save some of my income, some of my shovel for tomorrow. And the way I do that is by saving and investing those dollars to compound over time. And if I can do that consistently, I get to have a net worth. It's not just all show. There's actually some real dough inside this. So a lot of people are watching this because realize we know 40 % of audiences always brand new people coming to the door.

7:33So maybe you're watching this the first time. You don't even feel like a financial mutant and you even look at this and going aspirationally, who are these people? How can they have this level of success? One of the first things you can do if you want to get on the train, if you actually want to be part of this process, start tracking. Where are you? because how are you going to know if you're ahead of the curve, behind the curve, or right where you're supposed to be if you don't even know where you fit into this? Go check out our net worth tool. Now, we have two ways we can get this for you. If you go get our free version, you can just go to moneyguy.com slash resources, but you can see up on the screen, we actually have a dashboard version which lets you use it as a tool.

8:08If you go to learn.moneyguy.com, this is the exact same version of the net worth tool that we use. Beau and myself use this for tracking our own. What I like is, because like I said, I keep highlighting this dashboard lets you see the three buckets. How much of this is after-tax money? How much is it tax-free? How much is tax-deferred? How has this journey changed on paying down my debts? How much of this is liquid versus comparing to my annual income? All these things are so important, so you can actually compare and contrast where you're going with your financial resources.

8:41Brian Preston:So if you have not started tracking your net worth, you should. And we assure you that your future self will thank you. The absolute best time to begin tracking was last year, which means the second best time to start tracking it would be right now this year. So go to learn.moneyguy.com to download that. So we talked about the age, the median age of our financial mutants and where in the country they're located and what their net worth looks like and what their investable assets look like. Now, let's talk about, okay, how are they actually able to get to that net worth? When we think about the number one way that most people are able to build wealth, it's through their income.

9:18Brian Preston:When we think about incomes for Financial Mutants, how did that look for our guys? This is one, I mean, because we just did the net worth. We did investable net worth. Now we're doing the income. And I'm like, you guys are the better versions of even myself. I mean, because I'd always daydreamed that I had goals for myself. Now, realize I'm a little older, so you'd have to inflation adjust these goals up. But mine was I wanted to have$100 ,000 by the time I was 30. I wanted to have a million dollars liquid investments by the time I was 40. And I see my typical financial mutant. You guys are actually accomplishing this.

9:51When I look at median household income, this blows the doors off of what the typical American, like I said, we're going to create content that compares and contrasts this to the typical American plus even our millionaire clients. But to know that our 20-something listeners, our financial mutants out there listening, that their median household income is$120 ,000, that just blows my mind. And then, Bo, I think about the 30-somethings. This is you in the messy middle,$185 ,000. And then peak earning years in the 40s,$210 ,000. 50s, you guys are extremely successful even at$200 ,000 in the 50s. And of course, retirees still seem to have income coming in at six figures.

10:33Truly amazing data here.

10:35Brian Preston:And remember, this is household income across all of the different ages. And so obviously, financial mutants recognize that, man, if I can increase the size of my shovel that allows me to be able to begin building wealth. And the earlier that I can do that, the easier the process is and the faster the wealth building happens. And so one of the questions we ask, okay, well, what was the way that you did it? How were you able to attack this? And one of the things that we know is a lot of you said education was part of the key to me being able to find a vocation for me being able to be in a job where I'm able to increase my income and thus increase the amount that I'm able to save.

11:15Brian Preston:And if you've listened to our content, if you listen to our show for any amount of time, you know that one of the things that we really stick hard to is that a lot of Americans right now are starting out in a tough spot. They have student loan debt lagging behind them that have to carry into their twenties, into the thirties, and sometimes even into their forties. And we think that there is a better way to do money. So one of the things we talk about all the time is what we call the first year financing rule. When you think about how much student loan debt should you take on. We don't want you to accrue any more debt in total than what you anticipate your first year salary to be.

11:54Brian Preston:So if you're going to follow the money guy rule, you don't want more debt than your first year salary. And so Brian, we just asked the question for our financial mutants, for our respondents, did you guys do this? Was this something that you practiced that got you to where you are? Or is this something that's kind of made up out in the ether and doesn't apply. Yeah, I mean, then you can imagine when we came back and found out you guys are practicing what we share on the show. 85 % of you in the financial mutant sphere of the world are practicing the first year financing rule, meaning you either came out of school with no debt or you at least made sure that your student loans were below what your first year salary.

12:35Guys, this is a huge win. This is why when we start tracking who's doing well, who's winning this is amazing stuff and it shows me because a lot of this is are you being an active player in your life you know because we all villains and victims never win so if you look at your your humble beginnings and you realize oh my gosh you know i've got all these things working out you have to be very deliberate how you navigate the process so you come out the other side well and i'm happy to report 85 of our mutants seem to not be falling in the trap that's just ensnaring so much of the general population.

13:10Brian Preston:Well, and I think a lot of mutants recognize that, okay, you know, what really matters is the education I'm receiving, not necessarily the prestige of the name that goes on the top of the diploma. What I recognize is that higher education, college, is a means for me to be able to get into the next phase, next season of life. So I want to make that decision really, really well and do it more based on what I will actually get out of it, not what the rest of the world views my education pedigree to be. And so financial mutants have recognized, okay, well, I go get the education and I understand how detrimental debt can be to me building financial independence.

13:50Brian Preston:So I'm going to avoid getting in debt, but I'm also going to recognize that once I do start working, once I do start getting out into the workforce, I need to actually begin letting my money work for me. And when it comes to savings, you guys are incredible. Yeah, I mean, this is one when I saw it. Now, look, we're going to highlight the fact because we always say what's the goal for being a financial mutant is we do want you to reach saving and investing 25 % of your gross income as fast as possible. And I'm here to report happily that one in three of you, meaning 33 % of our audience is already doing this.

14:28But I think that that's missing a little bit because recognize we show data all the time and we'll pull this up so you don't have to kind of go, you don't even have to go to moneyguy.com resources because we're going to just pull it up on the screen here in a second. But there is a group of you who are in the 20s and you realize maybe I don't, because why does the 25 % rule exist is because a lot of people don't discover personal finance into their late 30s. And when you do the math of how much you have to save to have a good replacement ratio. It is typically beyond 25%. But because you guys are financial mutants, you can, if you're in your 20s and you're saving 10%, 15%, 20%, it's still going to create tremendous opportunity.

15:09And I'm happy to report 59.2 % of our financial mutants who filled out this survey actually are saving greater and investing 20 % of their gross income.

15:20Brian Preston:And again, I don't want to like rob stuff from the comparison show, but we know that right now 60 % of Americans, 60 % of Americans could not come up with a thousand dollars for emergency. And yet 60 % of our financial mutants, 60 % of you guys out there listening to this content, save more than 20 % of your gross income. You recognize how powerful compound interest can be. You recognize that sacrificing a little bit of today can yield a great, big, beautiful tomorrow. It is unbelievable. Brian, you referenced a tool that you can go check out. If you want to go to moneyguy.com slash resources, we have a deliverable called How Much Should You Save?

16:02Brian Preston:That shows based on different ages, how much at different, how much income could I replace at retirement based on different savings rates. So you can go say, okay, hey, if I'm someone who's 30, yeah, maybe I'm okay if I save 20 % or 25%. But remember, unknown unknowns come your way. That's why we say the faster you can get to 25%, the more freedom and flexibility you'll likely give yourself down the road. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink or a sweet vanilla, smooth caramel maybe, or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits.

16:40Brian Preston:Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. So I love this next thing because a lot of people, I know we're going to see this content and they're going to be like, okay, wow, this group has a high net worth, high investable net worth, their income's high. They're probably, because if we lived in this consumption society that we live in here in America, these people probably live in big houses and drive fancy cars. Because everything I see on social media is everybody's highlight reel that they're living their best life. But as we know as financial mutants, what is put out there in this consumption society we live in is not tied to reality.

17:16If you want to break through the matrix of life and actually build something so your money works harder than you do so you can actually control and own your time that much sooner, the decisions you make with your cars, the decisions you make with your housing, that is the discipline that's going to yield huge results. So you have to pay attention. It's not the latte effect. A lot of times it's these car and home buying decisions that's really going to create a lot of opportunity for you.

17:42Brian Preston:And what I think is so great about you guys as an audience is a lot of you are financial mutants. And maybe even though you're not a millionaire yet, you're a millionaire in the making. And one thing I think is so interesting, we get a bad rap on this, Brian, but all the time when we talk about buying cars, we always say, we love the idea of being able to pay cash for your car. Brian, when you buy an automobile, you pay cash for it outright. You're at the stage of life where you do that. I do the same thing, but it's not always been that way. That's not always the way that it was. And so even though a number of our financial mutants have reached a level of success that that is how they purchase their cars, we asked the question, hey, financial mutants, when you bought your very first car, when you first started out, were you someone who only paid cash for a car and you never had a car loan?

18:30Brian Preston:And it was awesome to see that 59 % of you, almost 60 % of our financial mutants said, hey, at the beginning of my journey when i got my first car i had to borrow money i had to finance so if you're someone out there right now who can't pay cash for a car just yet that's okay you are in good company a lot of financial mutants have found themselves in that exact same position yeah i mean it's it's that that part because we have a no hypocrisy policy is that that's why we have we understand we want you paying cash for cars, but most is we, and by the way, I don't think there's a slide on this, but I was happy to see you in the data.

19:10Once again, these aren't inherited silver spoon millionaires. The majority of our audience, and you guys reflect this, and I love when we get to do the comparison show, we'll make sure this data gets in there, is that you come from also, a lot of you from humble beginnings as well. You're trying to figure this out. And a lot times your J-O-B is your first wealth generating process. So it makes sense that by the first car, just like I had to do this, just like Bo had to do it, you finance it, even if our preference is to pay cash. But here's the thing about the behavior side that I love. When you look at how people drive their vehicles and use their vehicles, 81 % of my financial mutants drive their cars for more than seven years.

19:51I love that so much.

19:52Brian Preston:And by the way, this does not say 81 % of financial mutants drive that drove their first car for seven years. This says that financial mutants recognize that when I buy a car, I want to make sure that I drive it for long enough that I'm capitalizing on it being a depreciable asset that I'm not going to allow to work against me in my financial journey. So that's the part that I think is just so important is that it's the behavioral part. I mean, there's a thing, there's a reason we call you mutants is because you have this society where everybody's pushing you and telling you, hey, consume, be better, show the highlight reel.

20:30But yet somehow you guys are just, you're divergent in the fact that the way you see the world, you process it completely different with all this stuff that's just being pumped into your head. You're like, nope, not for me. I'm going to do this a little bit differently. And I love it. And that's why when we create the rules like 23-8, just for those, like I said, I know 40 % of audience, you're coming in and you go, is this a cult? who are these people their their data looks at you too can be just like this if you'll start following some of this guidance because we want you to be able to see outside or see through the craziness that the world is trying to give you there is a better way to do money and for 23.8 because a lot of you are probably right now starting out your journey and that job is the most important thing just like it was for me just like it was for bow you're gonna need to put down 20 If you can't pay cash, which is the preferred, put down 20%.

21:23So that way you're at least not, you have some skin in the game on this. If you don't finance it for longer than three years, when you must leverage and use financing as a tool, don't go beyond three years because what this protects is it doesn't allow your eyes, your ego, you thinking about what the rest of society is doing because they're pumping that into your head all the time. This will keep you grounded because that amortization is going to really keep that payment. it's going to make it high. A small sum of money is still going to have a high monthly payment. That way they don't get to play that crazy game they play at the auto dealership where they just say, anybody can afford anything at$200 a month.

22:00What do you want your car payment to be? Yeah. What do you want your car payment? Because we'll just push the amortization out to the next 12 years. I mean, I'm joking, but we seem to be going that journey as the way we go from five to six to even beyond at this point. And then we don't want those payments to exceed 8 % of your gross income. If you can follow this, it leads you so you don't end up over levered living a lifestyle that's fake. We want you to have to live your best life so you can save, invest, but also bedazzle your basic life and live some amazing memories.