My Household Net Worth in January 2023
My friends, here is the net worth for my household in January 2023. I want to walk through the actual spreadsheet that my wife and I are using, explain how we got here, and show you where we are going from here. If you are struggling with money, if you are feeling broke, if you are wanting to build wealth, if you would love to be a millionaire, I think this will be great for you. So without further ado, let me show it to you.
This is my household net worth, which means my wife and my kids too, I guess. For those of you wondering what net worth even means, it means your assets minus your debts. Right now, my wife's and my assets minus debts comes out to negative $40,000. And if you are wondering what exactly the definition of a millionaire is, a millionaire means that assets minus debts equals more than $1,000,000.
Here are the debts my wife and I carry. We owe about a quarter million, or $250,000, on our house, and we owe a little less than $200,000 in student loans. Then we have business loans that are mostly mine that cover the rest. We do not have any other credit cards, car loans, or anything else. It is just student loans, the mortgage, and business loans, and thankfully the max interest rate on any of those right now is 3%. When the student loans kick back in, we are looking at 7%.
Here are the assets we have. Our house is worth a little less than a million, around half a million. Then we have around $20,000 in cash. My wife's investments are her investment and retirement savings, and I am doing the cryptocurrency. These are the January numbers as of the beginning of the month, and I will update this each month.
Why I Am Sharing This
Why am I showing this? One, because it is true. Two, because I think it will be helpful to show you my net worth. This is something most people do not talk about and keep secret. There are reasons for keeping it secret. One, if you are ashamed of your net worth, like most people, you keep this to yourself. Two, if you are really proud of your net worth, most people keep that to themselves too. If you are in this bucket, you would rather not talk about it. And if you have got millions of dollars, you would rather not talk about that either, because then people will come wanting money out of you.
What I have come to believe is that the path for us to do better financially, and to help make a world that does not have all this wealth inequality, is for each of us to be transparent about this. If we want to learn and do better, it helps to be honest. And this number is actually up a couple of hundred thousand dollars. A few years ago, around 2020, my net worth was negative $200-something thousand. We had more debt than we do today at higher interest rates, and we had a lot less in assets, especially in the value of our home before the housing market pumped. So this is actually the closest to zero we have been since 2018, when I had $600,000 worth of Steem. That was the only time in my entire life, in 2018, that I have actually had a positive net worth.
Where I Am Going Matters More Than Where I Am
What is more important than this number is where I am going. When we look at our net worth, a lot of us actually get stuck where we are at, because we focus on where we are at, we do not like where we are at, and we do not know how to get out of it. What I know is that I can explain how I got here very simply. I have made millions of dollars online. I easily could have millions of dollars in net worth by now. But I made two key mistakes. One, I did not pay enough attention to my investing. I did not think long term enough with my investing. Instead, I made a lot of short-term profits, sold, and paid a bunch of taxes.
So the main thing I have fixed first is investing. In my experience, millionaires consistently invest. So if you want to have a positive net worth, the best way to do that is, one, you need to make some income. You do not need to make that much, but you do need to maximize the income you can make in a way that is enjoyable. Two, invest 15-plus percent of what you make so that you can grow your net worth without working. Three, spend the absolute minimum possible to have a lifestyle that you truly enjoy. And that is where I am headed.
This is where I have been, and this is really just the past. What will make the biggest difference for you in life is when you stop focusing on where you have been, except to use it to educate you toward where you want to go. This is where I want to go: I am going toward being a millionaire. I am certain that one day my household will have a net worth of more than a million dollars. That is where I am going, and I think more about that than about this current number. When I tried to just make money and I did not think clearly about where I was going, well, this is what you get. What I found is that if you make more money, you will tend to spend more unless you have a clear destination in mind.
I am on the way to being a millionaire. I now know what I need to know to be a millionaire, and I am practicing that by buying $50 a day in crypto, by setting the intention to increase what I am earning, by offering the most valuable things I can possibly imagine for you, and by spending the minimum.
The Power of a Mastermind and Community
This is exactly why I put so much energy into building a community of people aiming at the same goal. If you would like to be a millionaire, if you would like to be comfortable being this honest and transparent about your net worth, and if you are not happy with where your net worth is now and this is where you would like to go, I would love for you to join the Jerry Banfield Family and do this alongside me. Because if you read the book Think and Grow Rich, it identifies a mastermind as one of the most important tools you can use to achieve anything.
If you want to lose weight, being a member of a group of people who all want to be at a healthy weight, everybody working toward the same goal, will be one of the most effective ways you can achieve that. That is why things like Alcoholics Anonymous work. I sit down almost every day with a group of people looking to stay sober, and guess what, most of us, most days, stay sober and are happy and enjoying our lives. I go to yoga with a bunch of people most days who want to be healthy and have active bodies, and guess what, that is what happens. My body is looking the best it has ever looked. And the same thing is true with money.
I know where I am going. The question is, do you want to go there with me? I know I am on the path to millionaire because I have learned what not to do. I have made plenty of money, which you do need to make some of if you want to be a millionaire. I have made the changes to my investing and to my spending. I am on the way there. I will get there faster by working closely with others in group video calls and in chat on the Discord server. You can also email me anytime. As the book Think and Grow Rich makes clear, I will get there faster if I work with others who are doing the same thing. When you tell me about what you are learning about being a millionaire and what you are doing, and when five other people, eventually 10 or 20 other people, all talk about what we are doing and learning, your learning is instantly shared with me, and my learning is instantly shared with you.
This is why I keep making videos about this, because I am looking at this going forward as my foundational offering. Truly, the best thing I offer is a community of people who are all aiming to be millionaires. As this grows, I imagine that when we have 10 or 20 members, we can do a group call or two a week, and as it grows further, I will do more group calls, because the group calls will be key for getting the minds together to make a mastermind. This is what I am most excited about that I am doing online right now.
The Most Humbling Thing in My Life
In Game of Thrones terms, this is shame. This net worth is the thing I am most disgusted with in my life, and I have contributed at least half of it. We would have a higher net worth than this if it were not for me having spent so much money and neglected my part of the investing. I have made more money than my wife has since we have been together, partly because I did not have two kids and years of my working life wiped out by having two kids. My wife still did work, but I have not had to slow down as much for having kids, and I have spent more. This has been a very humbling process, and it is the thing I would least like to show you about my entire life. Yet I am putting all my energy and attention on turning this into what I want it to be. In fact, on a daily basis I already feel that I am there, and that is why I can make something like this, because I am already there internally. The external world will catch up.
I also really appreciate you being one of the few to read all of this. If you have come this far, I think there is a good chance I will be seeing you inside the community soon. I intend to put out the best I possibly can. You do not have to be part of the community; some of you will only ever consume the things I create for free, and that is wonderful. Every day I look at it as my job to put out the best videos I can across my channels: on my millionaire channel we talk about this, on my crypto channel we talk crypto, gaming, and recovery, and on my business channel I just crank out videos every day that I hope are helpful for you. You can see much more of this journey across my Life playlist.
So thanks for being one of the top Jerry Banfield fans. Nobody who is not a top fan would have read all the way to the end, so I love you, you are awesome, and I look forward to our next interaction online.