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You know, one of the hardest parts about building wealth is that you always feel like you're behind. If I talk to a 45 year old, they're always going, man, I wish I knew this stuff at 25. If I talk to a 25 year old, they're going, I feel like I'm behind. And I always go, compared to who? And that's where they, they get kind of stumped. They just go, I don't know. I just, I look at everyone else and I think they're doing better. So I want to talk about what better looks like, how to actually manage it, how to actually track it. Because some people are looking at the wrong thing. They're looking at their credit score, hoping that goes up, thinking, well, that's going to mean I'm doing great with money. It means absolutely nothing except you're great at managing your debt. You can be great at managing debt and have nothing to show for it in your net worth. So that's the scary part. So what is the number you should focus on to know if you're doing well financially, if you're growing, if you're moving in the right direction? It's your net worth. So let's talk about this. How does your net worth compare to the average American? I have the data to show you guys so you can know where you stand. Again, this is not a moral judgment. You're not a bad person if you have a lower net worth than the average. You're not better than anyone if you have higher than the average. This is just to help you guys know kind of where are you staying? Am I even in the right ballpark? And on top of the national data, which, spoiler alert is the suck bar, I'm going to give you the Ramsey target, the sort of Georgia proved. If you're doing this number at this age, you're doing great. Keep it up. Gold star. So I asked our Ramsey audience to drop their numbers in the comment section a couple of days ago and they delivered. So I'm going to get to their average net worth. I compiled it all like a nerd that I am. I've got the average, the median age, the median net worth. I'm going to compare it to the national data. But first I want to talk about what net worth is because people get confused and they think, well, it's the amount you have in your bank account. No, it is what you own minus what you owe. It's assets, minus liabilities so think your cash, your retirement accounts, your home equity, your vehicles, minus the debts. So I'm going to pull up our net worth calculator here. It's a free tool on our site. I'm going to drop a link in the description of this episode, the show notes. If you jump down to there, we'll have a link to the net worth calculator. Here's the challenge for you. Go use this and then tell me in the comments where you ended up and what your age is. And that'll be a fun sort of round two of this. So for this example, we've got our assets and liabilities. Let's say we've got a couple here. You know, Rick and Jen, they have a home that is worth $400,000. And their checking accounts, they have $5,000 savings. Let's say they've got their starter emergency fund, thousand bucks retirement accounts. They got 22,000 cars. They've got 20,000 in cars. Other assets will leave that one blank. So we got 448. On the plus side, we're not done yet. Now we move on to the liabilities, which is going to subtract from that. So what is the mortgage? Well, they owe 350,000 on the mortgage. In credit card debt. They've got 10,000 in personal loans. They got another 5,000. They got 50,000 in student loans. And. And they owe 10 grand on their cars. Now let's add this up, calculate net worth, $23,000. So this just goes to show you that it's not all about what you have. It's all about what you owe as well. And so a couple, let's say they make 120 grand, you're going, wow, they're doing pretty well for themselves. They got 20 grand to their name. When you actually do the accounting math on this. So whether you have a negative net worth, positive net worth, I'm gonna show you the data here so that you know where you stack up. And another spoiler alert. Ramsey listeners stacked way higher than the national average. So good for you guys. So I'm gonna look at my cheat sheet here. We're gonna put the graphic up on the screen in a moment, but let's start with the age bracket. Under 35 years old, we're gonna go with a median here because the average is not super accurate. And here's why the average is. Take all the numbers and divide them into each other. You've got your average. Problem with that is rich people ruin the averages. If Dave Ramsey walks into a Waffle House. The average net worth of everyone in that Waffle House just went up by a hundred thousand dollars. So that's not really a great metric to know how we're doing financially. So the median is the number that I like to use, that square in the middle. We're not dividing anything. We're just going to go up the list, smallest to largest, and cut it at the middle. That's the median. So under 35, the national media net worth. Drum roll, please. $39,000. All right, that tells me that we're. We're doing something. We're at least in the positive America. That's good news. Now let's move on to age 35 to 44. If you are in that age bracket, the national median net worth, $135,000. Great. We're at six figures. That's good news. Now let's move on to the age 45 to 54 age bracket. Hopefully at this point, you've been working for, you know, 20, 30 years. The median net worth nationally, $247,000. Here's where it gets wild. You think as we get older, we're heading to retirement. We're going to retire millionaires. I wish that were the case. Age 55 to 64, we move up to a $365,000 median net worth. And finally 65 to 74, for those boomers out there, that's Dave Ramsey. $410,000 median net worth is where we stand. Now, if you look at the averages, it's a little more hopeful. 1.79 million is the average. But again, that is skewed by the ultra wealthy ruining the numbers for the rest of us. So that's where America stands. Under 35 is 39,000. All the way up to 65 to 74, we're at 410,000. So let me give you the Ramsey targets for that. We're gonna put this graph up for you. If you're under 35 instead of 39,000, I think it'd be great to have a hundred grand by the time you hit your early 30s. $100,000 in net worth, not necessarily what's in your bank account, but retirement, your home equity, all of that 35 to 44. A great number to hit is 400 to $500,000 of net worth by the time you. You are in your 40s. That's an awesome goal to have because that tells me, just based off compound growth, you're gonna retire a millionaire. Plus, now 45 to 54 instead of a 247 net worth. What if you started approaching baby step's millionaire status? 750,000 to a million would be fantastic. And here's where I get that number. 49 years old was the average number for our baby steps millionaires when we did the millionaire study. Over 10,000 of them. 49 was the average age that they hit that millionaire net worth. And then 55 to 64. You're heading into retirement years. I would love for you to have a net worth of one and a half to two million bucks by the time you hit 60. That'd be pretty cool. Hopefully by then you've got a paid for house. If you followed the Ramsey plan for 15 plus years, you've been stacking that nest egg and a bunch of that's going to be your retirement. And then 65 to 74. Let's shoot for the stars here. Two and a half million plus net worth at retirement and in your 60s and into your 70s. And I hope these numbers are low for where you guys end up. I hope that if you're listening to this show, you're going, that's not going to be me. I'm not going to be the median. I'm not going to be average. And the good news is the Ramsey listeners showed up. So here's the numbers for the Ramsey listeners. Pretty wild. I had over a hundred comments here. The median age for people who submitted was was about 39 years old. And the median net worth for those people was $600,000. And if you remember that age bracket, 35 to 44, the median was 135 nationally. And our Ramsey listeners, the ones that submitted were 600,000 bucks. So almost four and a half times the national median for that age. So well done guys. And we got multiple commenters who were in their early 40s who all said $800,000 net worth as a married couple. That's pretty interesting because that tells me they're gonna be baby steps millionaires by the time they hit 49. It's almost like the data is accurate. It's pretty cool. So a couple reminders here. Your income has something to do with your net worth, but not as much as you think because the stats show this is from Goldman Sachs. 40% of people making $500,000 or more are paycheck to paycheck. Makes sense. They're leveraged up to their eyeballs. They drive the nicest cars, have the nicest homes and they can afford all of their giant payments. But it's not moving when it comes to their net worth. And remember this, the composition matters. You don't want 90% of your net worth to be in your home. You want to be building wealth that you can actually use. And what we found in our millionaire study is that about a third of their net worth was in their home and about two thirds was their retirement. And of course, you've got cash and cars and, you know, watches and jewelry and that stuff in there, but the bulk of it is going to be your home and the huge bulk is going to be that nest egg. So net worth, it's a GPS coordinate. It's not a grade on how you are as a person, but it's a good thing to be tracking to know if you're moving in the right direction. And I hope that all of you listening to the show end up baby steps millionaires by following this. So if you want to see how your net worth compares to the average American, check out our net worth calculator. Plug in your numbers. We'll drop a link in the show notes if you're listening on Podcast or
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