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What makes a Financial Mutant different? We unpack the results from over 2025 Financial Mutant Survey. You’ll see how 25,00+ Financial Mutants said they earn, save, invest, and think their way to financial freedom, often starting with humble beginnings and optimistic outlooks. From net worth milestones and investable assets to saving 25% of income, following the Financial Order of Operations, and driving cars for seven years or more, this is real-world proof that discipline, optimism, and smart money decisions can lead to lasting success.
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Bo: We asked and boy oh boy did you guys answer. And Brian, 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.
Bo: 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 mutant. When 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.
Brian: Yeah. I mean, it was kind of amazing to see who you guys were or are. I mean, look, this gets me excited. 20s, you know, you guys have the world by its tail and it’s 23% of our audience. That’s healthy. Think about 30s messy middles. 41% of our audience in their 40s, 22% and even us a little bit older, you know, getting a little wisdom under our belts, 10% of the audience is in the 50s.
Brian: And then look at this. For all the people who are in the comments section, you know, trolling marriage, it’s not my financial mutants because 68% of our financial mutants are actually our married financial mutants. And again, this is of the 25,000 respondents that responded to our financial mutant survey.
Bo: 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.
Brian: 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.” Nope. It’s California. It’s just as much in Texas. It’s just as much in the Northeast.
Bo: 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 ninestep process to help you understand what you should do with your next dollar. And what it shows us by where you guys are located is that this really is an allterrain vehicle.
Brian: So, 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 Mutants. You guys proactively went out there and filled out a survey, our audience did, to tell us who you were.
Brian: 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.
Bo: 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. So 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.
Bo: 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, we think about the average American. The average American, while they’ve seen their net worth increased, it’s not always for the reason we’d like to see.
Brian: 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, how much of this is actually liquid financial assets. I’m talking about cash reserves, your 401ks, your brokerage accounts.
Brian: Check these numbers out. The median number, remember the median net worth was $650,000. Imagine our surprise when we find out median investable net worth $450,000. And that doesn’t even tell the whole story because for the 20-somethings, $120,000. 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.
Brian: 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/resources.
Bo: 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.
Bo: 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.
Brian: 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 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 dollar liquid investments by the time I was 40.
Brian: And I see my typical financial mutant. You guys are actually accomplishing this. When I look at median household income, this blows the doors off of what the typical American. 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.
Bo: 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 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.
Bo: 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. 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.
Brian: 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.
Bo: 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. 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.
Brian: 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.
Brian: And I’m happy to report 59.2% of our financial mutants who filled out this survey actually are saving greater than and investing 20% of their gross income. And again, I don’t want to rob stuff from the comparison show, but we know that right now 60% of Americans could not come up with $1,000 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.
Brian: So you have to pay attention. It’s not the latte effect. A lot of times it’s these car and home buying decisions is really going to create a lot of opportunity for you. 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.
Bo: 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. But it’s not always been that way. And so even though a number of our financial mutants have reached a level of success that that is how they purchased their cars, we asked the question, hey, financial mutant 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. 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.”
Brian: When you look at how people drive and use their vehicles, 81% of my financial mutants drive their cars for more than seven years. I love that so much.
Brian: And that’s why when we create the rules like 20/3/8 if you just for those like I said I know 40% of audience you’re coming in. There is a better way to do money and for 20/3/8 because a lot of you are probably right now starting out your journey and that J O B is the most important thing. You’re going to need to put down 20%. If you can’t pay cash which is the preferred put down 20% so that way you’re at least you have some skin in the game on this. Don’t finance it for longer than 3 years when you must leverage and use financing as a tool. And we don’t want those payments to exceed 8% of your gross income.
Bo: So following 20/3/8 is a great way to make sure that you make good car and auto decisions. But we know that while an auto is a large financial decision that we make, for most people it’s not the largest. For most people, the largest financial decision you will ever make is in relation to your home, the place where you live, the shelter over your head.
Bo: And we were pleased to find out that when we actually asked for the total home values across all of our financial mutants, even in the midst of this recent real estate runup that we’ve seen, the median home value for our financial mutants was $381,000.
Brian: I did think it was interesting and this is something that I know the trolls will have a field day because it does show the disparity and what is has been an opportunity and where we are now is just separated is that median mortgage rates for our financial mutants was 2.75% which is completely separated from the reality of the world right now post pandemic.
Bo: So, if you are someone out there who’s thinking about home ownership or you’re one of the 27% who’s not quite there yet, we have a rule that you can follow to make sure that you stay inside the lines even in this wild world in which we live right now. And we call it the 25/3/25 rule. And what that means is that when it comes to your down payment, we don’t subscribe to the idea that you have to put 20% down. For firsttime home buyers, we think it’s okay if you make a down payment as low as 3%. So long as you plan on being in that home for at least 5 years, and when you add up your total housing cost, it does not exceed 25% of your gross income.
Bo: So for these 25,000 folks, we asked, okay, hey, when was it that you started taking personal finance seriously? Was it something that you figured out early on or is it something that you’re just now stumbling on to? And what we recognize is that when it comes to financial mutants, they have said that they got serious about money. They got serious about understanding finances and the powerful tool that money can be around the age of 25.
Brian: Yeah, this is talking about head start. I mean because this is guys if you watch any of our content. You have the world by its tail. Meaning I don’t care what humble background you come from. But if you will just do something, don’t stand still in your 20s, you will be successful just because the power of compounding growth is just that powerful. Now, we know the typical American doesn’t even figure out this concept till they’re well into their 30s. Imagine our surprise when we find out the typical financial mutant is 25 years of age, has a wealth multiplier of 44 times.
Bo: And unfortunately in the world in which we live today, it’s gotten so easy that anything I want, I can just swipe and I can have it immediately. Well, I don’t have to swipe anymore. I can just tap it. I can just tap now and walk out. And so we asked the question, okay, when it comes to credit cards, how do you use them?
Brian: When we look at our financial mutants in our audience, over 96% said, “Hey, credit card use use that’s a-okay.” Because look, there’s you could get into some online transactions where you like, I don’t want to use cash on this because this might be shady. It’s okay with a credit card because the bank will make sure I’m whole if I get in a bad situation. There’s all kind of protections, there’s warranties, there’s rebates, there’s rewards. 96% of you are saying, “I want to sign up for that opportunity.”
Brian: But here’s what I’m happy to report. 90% of financial mutants though are saying credit card use is a-okay. Credit card debt, no way. Because how are you ever going to get ahead if you’re paying 20 plus% to a financial institution when you’re hoping in a good year that we make somewhere between 8 to 12%.
Bo: You you recognize that avoiding risks, avoiding things like debt, avoiding things working against you can be so valuable. And you also take that to your balance sheet. We asked this question. Okay, for our financial mutants, you understand if you’re following the financial order of operations, in the first four steps, two of them have to do with emergency reserves and cash on hand. And we said, “Okay, well, how seriously do our financial mutants take this.” And we were so pleased to see that 85% of financial mutants have a fully funded emergency fund.
Brian: I I have always been accused of just being an optimist. I always just think things are going to work out. You have to sometimes you go, “Yes, that’s a bad situation, but what can I do to make my situation better?” You’re trying to figure out, is there silver lining even in this bad opportunity? And when I wrote millionaire mission I tried to make sure that mindset made it in there.
Brian: I’m so happy to report that man I guess birds of a feather flock together because it is a 4:1 ratio. If you look at how many of our audience is optimist versus pessimists it’s a 4:1 ratio across all incomes. It’s not just the wealthy. It’s not just the people that have huge incomes. This is across all income thresholds. Financial mutants recognize, you know what, I’m able to find the silver lining.
Brian: I know we’re planting seeds. We’re creating the next generation. You’re going to, if you do what we’ve shared with all of our free resources, all of our free content, enough of you are going to realize, oh my gosh, those guys when they say, “If I do this, success breeds and creates complexity. I’m there.” And so, we would be amiss if we didn’t say, “Hey, now that you’ve reached here, let’s take this relationship to the next level. If you want to now transition and graduate from just being a financial mutant survey and next year you’d like to be in the millionaire survey, let’s go ahead and take this relationship to the next level. I want to encourage you go to moneyguy.com. Look at the work with us or how to become a client.
Brian: I’m your host Brian Preston. Mr. Bo Hansen, Money Guy team out.
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